Transforming Economics Teaching in Bulgaria: A Difficult Transition

Abstract

The change of former command economies into market-oriented systems is unprecedented and dramatic. Apart from decentralization, marketization, and privatization, such change requires substantial alterations in culture, attitudes, customs, and values. One aspect of this all-around change is the transformation of higher education and, in particular, economic education. In this article, we describe the reform of economic education in Bulgaria. Quite naturally, we are influenced by our everyday experiences, and, with the whole period being so turbulent, the danger of biased opinions and conclusions is great. Our perspective is more or less that of economists within the process, which may make final assessments more subjective. For many years, economic education in Bulgaria was designed to provide specialists for the command economy. As part of the academic system, economic education was greatly influenced in its organization by the European and, especially, the German traditions. In its methods and policy, it was highly dependent on the development of the Soviet economic education (see, for example, Brue and MacPhee 1995). Future economists studied in public economic colleges that in Bulgaria were called institutesb. There were three such institutions in Bulgaria, each specializing in different fields, mostly connected with the specific branches of the economy. International economic relations and political economy were offered as majors only at the Higher Economic Institute in Sofia. The Higher Institute for National Economy in Varna was the only academic center training specialists in international tourism, commodity sciences, and related fields. Finance, banking, and insurance majors were offered at the Higher Economic Institute in Svishtov. At all other noneconomic institutes, economics courses were limited to one or two courses in political economy or the economics of industry, taught in the first two years. The educational process lasted four to five years and was predominantly industry oriented. One of the first steps after the political changes in November 1989 was to give the higher education establishments limited academic autonomy. As a result, almost all of the existing 38 higher education institutes declared themselves universities.