Bulgaria's Universities to Admit Students with High School Ending Exams

Society | January 25, 2008, Friday // 00:00
Bulgaria: Bulgaria's Universities to Admit Students with High School Ending Exams Minister of Education Daniel Valchev appeals to all Bulgarian universities to adopt the newly instituted high school ending exams as entrance requirements. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency)

Many Bulgarian universities have decided to adopt the new mandatory high school ending exams to the regret of those protesting their introduction.

"More than half of all universities, about 25, have decided to admit students using their scores from the new school-ending examinations", announced the Minister of Education and Science Daniel Valchev.

The Minister attended a meeting of the council of presidents of higher education institutions in Plovdiv in order to ask the remaining Bulgarian universities to follow suit, as he himself declared. The decision whether to use the new school-ending exams as entrance criteria must be made by the universities by February 12.

Valchev stated that the grades on the obligatory school-ending exams would provide for the uniform evaluation of students coming from different schools around the country, and would be beneficial for Bulgarian education.

For the first time this year high school graduates in Bulgaria would have a new choice when applying to university. Those who received poor grades on the school-ending tests would have the option of taking an entrance examination administered by the respective university.

Each university in Bulgaria administers its own entrance exams, and there has been much public debate as to whether universities should start admitting students based on the grades received on the newly introduced centralized school-ending tests.

There have always been school-ending exams in Bulgaria but since 1969 only students with lower marks have had to take them. Since 2003 the government has been trying to institute mandatory tests for all at the end of 12th grade but organizational setbacks and public protests by students, parents, and teachers delayed the first obligatory examinations for the spring of 2008.

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