News

Meeting of the working group preparing the Operational Programme "Science and Education for smart growth" (OPNOIR) was held on September 30th in Sofia city and chaired by Ivan Krastev, Deputy Minister of Education and Science. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Education, other institutions involved in the development of education and school network, academic fields and NGOs.

In his opening speech Ivan Krastev, Deputy Minister of Education, said that the debate over the existence of this operational programme has already ended and it will exist with the budget of 508 million euro. Managing Authority of OPNOIR will be the Ministry of Education and Science. On behalf of the European Commission,  DG Employment will participate in the negotiations. The program will be funded not only by the European Social Fund, but also by the European Regional Development Fund. Our task is to make a good program that will contribute to resource provision of the policies in education and science, which does not cancel the commitment of the state budget, said Mr. Krastev.

The director of DG “European Funds” in Ministry of Education, Stoyan Tsonev presented a new, substantially revised draft of OPNOIR that contains three main priority areas:

- Research and Development: priority, entirely financed by the European Regional Development Fund;

- Education and Lifelong Learning: aimed at reducing dropout and increasing the quality of education;

- Educational Environment for active social inclusion: developing the theme of educational integration.

As next part of the meeting there were some comments and suggestions by the participants. In his speech Deyan Kolev (Chairman of Center "Amalipe" and representative of the group of NGOs working for the integration of ethnic minorities and immigrants) strongly support both the inclusion of Axis 3 and make recommendations to the investment priority "Integration of marginalized communities such as the Roma.” It is important this priority to be highly coordinated with the same priority as the Operational Programme "Human Resources Development" so potential beneficiaries can apply with common integrated projects (including employment, education, social and health services) without additional bureaucratic burdens, supported by arguments Dean Kolev. He also shared some proposals to the investment priority 2.1. "Preventing and reducing early school leaving ...", aimed at supporting the functioning of schools in small towns as well as to support the development and implementation of programs to reduce school drop-out.