Education and Skills in Bulgaria

Executive summary

Over the past decades, Bulgaria has embarked on ambitious reforms to its education and skills system. Efforts have aimed at expanding participation in the early years and ensuring that all young people leave school with needed skills and motivation to engage in further learning, work, and society. The reform agenda has gained renewed emphasis through the 2021-2030 Strategic Framework for the Development of Education, backed by national and European Union (EU) funding. This presents an opportune moment to accelerate Bulgaria’s education and training system transformation and address national challenges, such as shrinking workforce, emerging skills shortages, and widening income inequality. This review explores how Bulgaria can draw on OECD evidence and experience to further its reforms and unlock the potential of education and skills in fostering inclusive development.

Good governance

Bulgaria’s education and skills governance is pivoting away from its traditional emphasis on regulatory control to giving institutions more autonomy. While schools and universities benefit from greater flexibility in designing instruction and managing resources, Bulgaria also strengthened mechanisms for support and accountability. The latter include the development of quality assurance frameworks for all levels and the creation of the National Inspectorate for kindergartens and schools. Moreover, economic growth has helped increase public spending on education, which, together with EU investments, has enabled reforms, such as waiving fees for participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and introducing competence-based curricula at different levels. However, progress in implementing such policy initiatives has been slow. This is partly due to limited co-ordination and capacity across government bodies, which face persistent challenges in accessing and using education and skills data to steer improvement. High leadership turnover and political instability also constrain the pace and sustainability of change.

This review identifies three areas where Bulgaria could strengthen governance to advance reforms in education and skills. Improved co-ordination across and within central government bodies, notably in ECEC and skills sectors where this has been weaker, would support strategic and coherent policy development. Strategies used in some OECD countries, such as developing explicit mandates and multi-year budgets for joint bodies and enhancing opportunities for inter-institutional collaboration, can help in this regard. In addition, enhancing the availability and accessibility of education and skills data would support more effective, evidence-informed decision making. This could involve identifying data gaps, integrating data systems, and developing user-friendly dashboards. Importantly, strengthening system capacity to use this data would be key to assessing policy trade-offs, guiding funding decisions, and identifying initiatives to scale as Bulgaria continues to expand its education and skills system.

Quality of programmes and outcomes

Most students in Bulgaria today complete school and early school leaving rates have impressively fallen below the EU average. However, findings from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment 2022 show that around half of 15-year-old students do not meet minimum proficiency across domains. There are also large disparities in outcomes between general and vocational secondary students, reflecting concerns about vocational education and training (VET) quality. Bulgaria struggles to retain domestic students at higher education levels – indicating perceptions of lagging quality – and Bulgarian adults are less likely than EU peers to have basic digital skills. Bulgaria has introduced ambitious reforms to raise the quality and relevance of its education system. These include rolling out competence-based curricula, revising VET professions, expanding work-based learning, and raising the attractiveness of the teaching profession. However, VET curricula remain overloaded and the professionally oriented post-secondary offer under-developed. As in most countries, translating curricula into practice is a challenge. Teacher shortages remain in rural areas and specific subjects; relevant and work-embedded professional development opportunities for educators are limited; and the link between performance and pay is nascent.

This review underlines three considerations to bring Bulgaria’s reforms to life and improve the quality of education programmes and outcomes. First, Bulgaria could strengthen VET pathways by balancing choice, coherence and specialisation, streamlining the number of programmes, and revising the curricula to focus more on foundational and real-world competencies. Moreover, diversifying post-secondary options – such as through flexible, work-engaged opportunities and stronger recognition of partial qualifications – could help better meet the needs of both individuals and the economy. Finally, central to raising the attractiveness of teaching is making initial teacher education in Bulgaria more accessible to diverse candidates and suited for placement in different settings, including disadvantaged schools. Other key measures from the report include improving the quality and relevance of continuous professional learning, especially for adult educators, and clearer career progressions and promotion policies, notably for university staff.

Equality of opportunity and access

Education participation has improved across levels in Bulgaria, with tertiary attainment among young adults now comparable to that in other countries in the region, though below the OECD average. Yet, students’ socio-economic background continues to influence their learning opportunities and outcomes, often intersecting with ethnic background and regional disparities. Key initiatives in Bulgaria to address inequalities include removing ECEC fees, developing an outreach programme to reduce school dropout, and directing resources to schools serving disadvantaged students. These efforts have notably helped Bulgaria close gaps in access to educational materials across different types of schools. However, systematic factors such as selection into educational tracks at age 13, disproportionate placement of disadvantaged students into VET, and limited access to secondary and post-secondary education in rural areas continue to reinforce disparities in learners’ outcomes.

This review highlights two priority areas to strengthen equity across Bulgaria’s education and skills system. First, creating smoother transitions across levels would help more learners build foundational competencies and remain engaged in learning. Approaches observed in OECD countries include developing common curriculum frameworks across ECEC settings, delaying specialisation to provide students with more time to master core competencies, and adjusting enrolment requirements for continuous VET to facilitate adult upskilling and reskilling. Second, strengthening ties between education institutions and local communities – such as involving families, employers, and local stakeholders in programme design and governance – would also help create a more inclusive system, especially for rural and minority populations who typically have lower education and labour outcomes.