In the 2014-2020 strategy worked out by the Ministry of Education and Science a month ago, Bulgaria envisages developing the system of vocational education and training. This is what President Rosen Plevneliev said during his visit to the Commercial Industrial Vocational School in Bern. The school is the largest one of its kind in Switzerland, where the Head of State is on a two-day official visit.
President Plevneliev was welcomed in the school by its principal Sonia Marti, who acquainted the delegation with the advantages provided by and risks posed by vocational training. The Head of State pointed out that our country has already introduced the basic elements of dual education in Bulgaria.
President Plevneliev said that the Ministry of Education and Science presented a Strategy for the development of vocational education and training for the 2014-2020 period, which outlines the priorities and mechanisms for the development of dual education. “The measures the document proposes provide the opportunity for establishing a real connection between business and education and create conditions for overcoming youth unemployment,” the Head of State commented.
“The strategy envisages that the business and the branch organizations will take part in defining the teaching contents of each concrete profession, as well as in conducting practice at the concrete workplace by training tutors,” President Plevneliev said.
The Head of State examined the teaching halls in pneumatics and robotics in the Commercial Industrial Vocational School and talked with students. The school in Bern offers vocational education and ongoing training to 7,000 students in more than 60 professions. 600 teachers and about 1,000 qualified staff, specialists in different professions, work in it. The school is an important partner of the business circles and the branch organizations in Switzerland.
A project for support of dual education in Bulgaria, which will be launched at the beginning of December 2014 and will continue until 2019, was negotiated during President Rosen Plevneliev’s visit to Switzerland. Machine-building, mechatronics, electrical engineering, clothing and textile, and furniture industry are among the branches in which work will be done to implement the Swiss experience in dual education. The project is directed at the vocational schools and high-schools. The expected results from it are that 1,200 youths and between 120 and 150 tutors (teachers) in enterprises that are partners of the schools will undergo training.