ECO NET in Bulgaria

Bulgaria can now look back on more than ten years of experience with the training firms' concept in the region: The first Bulgarian training firm was founded in 1994 at the National Finance and Economics High School in Sofia within the framework of the Bulgarian-Austrian Commercial College Project. The project was implemented by the k.education project office Sofia on behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and KulturKontakt Austria.

The project's five pilot schools, which apart from Sofia are located in Varna, Burgas, Montana and Stara Zagora, have participated in ECO NET since 2001.

As early as 1995, the establishment of the Bulgarian National Central Office "BUCT" provided support for the development of a Bulgarian training firm network.

The Bulgarian training firms' network currently includes almost 200 training firms at around 20 schools.

At the ECO NET pilot schools, training firms are a permanent and obligatory part of the curriculum "Economy and Management", which is based on the curriculum of the Austrian Commercial Colleges. At other schools, training firms work is also partly carried out as a compulsory optional subject or an optional subject.

Eight training firms' fairs have taken place in Bulgaria since 1998, four of them with international participation:

At the international training firms' fair Sofia 2002 - one of the highlights of the initial phase of ECO NET - around 100 training firms and centres from six countries took part as exhibitors.

Due to this background, Bulgaria plays something of a pioneering role within ECO NET. Bulgarian experts are successfully working on passing on their experience with training firms to ECO NET partners in other countries.

The dissemination of the training firms concept throughout Bulgaria is currently being carried out with the help of ECO NET.

The basis for this is a national dissemination strategy drawn up by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education. The strategy foresees that the five ECO NET pilot schools, whose teachers and headteachers are very well-trained thanks to numerous in-service training modules, should become model centres.

At these model centres, in-service training courses for teachers will be organised and teaching materials developed for Entrepreneurship and for IT for Business. In addition, a manual for training firm managers is being produced in cooperation with the Bulgarian National Central Office.

Until the official conclusion of the ECO NET project in Bulgaria in autumn 2007, nationally valid quality standards for training firms work and an improved evaluation system should also have been drawn up in the model centres.