121
MEASURES TO REDUCE POVERTY
10.1. Poverty as a component of the
social costs of transition
The macroeconomic stabilization poli-
cies implemented until late 1994 consisted
mainly of restrictive monetary measures
which negatively affected the populations
incomes. This resulted in an unbearably
high cost of reforms for millions of Bul-
garians with the bulk of the population
growing poorer in absolute and relative
terms and broad population strata living
on the edge of survival.
In the first half of the nineties the in-
comes policies were determined by a situ-
ation of economic crisis reflected by a fall
in the countrys gross domestic product and
industrial output, mass unemployment and
high inflation rates.
This put the majority
of the population to severe trials with large
groups losing economic prospects. The
populations impoverishment is clearly out-
lined by the plunging values of major so-
cial and economic indicators.
Public opinion is a clear indicator of
the scope of impoverishment as a social
problem (See Fig. 10.1.).
Impoverishment during the transition
period has developed under specific cir-
cumstances whose clarification will help
determine the measures to be taken for its
reduction and elimination:
First, before the reforms began, the
population had reached satisfactory living
standards as
measured by domestic crite-
ria and in comparison with the other former
socialist countries. There were solid social
guarantees for education, health care, em-
ployment, working salary, and social secu-
rity. Coupled with a number of other fac-
tors, this set
of guarantees has resulted in
the societys decay. A profound change of
production relations became inevitable. It
is linked with economic stratification and
a sizeable drop of living standards for large
groups of people. Yet the society lacked
the strong political will to implement the
changes required by transition.
Second, the restrictive tools of macro-
economic stabilization have reduced all
types of populations protected incomes:
salaries, pensions, indemnities, allowances,
stipends, as well as peoples savings. The
drop in the purchasing power of incomes
has affected all citizens - employed, pen-
sioners, unemployed, the disabled, the so-
cially weak, students. The average real in-
comes plummeted by almost 50 per cent.
But pauperization may take different forms.
Poverty and impoverishment differ for the
groups of able-bodied population and the
rest of the people. This requires that dif-
MEASURES TO REDUCE POVERTY
Table 10.1.
Change in the base minimum income and in childrens
allowances (1991-1995)
Indicators
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
BASE MINIMUM INCOME
(Leva)
403
500
885
1225
1600
Real growth as per
the previous year (in %)
0.0
-30.9
8.0
-37.6
-1.7
Real growth as per
1991 (in %)
0.0
-30.9
-25.4
-53.4
-54.2
MONTHLY CHILDRENS
ALLOWANCES (Leva)
145
185
251
372
480
Real growth as per
the previous year (in %)
0.0
-28.9
-17.2
-33.2
-2.9
Real growth as per
1991 (in %)
0.0
-28.9
-41.1
-60.7
-61.8
The bulk of the
population grew poor in
absolute and relative
terms
There are different
degrees of poverty and
impoverishment
10
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT ! BULGARIA 1996
106
ous training. The diversity and quality of
the school training can be attained via a
balance between the general education and
vocational training whereby obligatory and
optional subjects are combined. An inter-
action is necessary between the school and
the other social factors influencing educa-
tion as well.
The practical implementation of these
principles requires a restructuring of the
educational system and changes in the con-
tents and organization of the training pro-
cess. The objective is to align training to
conform to the criteria of an up-to-date type
of education, and to resolve the problems
that have cropped up during the past few
years in the secondary schools.
Alongside the problems of contents,
qualitative imbalances also come to the fore
in vocational training. In view of the cur-
rent absence of vocational training in the
most general education schools, the second-
ary vocational schools assume great respon-
sibility for the quantity and quality of the
new recruits of the labour force. Accord-
ing to their functions, they are divided into
two basic types: secondary vocational tech-
nical schools, technical schools and schools
in the arts. The first type is with a three-
year term of training and produces skilled
workers. The technical schools and the
schools in arts have a four- or five-year term
of studies and train secondary school spe-
cialists.
During the past few years the number
of the secondary vocational schools has
been relatively stable. The number of pu-
pils in them, however, decreases. This has
been particularly manifest in the case of
the technical schools and the schools in the
arts. In the 1994/95 academic year, the
number of
students in them was by about
one-fifth smaller than in the 1989/90 aca-
demic year.
The ebb from the secondary voca-
tional schools has been due to two basic
factors. The first is the economic recession
and the lower rate of employment connected
with it. The
drop of industrial production
by 50% after 1989,
the close-down of en-
terprises or their subsidiaries results in the
release of
a great number of workers and
specialists. In October 1995 the unem-
ployed having secondary special education
were 86,500, or 16.9 per cent of all unem-
ployed. There are no clear prospects for a
restoration and development of the indus-
trial sectors, to which training at the voca-
tional schools is aimed. This does not stimu-
late the young peoples interest in special-
ized secondary educational establishments.
That is why increasing numbers of young
people opt for getting secondary education
at general educational schools.
The substantial increase of the enrol-
ment in the higher educational establish-
ments is the other
factor reflecting on the
vocational training in secondary education.
The access to higher education has been
extended and the number of university stu-
dents has sharply increased. This encour-
ages large groups of young people to con-
tinue their education at higher educational
institutions. Education gained in the sec-
ondary technical schools, however, is fo-
cused on vocational training. Less atten-
tion is paid to the general educational sub-
jects, which are fundamental for the en-
trance exams of the higher educational es-
tablishments. What is more, the term of
studies at the technical schools is longer.
Under these circumstances, there is under-
standable preference for the secondary
schools, which by their school curriculum
Table 9.1.
Number of pupils in the secondary vocational schools
(by academic years)
Type of schools 1989/90 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95 1995/96
Secondary voc-
ational-technical 103966 113139
111609 110384 107839 100355
88427
Technical schools
and art schools
135606 125728
121919 111329 103396 112046 120859
TOTAL
239572 238867
233528 221713 211235 212401 209286