2024-08-20 04:08:36
The “Education” trade union at the KT “Support” made an analysis of the proposed study time for the 2024/2025 school year. The start of the school year is on September 15 and this has been the tradition for centuries, according to the union’s position on school time and holidays.
In it, it is reported that “at the Branch Council, the social partners agreed, by announcing a vacation, to separate days off and public holidays, so that there are no misunderstandings. This is not evident in the proposal from the Ministry of Education and Science (MES). The so-called autumn vacation is of one day, but it is not known why two days off are calculated and a 3-day vacation is announced. In a similar way, Christmas vacation and spring vacation are calculated during the spring term, they announced ten days. Here, a desire of the Ministry of Education and Culture is evident, to show that we have many days of study time, which could increase the quality of Bulgarian education”.
The union “Education” analyzed the study time in the European Union (EU) and it turned out that the study time in days of the Bulgarian students is slightly above the average. But whether, if we continuously increase the study time, we will increase the quality of education, here the answer is negative, states the teachers’ union, with chairman Dr. Julian Petrov.
The position states that “in the proposed school time, the vacations are symbolic, but there is a dependence on the parents’ desire to not have many vacations during working days. This is because Bulgarian parents do not want to accept education as hard work for students , and imagine it as a social service”.
The other conclusion that has to be drawn is that the global climate changes have not been reflected and the Bulgarian students and teachers carry out the educational process in June in inhumane conditions at 40 degree temperatures, the union notes.
No non-school days are provided for the external evaluations in the fourth and tenth grades, but the organization of these evaluations is a huge challenge, and their results are devoid of pedagogical logic. The union “Education” proposes that the two external assessments after the fourth grade and after the tenth grade should be dropped, the position says.
On July 26, the press center of the Ministry of Education and Culture announced that the ministry offers two longer vacations in the new school year in the school schedule. It was published for public discussion on the ministry’s website and is open to comments and suggestions from all interested parties.
The calendar reflects the requirements for a precisely defined number of study days for individual graduations. According to the Law on Preschool and School Education, the start of the school year, the schedule allows for a longer winter vacation of 13 days (24.12.2024 – 05.01.2025 inclusive) at the expense of three days of rest at the beginning of November (01.11 . 2024 – 03.11.2024) and one (04.02.2025) between the two academic terms.
The next vacation of ten consecutive non-school days will be available to students from the first to the 11th grade in the period April 12 – April 21, inclusive, and the twelfth graders will have five days off – from April 17 to April 21, inclusive.
In the proposed draft schedule of school time, each of the holidays includes non-school days and holidays, insofar as the holiday should be defined as a whole, and not as separate dates between, before and after holidays.
It is also recalled that with a change in the Ordinance on Inclusive Education, the Ministry of Education and Culture gave students the opportunity to use up to 15 days of absences from school for family reasons, which, in addition to health problems, can also be taken for urgent trips.
Traditionally, non-school days will be the days when the state matriculation exams and the national external assessments for the seventh grade will take place. The matura in Bulgarian language and literature is planned to be on May 20, and the matura in a profiling subject or profession – on May 22. The Ministry of Education and Culture proposes that the national external assessment exams in the seventh grade be held on June 18 (Bulgarian language and literature) and June 20 (mathematics). As before, the days on which the national external assessment takes place in the tenth and fourth grades will be school days. For tenth-graders, the Bulgarian language and mathematics exams are on June 13 and 16, respectively, and for fourth-graders on May 29 and 30.