Sat, Jul 04 2009

Teachers tussle in Bulgaria

Mon, Sep 24 2007 09:00 CET byPetar Kostadinov 378 Views
Teachers tussle in Bulgaria

For yet another week, the Bulgarian Teachers Union (BTU) and Education Minister Daniel Vulchev have failed to achieve a compromise to stave off a teachers' strike.

Again the main actor on the stage was BTU leader Yanka Takeva. The first school day of the school year, September 15, went as planned by Takeva, who wants a 100 per cent increase of teachers' salaries as of October 1. Teachers staged a one-hour protest by sitting in their classrooms while pupils and parents waited outside the school for the official programme to begin. This was just a warning for Vulchev, because Takeva said that if nothing changed by September 24, teachers would embark on a full-scale strike.

Takeva and Vulchev offered widely varying numbers of how many teachers took part in the one-hour protest. Takeva said that 81 per cent participated. Vulchev said that the exact number was just 9.92 per cent.

While the two were tussling over numbers, Takeva's boss Zhelyazko Hristov, leader of one of the biggest trade unions KNSB, called on Vulchev to resign.

Vulchev was to blame for "bad management in the system of higher and secondary education, as well as in science", according to Hristov. Vulchev, a Sofia University professor in law, had to witness his own university colleagues marching against him on September 15. University professors together with students and scientists from the Bulgarian Academy of Science rallied against inadequate funding for education in Bulgaria.

Takeva came under attack from her own, for a statement that she made on September 17. In Shoumen, Takeva said that "we shall suggest that the agreement with the Government feature a clause that teachers who are not on strike will not get a salary increase".

This was later denied by Hristov who said that Takeva must have been misunderstood and probably she herself "must have got it wrong". In various internet blogs, people posting comments presenting themselves as teachers harshly criticised Takeva's position as undemocratic, with some calling on her to resign from the BTU leadership.

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