Bulgarian Minister of Education and Science Todor Tanev spoke Monday for bTV.

He informed the ministry did its best in terms of the so-called school dropouts as their number at present stood at over 3,500 per year.

“We attempt to prevent this process,” the minister commented.

He added the main change to the structure of secondary education envisaged for primary education to cover all grades from 1 to 7, instead of 1 to 8, and provided an opportunity for leaving school after grade 10, which would help decrease the number of school dropouts.

“Last year they were 3,282, most of them being between grade 5 and grade 7,” the minister noted.

He remarked further there would be an increase in teachers’ salaries, not bonuses.

“It will be under 10%, [it will be] BGN 70 per person on the average, and will have to be applied next year. Therefore we will ask for a little over BGN 100 million in the budget so that there is money for science,” Todor Tanev added.

He announced he would attend the events dedicated to start of the school year in First English Language Secondary School in the capital Sofia along with British Ambassador to Bulgaria Emma Hopkins.

The school year in Bulgaria begins on September 15.