Memorandum of Cooperation between The UNWE and The Bulgarian Industrial Association

Improvement of legislation in the field of business, higher education and science, development of dialogue and cooperation between the UNWE and the business, improvement of conformity between the supply and demand of specialists having higher education in compliance with the estimated needs of workforce at the labour market, incorporation of the newly elaborated academic plans and programmes of UNWE in accordance with the requirements and development of labour market, expectations and needs of students and employers. These are part of priorities in the Memorandum of Cooperation between the UNWE and the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) signed by the Rector Prof. D.Sc.(Econ.) Statty Stattev and Bozhidar Danev, Executive Director of BIA.

Prof. Statty Stattev (on the right) and Bozhidar Danev after the signing of Memorandum of Cooperation

Relations between the higher education and business could not be established by mantras, criticism or laws, they could be established only by real work, outlined the Rector Prof. Stattev. He said that during the last two years the UNWE had worked out two major projects for bringing the academic programmes near to the business requirements and profile as well as to the modern content of knowledge necessary for young people to get into the work quickly.

For many years there is an absurd situation in regard of the so called government contract for education of students which is only a simple arithmetic sum of university desires to educate students, pointed out Prof. Stattev. He outlined that Economics, Administration and Management had been studied at 26 universities. I wonder if we decide to educate doctors and engineers at the UNWE will our production be more successful than the production of Medical or Technical University? The place of the government is namely here – to make adequate contracts for education of students and finance them worthily, declared the Rector.

The Rector is commenting some issues of higher education.

For professional fields of Economics, Administration and Management the government grants 693 BGN for a student per year. Meanwhile the subsidy for a pupil at the secondary school is on the average of 1500 BGN. It is a bad disproportion which shows an attitude to the secondary and higher education although the higher education function is to create the government elite, emphasized the Rector.

The UNWE adapts quickly to the labour market. The new technologies are incorporated in the academic programmes. What we search with Prof. Stattev and the whole team of UNWE is the solution of problems, declared Bozhidar Danev. According to him one of the instruments for that is the signed Memorandum. We want to improve the models of accreditation for higher education institutions, to improve the rating system and to have a feedback with employers in it, outlined Mr. Danev. Our purpose is the differentiation of subsidies for scientific activity, creation of competence profiles for each speciality in accordance with the labour market. We strive to encourage also the dialogue with the business in regard of educational quality, emphasized Bozhidar Danev.  

During the meeting at the Bulgarian Industrial Association

The Memorandum provisions also the enhancement of quality and competitiveness of higher education in the field of economics, management and administration, law and politics and development of its compatibility with the European systems of higher education, development of the labour market monitoring, career orientation, development and feedback about the quality of professional realization of higher education graduates, etc.

Coordinator for the Memorandum from the UNWE is Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yordan Blizankov.

Bozhidar Danev accepted Rector`s invitation to deliver a public lecture at the UNWE.