State Universities announced readiness to protest, President and PM to talk to Rectors' Council about their demands

Head of State, Rumen Radev, will meet this afternoon, May 15, with representatives of the Council of Rectors of Higher Education Institutions in Bulgaria in relation to the expressed discontent and the declared readiness for protests in the higher education sector. Before that, the rectors are expected to hold talks with caretaker Prime Minister, Dimitar Glavchev.

Yesterday, the academic community announced that on 20 May all Bulgarian state universities and some private universities will not open their doors to students in protest.

The Council of Rectors of higher educational establishments in Bulgaria on May 14 addressed an open letter to the President, to the caretaker Prime Minister, ministers, the Bulgarian EU Commissioner, the National Ombudsman, the chairpersons of parliamentary committees and leaders of political parties "in connection with non-fulfilment of commitments assumed by the State in the Higher Education Act".

The letter states that "over the last three years, the financial resources from the gross domestic product allocated for financing Bulgarian universities have plummeted". "The salaries of lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors and professors are humiliatingly low and uncompetitive compared to those of holders of positions requiring lower educational and intellectual qualifications (and incomparable to the salaries of colleagues from European educational institutions)," the Council of Rectors said.

They call for the average gross salary for academic staff in state universities to be no less than 180 per cent of the national average. They also demand that the minimum salary for the lowest academic post in state universities should not be less than 125 per cent of the national average.