Jan Herczyski Mikolaj Herbst Education Finance Reform in Bulgaria: Review of Current Issues Warsaw, July 2008 Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Education finance reforms in Bulgaria prior to January 1, 2007 .................................................... 3 2. The current reforms of education finance in Bulgaria .................................................................... 5 3. Allocation of funds for education ................................................................................................. 13 4. Is Bulgarian education underfinanced in 2008? ............................................................................ 20 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 21 References ......................................................................................................................................... 23 Annex A. List of maintenance cost standards introduced in 2004 .................................................... 24 Annex B. Lists of unified cost standards introduced in 2007 and 2008............................................ 25 List of tables: Table 1 Definition of 4 groups of municipalities ................................................................................. 6 Table 2 Preschool and mainstream school students by municipality group (2008) ............................. 9 Table 3 Average number of students of education institutions by municipality group (2008) .......... 10 Table 4 UCS in 2007 and 2008 (Leva)............................................................................................... 10 Table 5 Values of UCS relative to group 1 of municipalities, in 2007 and 2008............................... 10 Table 6 Values of UCS relative to UCS for mainstream schools, in 2007 and 2008 ......................... 11 Table 7 Strumyani school system (2008) ........................................................................................... 11 Table 8 Simulated allocation to Strumyani schools ........................................................................... 12 Table 9 Average class size by municipality group (2008) ................................................................. 13 Table 10 Student teacher ratio by municipality group (2008) ............................................................ 14 Table 11 Per class allocation by municipality group (2008) .............................................................. 16 Table 12 Maintenance cost standards used since 2005 ...................................................................... 24 Table 13 Unified Costs Standards in 2007 ......................................................................................... 25 Table 14 Unified Costs Standards in 2008 ......................................................................................... 25 List of graphs: Graph 1 Map of Bulgarian municipalities divided into 4 groups ......................................................... 7 Graph 2 Map of Bulgarian municipalities with average class size....................................................... 8 Graph 3 Map of Bulgarian municipalities with population density ..................................................... 8 Graph 4 Average class by population density, density <250 pers. per square km ............................... 9 Graph 5 Average class size by municipality group. ........................................................................... 13 Graph 6 Average class size and standard deviation by municipality group. ...................................... 14 Graph 7 Student teacher ratio by municipality group. ....................................................................... 15 Graph 8 Student teacher ratio and standard deviation by municipality group. .................................. 16 Graph 9 Per class allocation by municipality group........................................................................... 17 Graph 10 Per class allocation with standard deviation by municipality group. ................................. 18 Graph 11 Per class allocation by average class size ........................................................................... 18 Graph 12 Territorial differentiation of per class allocation (2008) .................................................... 19