A staggering 41% of 15-year-old Bulgarian students have difficulties with reading, which ranks Bulgaria first in Europe.

Romania is second in the negative ranking with 40% while the average EU percentage is just 20%.

The data comes from a new study titled "Teaching Reading in Europe: Contexts, Policies and Practices," which was published by the European Commission Monday.

It shows what countries are doing to improve reading literacy – and where they are falling short and covers 31 countries (EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Turkey).

EU Education Ministers have set a target to reduce the share of poor readers from 20% to less than 15% by 2020. Only Belgium (Flemish Community), Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Poland have already achieved this target.

The study was presented in Brussels by Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, who is cited by the Bulgarian National Radio, BNR, saying the situation in Bulgaria and Romania is "very alarming" and is due to the lack of qualified teachers and experts and the way school curriculum is being created.

Vassiliou had further pointed out Bucharest already started an education reform, and the same is now expected from Bulgaria, adding the EC hopes the two countries will be successful in dealing with the problem, and is prepared to offer assistance.

The data is from 2009. The document points out that only in Bulgaria and Iceland the system has not been reformed in the last 10 years in order to reduce the number of the poor readers. It also lists Bulgaria among the very few EU countries which do not provide special education teachers to these students.

The full text of the study can be found HERE. (http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/thematic_reports/130EN.pdf)