Bulgarian higher education institutions are going to introduce three-year Bachelor’s degrees over the next five years.

This has been announced by Bulgaria’s Education Minister, Sergey Ignatov, who visited two institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences together with Prime Minister Boyko Borisov on Friday.

According to Ignatov, with the new Higher Education Act which is currently being drafted, the Bulgarian universities are going to have much greater autonomy and will be able to introduce three-year Bachelor’s degrees on their own.

In his words, the “shorter” time for obtaining a Bachelor’s is going to be introduced gradually in the various universities, and will depend on the majors in question.

He did admit, however, that most of the presidents of the 51 higher education institutions in Bulgaria were against the introduction of three-year Bachelor’s degrees.

“It is a European trend to reduce the terms for obtaining a Bachelor’s degree from four to three years, and this has many advantages as it gives students a greater mobility,” Ignatov declared.

“My greatest pain at present is the low number of graduating doctoral students because there is still this belief in Bulgaria that Ph. D. graduates must work at either the Academy of Sciences, or at the universities, whereas in fact they should be in the top management of state and private firms,” the Minister said.

He cited data saying that only 82 persons completed successfully Ph. D. degrees through regular courses in Bulgaria in 2009. The number reaches 150 if those who completed part-time or other doctoral degrees.

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