High-school students refuse to sit for school-leaving exams, after they have lost a month of the school year because of the teachers’ strike.

The teachers went on effective strike on September 24 2007, demanding higher salaries.

At a meeting with the Education Minister Daniel Vulchev, students’ representatives said that they did not want to sit for the exams, because they would not have enough time to prepare for them.

Focus news agency quoted the students’ representatives as saying that students in different schools follow different educational schedules. They also said that the type of the exams was unclear and that each year the Education Ministry made different decisions on the exams.

According to Vulchev, the school-leaving examination will be a way to test the students under uniform criteria.

Class of 2008 is the first one obliged to sit for school-leaving exams.