Keeping proper statistics about the number of students who have dropped out of school is not easy.

When Bulgaria was a people’s republic in 1947 to 1989, no such data was available, simply because the regime did its best to keep everybody in school and at work. That was why it took Bulgaria’s post-communism governments years to even start noticing the problem that today everybody acknowledges. There isn’t a single statistic that shows exactly how many students drop out every year – and it is not easy to keep such statistics, in part because this number changes every week, Tsveta Bresnichka, chairperson of Roditeli (Parents) Association, which is heavily involved in the issue, said. She said that about 30 000 students aged over 16 years old drop out of school every year. Other statistics, such as a survey published by Vitosha Research in February 2007, said that about 55.2 per cent of students in primary schools would drop out of school. Of them, 79 per cent were Roma, 10 per cent of Turkish decent and seven per cent ethnic Bulgarian.

“Keeping one database on the numbers is a problem, but the bigger problem is the fact (of dropping out) itself,” Bresnichka told The Sofia Echo. “It is a major problem because when children leave school at 16, they never come back and they remain at that educational level for the rest of their lives. As such, there is a large chance that they will become clients of social welfare services or the judiciary. Even if they manage to find a job, it will be a low-paid job, which means that their productivity will be low, from which society in general will suffer.”

Yet there must be a second chance for such children. “Schools must exist that can train them in some high-qualified profession. Money for these schools can always be found, as long as the problem is taken seriously by the state,” she said. One of the reasons children dropped out was the lack of trust they had in their teachers.

“The profile of the teacher should change so that s/he is more involved in what is happening with the child,” Bresnichka said. “Parents are also to be blamed because they expect certain results from the school, the school expects certain efforts from the parents, and at the end, both sides are disappointed with each other. There is simply no communication between parents and schools.”

A problem within the problem also existed, she said. “We have a problem not with students dropping out, but not attending classes regularly. This issue should also be addressed because the most recent results of Bulgarian students are extremely poor compared with other countries. This is one of the consequences of students spending more time in coffee shops around the schools and not inside them.”

If this issue was not addressed properly, Bulgaria could face becoming a country with an under-qualified labour force, Bresnichka said.

Published as part of the Education in Bulgaria special feature of The Sofia Echo, May 23 2008