Differentiation of the Teachers Remuneration System in Bulgaria

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Differentiation of the Teachers Remuneration
System in Bulgaria

• Value for Money

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Partners

• EXPERT ANALYSES, BULGARIA
• in partnership with
• LGI/OSI-USAID FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION INITIATIVE,
  HUNGARY
• MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE, BULGARIA
• MINISTRY OF FINANCE, BULGARIA

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Why do it?

• The introduction of a system of differentiated
  payment for teachers is a main challenge to the
  system of school education in Bulgaria.
• The Ministry of Education and Science
  demonstrated a strong commitment to address this
  policy issue and requested assistance from the
  Expert Analyses Group and the LGI/OSI Hungary

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The potential impact of the operation?

• Apart from the purely economic factors the reform
  of the remuneration system has also a strong
  social aspect, which requires the involvement of
  a broad range of stakeholders like teachers,
  school headmasters, trade unions, municipalities,
  the Ministry of Education and Science and the
  Ministry of Finance among others.

5
Capacity Building Aspect of the Project?

• The request from the Bulgarian Ministry of
  Education was to bring to Bulgaria some expertise
  from either Hungary, Slovakia and/or the Czech
  Republic in the field of differentiated payment
  systems, teacher assessment and (if needed)
  management of decentralized budgets
• High quality expertise from Hungary was secured
  by the LGI/OSI-Hungary

6
The Process

• Initially there was a clear demand from the
  relevant authority (i.e. the Ministry of
  Education).
• The team managed to establish working
  relationship with the Ministry of Education.
• Then it came out that the experts ideas diverged
  from the plans of the ministry.
• The minister expected quick results, while
  experts argued for a long term vision and careful
  planning of the first steps.

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The process

• Ideas were first presented at a conference
  co-organized with the Ministry of education and
  Chaired by the minister.
• The elaboration of the new system of
  differentiating the teachers salaries is
  developing in a complex context of many
  stakeholder interests.

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Outputs

• The main output of the project is a White Paper
  that will become the basis for discussion within
  the Government and for negotiations with the
  trade unions.
• Thus the project evolved into a more general
  outlook at the Bulgarian school education reform.

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Outputs

• The main output of the project is a White Paper
  that will become the basis for discussion within
  the Government and for negotiations with the
  trade unions.
• The project managed to advocate for changes in
  the Human Resources Operational Programme,
  granting access to the EU Social Fund over the
  next 7 years .

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Follow up and Impact

• The project seems to evolve into a more general
  and structured outlook on how to structure the
  rather chaotic Bulgarian education reform, which
  has developed slowly and without much vision for
  more than 15 years.

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TNAK YOU!

• Boyan Zahariev
• Open Society Institute Sofia
• Phone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Mobile [phone]
• E-mail bzahariev_at_osf.bg