109
NATIONAL AND REGIONAL PROCESSES IN EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
namely the Varna Free University and the
Slavic University, the higher educational
establishments have become 41.
The net-
work of their subsidiaries has been rapidly
extended. Now there are higher educational
establishments or their subsidiaries in 18
towns. The biggest university centres are
Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Blagoevgrad.
The decentralization of higher educa-
tion and its enhanced regional orientation
is a trend producing positive results in vari-
ous directions.
It provides an opportunity
to a greater number of young people living
outside the traditional university centres to
get higher education. In view of the aggra-
vated financial state of large segments of
the population, the high costs of the sup-
port of a student in the big cities are an
insuperable barrier to the continuation of
education at a higher educational establish-
ment. The decentralization of the educa-
tional structures is conducive to the elimi-
nation or alleviation of these financial re-
strictive factors.
In this way it contributes
to a broader access to higher education
thereby reducing the possibilities of the
regional and economic differences devel-
oping into educational inequalities.
The opening of academic centres in
different towns
makes it possible to bring
education and research closer to the re-
gional needs and specificity of socio-eco-
nomic development. That motivates the
pragmatic orientation in the training of
university students
and gives an incentive
to the development of the local potential
of lecturers and scientists.
The rapid quantitative growth of those
studying at higher educational establish-
ments is accompanied by significant
changes in their distribution in terms of pro-
fessional spheres. During the past few years,
the most rapid growth has been witnessed
of students pursuing studies on university
and education specialities. In 1994/95 they
amounted to 70053 people, or 35.7 per cent
of all university students. Especially high
is the interest in the study of law and edu-
cation. The students at the higher schools
of economics are multiplying. In the 1994/
95 academic year their number reached
40948, or 21 per cent of all university stu-
dents. On the other side, a lasting ebb from
the engineering, technical, agricultural and
medical higher educational establishments
and specialities has been witnessed. After
1990/91 the students in them diminished
Problems arising from the decentralization of higher
education
The most serious problem asso-
ciated with the decentralization
of higher education concerns the
quality of education acquired. So
that the planned enrolment of
students may be achieved in the
subsidiaries of the higher educa-
tional establishments, lowered
criteria are often applied. Young
people lacking the necessary
qualities enrol in them. This en-
tails unsatisfactory results in the
course of training. The problem
concerning the staff of lecturers
has not been resolved either.
There are subsidiaries in towns
like Vratsa, Lovech and Mon-
tana without a single lecturer on
the staff in them. This adversely
affects the training process and
the formation and reproduction
of the potential of lecturers and
researchers. At a number of
places the infrastructure of the
educational establishments is un-
derdeveloped lagging substan-
tially behind the standards of
modern training.
Box 9.3.
Table 9.3.
Higher education establishments and university students by
university cities (1994/1995 academic year)
Towns
Number of Universities
Number of University Students
Sofia
20
88661
Blagoevgrad
2
14196
Bourgas
2
6012
Varna
3
18052
Veliko Turnovo
1
10003
Gabrovo
1
4140
Pleven
1
1051
Plovdiv
5
20984
Rousse
1
6440
Svishtov
1
9513
Stara Zagora
2
3012
Shoumen
1
7573
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT ! BULGARIA 1996
110
by more than 10 per cent. Their relative
share of all students has been rapidly drop-
ping.
These trends in the structure of higher
education engender serious imbalances in
the labour market. An excess of special-
ists with economic and legal qualifications
is anticipated in the foreseeable future. At
the same time a shortage of university
graduates is taking shape for strategic sec-
tors: industrial production and agriculture.
Urgent measures are needed for getting
out of that situation aimed at a regulation
of the enrolment and training in different
subjects at the higher educational estab-
lishments. By specifying the total number
of university students for each higher edu-
cational establishment, the state can con-
tain the emerging structural imbalances
and could harmonize the quality param-
eters of higher education with the real
needs.
So far the reform in the higher educa-
tion has mostly had organizational and
quantitative dimensions. Few steps have
been taken or results obtained in the sphere
of the quality of education. The dispropor-
tions between theory and practice continue
to be reproduced in the educational prac-
tice. The low degree of tie-up between the
individual subjects and the predominance
of passive methods in the training process
continue. The differences and inequality in
the standards of training at the different
higher educational establishments stand out
clearly. Following the principle of academic
autonomy, each higher educational estab-
lishment specifies the number and struc-
ture of specialities, the curricula and
programmes for training in them, as well
as the criteria of evaluation of the achieve-
ments in learning. As a result of this, train-
ing in one and the same speciality pursued
at different higher educational establish-
ments is different in contents and in qual-
ity.
The introduction of uniform state cri-
teria for the evaluation and control of the
quality of training in all educational institu-
tions is imperative in order to implement
the new Law on the Higher Education
(1995).
At the same time,
what is needed
is the working out and application of uni-
form state requirements for the enrolment
of students for training at various educa-
tional levels and specialities and for the
graduation of students from the higher edu-
cational establishments.
9.3. Institutional and thematic
structure of science
The substantial
changes taking place
in scientific and technological research
have been determined by two groups of
factors. The first group includes the state
policy in the 1960-1989 period. At that time,
the institutional structure and thematic ori-
entation of scientific and technological re-
search was shaped, determining by and
large its present-day character. During
these decades the human, financial, tech-
nical and information resources for scien-
tific and technological research increased
continuously, though in an insufficiently
balanced manner.
The second group of factors have been
related to the radical transformation of
society, started at the end of 1989. The
withdrawal of the state from its dominant
position in society brought about shocks in
the scientific policy and in the development
of the scientific potential. The allocations
from the budget earmarked for the devel-
opment of science and technologies were
abruptly curtailed. The decline of produc-
tion and the great indebtedness of most of
the enterprises have rendered extremely
hard the functioning and survival of the
research and development units affiliated
with them. The shortage of funds practi-
cally isolated the majority of scientists from
the international scientific community.
These negative influences affected all
research and development institutions.
They can be referred to four basic sectors:
State criteria are
needed for the
enrolment, training,
evaluation and
graduation of
university students
The withdrawal of the
state destabilized the
scientific policy