A scientist, Rector for many years and President of Varna Free University “Chernorizets Hrabar”, with the kind of experience that you have, what diagnosis would you give to the higher education in Bulgaria today?

The most difficult diseases to treat are those with unclear or imprecise diagnoses. I believe that the negative views on Bulgarian education, on its deteriorating health, which are increasingly expressed among the public, is an imprecise diagnosis. Bulgarian higher education has undeniable merits and qualities that should not be underestimated and passed over in silence. Our students win prestigious international competitions, receive excellent references from the universities where they have conducted Erasmus mobility, successfully pursue careers in high-ranking positions worldwide. This does not mean that in education everything is fine. On the contrary, I would say that it has never been harder than now to achieve efficiency in the organization and management of this sector. The problems are numerous. But they mostly stem from the fact that science and higher education operate in a hostile environment - both internal and external. Currently, education endures the blows of three crises – economic, financial and demographic – which have been overlapping for some time. Moreover, daily evidence of severe functional and generative problems in society cannot be ignored, which devalue the significance not only of education, but of labour itself. The motivation for success based on personal development, qualification and the acquisition of a wide range of skills in many social groups succumb to the demand for quick and easy profits, or to the acquiescence to live on welfare. And since these issues concern not only Europe but the whole world, we are faced with another challenge - the fierce international competition for geopolitical redistribution of significant educational centers. Countries have begun to compete in offering extras which can turn them into a preferred educational destination. And every day domestic universities are lowering the student admission criteria at the expense of strange compromises with quality and prices, and are competing over numbers of students and state subsidies.

Do we yet have a long way to go to reach European standards in higher education? How can we explain the fact that a significant percentage of young Bulgarians aspire to universities in Europe and oversees?

Bulgaria has long been working to meet the criteria and standards of united Europe. Bulgarian higher education has complied with all the directives of the Bologna process. The universities in the country, including Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar", have obtained a number of international accreditations and quality certificates. Our university has been awarded by the European Commission the three quality labels, and was included in the list of 50 excellence universities in Europe, which means that European standards have not only been met, but a number of university achievements have been recommended as good practice. We are very well accepted and we are sought as partners in Asia and Africa. Every year the numbers of incoming Erasmus students from all over the world is increasing, and the duration of their stay is prolonged. Under these programs Varna Free University has achieved mutual recognition of training and educational credits with more than 60 universities from 16 countries. If young people continue to aspire to universities in Europe and overseas, it is not because of the difference in the quality of education, but because of their ambitions to pursue careers in these countries. What tempts them are the opportunities to work for prestigious companies (and successful business enterprises), the guaranteed career development forms, the prestigious level of starting salary. Therefore, as troubling as the data for those going to study abroad may be, the figures for those returning are twice as troubling. If to these figures we add the number of graduates who immediately leave the country to work abroad, it becomes evident that there is room for concern, but to blame the higher education system only means to give yet another imprecise and incomplete diagnosis.

What might be the right steps towards reforms in the system?

Any reform makes sense when it is not an end in itself, but a tool to adapt the system to the challenges of the environment and solve the problems of society. In this sense, the reform in higher education should be oriented towards solving its systematic problems. And they are those ones which prevent it from turning into a priority for the purpose of achieving smart specialization and development of our country. Unfortunately, the mechanical repetition of the word reform, just for the sake of saying it, has loaded this process with populism and political ideology. The phrase "Education - a Priority of the Nation" has become the ever-present cliché of election platforms and promises. But so far nothing else has been done; what follows is mimicry of reforms which practically repeat the status quo. In my opinion, the right steps should be made in several directions:

• Striking a balance between the structure and profile of the higher education system with a long-term vision for the development of the economy and other spheres of society. Smart specialization requires activity from bottom to top in order to determine the priorities for the future development of local structures, and for creating the unique economic and social image of cities and regions. An integral part of that is the decentralization of the initiative to build adequate educational and scientific capacity, ensuring creative and innovative economy.
• A marked change in the interaction pattern between education, business and the media. These are relations that cannot be based only on goodwill and subjective discretion. The change will come if there is a favorable regulatory environment which encourages those processes, and ensures recognition of this valuable investment and its returns in the medium term perspective.
• Establishing new criteria for the regulation and academic autonomy ratio. The higher education system is among those whose regulation is mostly done by inertia. State regulation of purely technical, administrative and bureaucratic aspects of the activity increases annually. Clerks are tempted by the authorization-style regime, while at the same time core and systematic issues are not paid attention to. Let me give you an example. 58 000 young people have completed secondary education, out of them 10,000 have gone abroad, 8000 have not passed their matriculation exams - 40,000 remain. In this context, the state has issued a decree for a state order intake of 72 000 freshmen. Obviously, the state places an order for future specialists whose future career it cannot guarantee. No discrimination is made between two important things - to order only what can be realized in the horizon of the next 5 - 6 years, and to create conditions for everyone else to fall into those 46% of people with completed higher education, as prescribed by European directives by 2020. To put it in other words, let everyone study, while the state only orders and pays for what it will consume, and invests in the creation of areas and specialties that meet its long-term vision and strategic choice.
• Achieving a reasonable and realistic balance between public and private investment in education. Obviously the budget has currently limited capacity to allocate sufficient resources to education and science, so the solution is promoting private enterprise. The difference between the left and right is that the right relies on private initiative and private investment, and the country benefits from a reasonable balance between public and private investment in education. What prevents us from achieving it besides lack of understanding and goodwill?

How can we prevent decapitalization of the educational system and preserve the academic capacity? What policies can the state and universities implement to oppose these trends?

Decapitalization of the educational system is the biggest threat at the moment. If we succumb to the inertia and let education follow demographic trends, we will make mistakes which, only a few years later, will make us cry over the ruin of yet another branch. What is needed is practical, swift action to preserve the educational and research capacity of the state in this difficult situation. And that can happen not by closing educational institutions, but by creating the necessary conditions for Bulgarian universities to operate on global terrain. Let us only look at the intergovernmental agreements and other documents which our country has signed in the past five years. Usually they include specified measures for enhanced cooperation and exchange in various fields, but education usually falls in the "and others" part, which leads us nowhere. The world is fighting for redistribution of educational markets, and we are not there. Bulgaria should clearly define its competitive advantages as an educational destination. And where they are insufficient, it must create and develop them, so that our country is attractive to young people from all over the world, and our universities are flexible and free to prove their competitiveness in the international market. Now the law has thousands of obstacles preventing our universities from operating abroad, from training foreign students and from exporting academic and scientific product.

Has the broad autonomy caused damage to the development of the academic staff?

As we know, freedom is a conscious necessity. For those who have adopted absolute quality as their mission and credo, the law has provided the opportunity to assert their criteria. For those who “look for a door in the field” the Law on the Development of the Academic Staff has provided the opportunity to find it quickly, especially those who rely on the state to pay the expenses for the fast-produced doctors, associate professors and professors.

What was the share of foreign students and guest lecturers at Varna Free University in the last academic year?

What we aspire to is a global presence on the educational market, on the one hand by attracting foreign students from around the world, new contracts with foreign universities and joint projects with them, and on the other, by establishing relations with the business sector and through our partnerships with world leaders such as "Volkswagen", "Bayer", "Pepsi", "HYPO NOE Gruppe", Unity, "Karcher" and many others.

The university trains 255 foreign students in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Their share is not as big as we would like, but their geographical distribution is impressive. Our foreign students are representatives of 27 countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Turkey, China, Poland and Nigeria.

Another dimension of internationalization is the presence of "great knowledge" at the university. Over the last few years guests lecturers at the university have been leading scientists from Japan, the United States, Israel, Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, with whom students have the opportunity to work within a range of master classes, which have become a business card of Varna Free University.

Varna Free University has earned itself the image of a cultural center with rich initiatives. It runs a traditional qualification school for future specialists in Russian language and culture. Is not the academic spirit sufficiently present, what more do you aspire to?

The academic spirit is something that should never be considered sufficient. Education in all its forms requires us to train people who will hold the values and the capacity of the kind of society we want to live in. People who think, who can judge what they do not know and are motivated to find it. We expect graduates to be people with self-esteem and confidence in their own abilities, taking responsibility for the consequences of their activities. And this cannot be achieved within a given curriculum.

Meetings with prominent figures of science, culture and art, with models of creative behavior are our goal. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the university, we are rich with our exclusive list of supporters, business partners and trustees worldwide. The activities of the Russian Center of Varna Free University and the traditional qualification school for specialists in Russian language and culture are one form of this. The participating teachers and students from 8 countries, the master classes and the accompanying cultural events are an invaluable meeting of purely human relations with scientific aspirations and creative challenges, oriented towards career advancement and personal self-assessment in a broad international context.

Last but not least, is a new law on higher education necessary? For so many years the answer has been "Yes!", but nothing is happening. It looks as though a piecemeal approach is preferred. Why?

Unfortunately this is true. The mimicry in reform continues as mimicry in law. The current law on higher education has undergone 45 amendments so far. All of them solve single, private matters, not to say interests of individual universities or people. Nobody is under the delusion that such a law can preserve its monolithic structure and logic.

On the other hand the law continues to suffer from excessive detail, redundant digital indicators for activity, detailed regulation of procedures, etc. Read in the context of the times in which we live, the law is full of clerical fear of any possible creativity and entrepreneurship. Life has proved that a law which tries to solve everything actually overlooks the most important.

However, let us note that although the special law on education is very important, it is far from being the only normative act regarding the development of education. Improving the environment in which education operates should be subject to many other laws and regulations. For the past 10 years, this education, that we profess to be the priority of the nation, has been deprived of minimal preferences which it enjoyed under the force of 14 other laws. And these preferences namely used to encourage academic publishing, the services aimed at the main social programs for students, etc.

I do not know whether we will soon have a new law on higher education, but I am convinced that we have to change our attitude towards education as soon as possible, as it is a factor for overcoming the crisis, and for preserving and multiplying the most valuable resource of society – the human capital.