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Vanya Ivanova
Education in Bulgaria in the conditions of Globalisation and European Integration
Graduated in history from the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. Worked as teacher and deputy director of secondary schools in Sofia, assistant and senior assistant professor at the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia and chief public relations expert at Businessbank. Currently works for an international organization. Contributes articles to the press and to specialized scientific publications.
The topic of the roundtable that has brought us together here today is a great challenge to all who believe that we should defend our Bulgarian identity formed in the course of 13 centuries in the conditions of globalisation and European integration.
This challenge ensues from the fact that while the peoples of the world, now numbering approximately 6,000 million people, are trying to preserve their national identity - language, religion and culture, certain circles in Washington are doing everything possible to impose their model on the world. It is obvious that the experiment called globalisation has become a reality, in which the fate of different countries and nations, including Bulgaria's, are being decided. In this sense it is not fortuitous that the term globalisation is imparted different meaning and often remains quite obscure to the general public.
But the initiators of globalisation are well aware of its meaning. What is more, analysts of world renown claim it is a war of a new type. One of the advocates of this belief is Alexander Zinoviev, who quite convincingly argues that globalisation is an evolutionary war, whose main aspects are planned and aimed at achieving world hegemony and control over mankind's evolutionary processes in the interests of a super society whose most important institutions are based in the US (see "Criticism of Globalisation").
A brief enumeration of the means by which the aims of globalisation are sought would look as follows:
- Liquidation of the present national states and establishment of a world state;
- Elimination of any military force opposing the world leading power;
- Provocation of economic crises, hunger and unemployment in view of obtaining cheap workforce and cheap cannon fodder;
- Unification of the way of life of the peoples through the media and the education establishments popularising American "mass culture" and imposing the Anglo-American educational model, discrediting national cultural and classical moral values and traditions;
- Imposing the English language as the only language and discrediting centuries-old national letters proclaimed futureless. Extremely strong attacks against the Cyrillic alphabet.
Particular indicative in this respect are statements made by a Bulgarian ex-president who made a so-called new civilization choice not only for himself but also for the entire Bulgarian people without taking into account the opinion of the people whose representative he was called upon to be. This is true of all official institutions and their representatives constantly talking on behalf of the people imposing on them as key priorities entry into NATO and the EU.
I will take the liberty to disagree with such a presentation of facts because this country's entry into any organization can be neither a priority nor national ideal. It is clear to all sensible and responsible people that such steps should have been carefully considered and coordinated with the Bulgarian people, as they determine our future in the next 30 years.
Offhand statements by the so-called political elite that the Bulgarian people is not mature enough to pronounce itself on issues determining the fate of this country are an expression of cynicism that will be punished in the next parliamentary elections. The events in Spain can serve as a good lesson to our incumbents, taking into account the fact that we are forced to live in times in which tomorrows are unpredictable and no one can safeguard us against possible violence which only intensifies the feeling of living on top of a volcano that can erupt and destroy us at any time.
Some humanitarians believe that Old Europe with the wisdom gained from its past will provide a solution to this alarming situation (See: Nachev, V. "Liberal Democracy as a Fun-Fair", "Nova Zora" newspaper, 16 March 2004).
However, other analysts are sceptical and believe that the European Union is an integral part of globalisation and the only super power now would not allow it to pursue an independent policy (see: Dr Bachmeier, Peter, "Nova Zora" newspaper, 18 June 2002).
Against the background of all this there arises the question: Can small Bulgaria preserve its identity in the conditions of globalisation and European Integration?
My answer is yes, in the presence of statesmen of national responsibility and foresight and not short-lived politicians, working with materials of the client for a handful of silver coins. If among us, Bulgarians, there are more personalities who by their presence alone impart meaning to notions like national self-confidence and dignity and if the intelligentsia steps up its efforts in opposing denationalisation strivings. Because there is no nation with self-respect giving up its identity in the name of some imaginary Euro-Atlantic values.
The European Union has a future only as a union of states and nations of a different identity, among which Bulgaria can take a worthy place. It seems to me, however, that at this stage Bulgaria's entry in the EU is premature. Any professional economist will confirm that Bulgaria is not ready for this integration and will not be able to withstand competition and its people will be turned into auxiliary personnel.
And this brings us to the key issue. Education, science, culture and public health are part of the foundations of every society, including the Bulgarian, because if a nation is healthy and educated then it can use science to solve its problems in the economic sphere and the issues of its future development.
Unfortunately, following 14 years of unceasing recklessness by professional democrats vested in power, the Bulgarian nation is neither healthy, nor educated and science has been left to its own resources.
It was Confucius who said that a state that does not develop science is not a state. I will not comment further on what has been left of the Bulgarian state but having spent most of my active professional life in education, I will try to outline the problems facing the Bulgarian educational system in the conditions of globalisation and European integration.
It is universally known that in the years of the so-called transition to market economy and democracy, education in Bulgaria was subjected to all kinds of experiments, following the advice of foreign "benefactors" which resulted not only in a deterioration of its quality but also in undermining the foundations of the nation.
These benefactors were the World Bank and the Open Society Foundation which as institutions of globalisation financed projects for the "modernization" and "democratisation" of Bulgarian education. The Open Society Foundation established itself in Bulgaria in 1990 and agreed with the then Bulgarian cabinet on a complete coverage of its "grant aid" programmes by the budget of the Republic of Bulgaria.
This explains the generous charity finding expression in dollar scholarships for the training and specialization of students, intellectuals, party leaders and their children. In this way Soros' Foundation secured itself a lobby in all key structures of the Bulgarian state - from the schools in the country to the Ministry of Education and the National Assembly. Bulgarian Open Society fellows repaid this generous charity by working against Bulgaria's national identity.
The World Bank which Bulgarian joined on 25 September 1990 worked in the same direction though by different means. This powerful financial institution which is under the control of the US, extends loans only to Governments and not to private organizations. Instead of material collaterals for the loans it obliges Governments to pursue the policy it dictates in the respective spheres and in this concrete case, in the Bulgarian education system (see Ivanova, V. "Who Is Selling the Soul of the Nation?" in "Nova Zora", 17 September 2002).
And while the Bulgarian Education Ministry calls its absurd policy a reform, most Bulgarians are coming to realize that it amounts to irresponsibility leaving hopelessness and callousness in its wake.
Against the background of all this chaos and with the help of the so-called Open Society fellows, everything possible and even the impossible is being done to impose the American model and replace Bulgarian national self-identity. Text books and syllabuses on humanitarian sciences were rewritten, writers and poets denounced, classes on Bulgarian history reduced, whole periods of Bulgarian history were left out of the textbooks, scores of textbooks were approved on one and the same subject, one more expensive than the other. The textbooks abounded in foreign words and written in a style and language that even post graduate students find difficult to understand. Frequent replacements of school directors, heads of inspectorates and experts at the Ministry of Education had a nonetheless disastrous effect.
The purge of the education system of people who know, can, compare, analyse and defend their stands proved a good lesson to many of their replacements, some also fellows of the notorious Foundation. Faced with the dilemma of being obedient and disinterested or finding themselves on the labour market again, they chose the first option.
Numerous ministers and deputy ministers passed through the Ministry of Education whose names will hardly be remembered by the future generations for lack of any good reason to be. But their contemporaries will not forget the mysterious murder of one deputy minister of education, the exotic appeal to schoolchildren to play rather than study and the scandal with the "I am Bulgarian" poem [by Bulgarian classical writer and poet Ivan Vazov], etc.
Summing up the policy pursued in the education system, I cannot but conclude that it collapsed under the experiments of the reformers serving the interests of regional and global foreign forces and is now in a grave crisis. The evidence is before our eyes: rows between teachers, students, parents and ministry officials, including rows settled in court, severed ties between secondary and higher education… Small concessions made to temporarily cool passions are not solving the numerous problems.
Thus, for instance, lack of funds for repairing school buildings and worthy remuneration of teachers, the dilapidated state of health and sports facilities are all factors decreasing the possibilities for Bulgarian schoolchildren to spent their time meaningfully. This vacuum is being filled in by drugs, religious sects, aggression, including murders, for which Bulgarian society is already paying dearly.
Poverty is the main reason why an increasing number of children do not attend school: between 80,000 and 100,000 a year. If to all this we add the fact that most children do not have access to computers and cannot study foreign languages, and even cannot afford to buy textbooks, it is clear that the Bulgarian school is about to start producing two types of people: auxiliary personnel and unemployed young people quickly turning into a high-risk social group.
The main question is what are the prospects before Bulgarian education?
One possible way to follow is to continue the so-called reform in its present form, isolated from Bulgarian traditions and national priorities until the final severing of the school-university link and the transformation of schools into a conveyor for "mass people" who are not interested in the future of the people and the state they belong to.
And when we sink into hopelessness and spiritual emptiness just like we have sunk into material poverty, then we may fit into the goals of the World Bank which has already stated that it alone is the prestigious centre capable of ruling the development of the world.
The other option requires responsible action in which the Bulgarian policy in education seeks its roots in traditions and is not blindly copying the American educational model. And because we always trust and admire foreign opinion, let me quote a statement by Austrian political analyst Dr Peter Bachmeier who said that the level of Bulgarian education at the beginning of the 1990s was quite high and Bulgaria should try at least to preserve it (see "Monitor", 24 December 2002).
And if by some chance the second option is chosen, then I would like to make the following recommendations:
o Adoption and establishment of a concept on education making it independent from the ad hoc political situation and the will of foreign forces or the ambitions of every new minister of education.
o Proclaiming education a state priority financed by the state and not by charity by a substantial percentage of the GDP;
o Passing amendments to the National Education Act guaranteeing the Bulgarian nature of education and its accessibility to all Bulgarian children;
o Maximum two comprehensibly written textbooks for each subject seeking quality of education and not the realization of someone's ambitions as an author and commercial interests;
o Establishing mechanisms for efficient interrelations between secondary schools and higher educational establishments;
o Passage of an act on the status of Bulgarian teachers. Worthy remuneration of their work and opportunities for raising their training, if we want our children to be taught by qualified people;
o Conforming the syllabus of instruction and textbooks in all subjects and above all Bulgarian language and literature and history to the goal of forming Bulgarian and not some abstract citizens of the world.
By way of conclusion I would like to stress that the denationalisation of Bulgarian education would have catastrophic consequences. Bulgaria's progress to the EU does not mean that the Bulgarian education, language and culture will lose their individuality, quite the opposite.
Successful nations are highly educated and highly qualified and if Bulgaria wishes to measure up to them not only in words then it will need resolve, competence and nationally responsible acts.
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