Forum: Business and university education in Bulgaria

Ivelina Abadjieva, general manager, and Joana Ivanova, senior HR expert, in the National Academy for Software Development have taken part in the discussion “Business and university education”. Danail Valchev, minister of education and science, and Nikolay Vassilev, minister of state administration and administrative reform participate in these forum from side of the bulgarian government. Many businessmen, managers of the leading bulgarian universities and students have joined in these event too.
The accent in the discussion was the shortage of practical education in the bulgarian universities. “We have to decrease the time that students spend in the universities to increase their practical work in real business situations”, minister Valchev said. “This is the only way students will gain practical experience and will meet less difficulties in their job search”, he added.
“This is an exception if the students in the end of their study have a real practical experience, while this is a rule in the US and the countries from Western Europe”, minister Vassilev said. “We have to solve this problem”, he appealed.
“The National Academy for Software Development (NASD) is the institution that complete the students’ knowledge from the universities with practical skills and experience in the software development area”, announced Ivelina Abadjieva, general manager in NASD. “In this way the students, passed the specialized courses in the Academy, gain not only valuable practical experience, but receive skills for: writing a professional CV; acting in job interviews; working and communicating in a team and etc.”, she added. “All these additional abilities increase the chance of the young people to find their appropriate job significantly”, Joana Ivanova from NASD explained.
According to Mr. Nikolay Vassilev, such additional education is extremely important for the carrier of the students. “The bulgarian students can not write a good CV. The worst CV of a student graduated in USA or EU is better than the best CV, written by a student graduated in Bulgaria”, ministry Vassilev said. As additional stoppers for the bulgarian students carrier success, he pointed too: the lack of motivation; the lack of willingness for further education; bad self-evaluation; difficulties in team working; bulgarian students have not a good command of foreign languages.