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On August 24, the Ministry of Education published for public comment draft standard for civil, health, environmental and intercultural education. The existence of this standard was laid down in Art. 22, para. 2 pt. 8 of the pre-school and school education act. The project for the regulation was almost ready at the end of 2012, but in 2016 was virtually rewritten. The text itself does not inspire and it is very unlikely to cause euphoria of approval. At the same time it also contains elements that can be described as innovative and likely to lead to the development of four types of education included in the standard with complex name. Who are these elements to intercultural education? What standard offers and what does it fail to offer according the development of intercultural perspective and educational integration?

A little background

The original idea for the standard was introduced back in 2010 as one of the main demands of organizations working for educational integration of the Roma community (http://amalipe.com/index.php?nav=news&id=583) Then the standard was formulated as "Civil and intercultural education" and the vision of it was like a document defining the strategic policies for the development of educational integration and the creation of a multicultural school environment. The hope of Roma and pro-Roma organizations was through this standard to detail desegregation texts included in the new educational act and to deliver sustainable policies for educational integration set out in the Strategy for Educational Integration of Children and Students from Ethnic Minorities. In 2011 and 2012 it was almost entirely rewritten (as a standard for "Civil, intercultural education and health") by a working group comprising experts from a wide range MES, RIE, universities, kindergartens, schools and NGOs. Version of the standard discussed at January 2013 see here

There was a three-year break after the Act on pre-school and school education was not adopted in 2013 and the debate on it started again and finished on September 30, 2015. New Working Group, responsible for the developing of SSE for civil, health, environmental and intercultural education was formed in 2016 under the chairmanship of Evgeniya Kostadinova (Director of "educational programs and educational content"), as it involved a much narrower range of experts. The standard was developed more as a technical document that systematize the statusquo in four types of education, and the parts of it that were aimed at comprehensive change and formulating policies dropped from the final draft. A public inquiry option surprised even the members of the working group, which made it because it was not discussed beforehand with them.

Intercultural education: what is offered by the standard?

Regulation on civil, health, environmental and intercultural education is probably the shortest of the published hitherto regulations on standards: 9 pages plus annexes. According to Art. 1, para. 2, it states:

1. The nature and objectives of civic, health, environmental and intercultural education;

2. The ways and forms of implementation of civil, health, environmental and intercultural education;

3. The framework requirements for learning outcomes on civic, health, environmental and intercultural education;

4. Institutional policies supporting civil, health, environmental

and intercultural education.

In accordance with this, art. 3, para. 4 defines the essence of intercultural education as "learning about different dimensions of cultural identities and key features of intercultural relations, forming a positive attitude towards diversity in all areas of human life, as well as acquiring skills and attitudes for constructive interaction in a multicultural environment." .

Art. 4 sets two main goals of the civic, health, environmental and intercultural education (CHEIE), both connected to interculturality:

- Establishment of an autonomous and active person who ... respects the importance of every person in the variety of its identities, recognizes the right and the value of diversity, accepts the equality of all in the common social space; realizes and values his/her cultural identity;

- Operation of any educational institution as an autonomous, active and self-developing community: .. creates a positive learning environment for dialogue between members of different cultural communities depending on their age and competence, including through the forms of student participation and self-government.

Chapter 3 of the Regulation specifies the implementation of CHEIE: at different levels and stages (from pre-school to first high school) and all kinds of school education (educational, extended, profiled, additional and within the day organization of the school day and hours class). Until now intercultural education was realized primarily in primary and secondary schools and partly - in preschools mostly by EТ inclusion of intercultural topics in the subjects of school curriculum and sporadically - within day organization. The regulation provides the possibility of extended training (known until last month as ОЕТ) on the subject "Intercultural Education", including intercultural education in the first school stage in the lesson of the class and developing its capabilities within a day organization and preschooling

Framework  requirements for CHEIE results are included in Chapter 4 of the Regulation and four appendices. One of them is for outcomes of intercultural education: knowledge, skills and attitudes that the child / student must acquire, grouped into four areas of competence and divided into stages of education - from preschool to first high school. Essentially, these are the first standartized requirements for the results of intercultural education that Bulgarian education system puts.

Chapter 5 of the Regulation aims to formulate institutional policies to support CHEIE. It certainly does not meet the ambition as it regards the very limited range of institutions: schools and kindergartens. The other participants in the making of institutional policies - municipalities, RAE, Ministry of Education, NGOs and others are omitted, which minimizes the chance of real and sustainable institutional policies to support CHEIE. All the schools and kindergartens are required to include CHEIE in their strategies and to develop their institutional policies for implementation, incl. through programs for CHEIE: Art. 15. There are no set specific requirements for policies applying intercultural education.

Intercultural education: what is omitted by the standard?

Two key specific shortages are visible even with a "naked eye" at the first reading of the draft standard. One is related to Chapter 3 and the absence of any commitment on the modalities for the implementation of CHEIE. The standard is very optional in this respect: it sets the possible ways to implement four types of education but does not set minimum requirements for the number of hours in preparation types and levels of education, which must be separated for CHEIE and each of its components. Thus CHEIE or any of its types (eg. Intercultural education) could be introduced very formally, through an insignificant number of hours and forms in the types of training. And results will not be achieved. Minimum requirements have been established in previous versions of the standard, but inexplicably dropped from the published for public comments text.

Another obvious lack is the complete absence in Chapter 5 of the requirements of institutional policies to create a favorable multicultural environment for the implementation of intercultural education. The problem is well known: about three-quarters of Roma children are taught in classroom with Roma students. Usually this leads to a very low quality of education and difficult socialization. As a result, many of these students drop out and the percentage of Roma young people who continue in secondary schools and universities is too low. These are at least four types of situations: rural schools with a predominant percentage of Roma students for objective demographic reasons (in most villages Bulgarian population is older and childless), schools in Roma neighborhoods in large cities (the so called "primary segregated schools") Schools in urban areas that were ethnically mixed, but today are "Roma", because Bulgarian parents have moved their children to another school and ethnically mixed schools which have classes with only Roma pupils ( "segregated classes"). The new education act explicitly forbids the fourth type through art. 99, para. 4 and art. 62, para. 4 and set guidelines for finding solutions to the remaining three situations. It is clear that these decisions will be different. Eg. It is not a case of segregation when there is only one school in a village, and the problem should be  solved by systematic inter-school activities, which would involve Roma and BUlgarian students. Stopping the process of secondary segregation is achievable with a combination of municipal and school policies. In the case of primary segregated schools in Roma neighborhoods it is possible to think about reducing the stages of education that students acquire in them and systemic inter-school activities with the so called host schools. I.e. there are series of institutional policies at the level of school / kindergarten, inter-school and municipal policies that can and should be taken. Unfortunately, the standard does not include any requirements in this direction.

Previous versions of the standard contained strong and meaningful texts for the formulation and implementation of institutional policies to overcome the existing segregation and creating a multicultural environment. The standard in the published  for discussion draft has "dropped" these texts, which were proposed by consensual wide range of NGOs and experts. As a whole the standard misses the presence of Art. 99, para. 4 and art. 62, para. 4 of the act, and the existence of the problem of segregation in education.

The text of the Regulation has another gaps as well. For example, Annex 5 "Framework requirements for the organization of lesson of the class" highly underestimates the theme "Tolerance and Intercultural Dialogue": in primary and high school the only topic related to interculturality is one lesson a year! This fact is not less frightening than that in the lower secondary level are provided two lessons a year. All this, given that currently one third of the pupils are from ethnic minorities (according to expert estimates, the Ministry of Education does not collect such information), and Bulgaria is a member of the European family in which all peoples are minorities and interculturality is the guiding principle. Every Bulgarian student will inevitably meet, communicate, work and live with representatives of different ethnicities and cultures: in Bulgaria and abroad. Intercultural communication is one of the basic skills necessary for the successful implementation of each one of us. This need Annex 5 meets with one lesson per year. It's true that the application does not take all lesons of the class and allows more attention to specific topics according to local specifics, but even so the provided one lesson per year seems mildly not enough.

Regulation on CHEIE: how to improve it?

 At first reading, the submitted for public discussion draft of the Regulation is significantly narrower and technically from the original idea of it as the key / strategic and innovative elements in it are omitted. Of course, the submitted version is a draft and can be changed and improved. In what directions can this happens?

At least two additions and one change are needed:

1. Inclusion of the requirements for the development of institutional policies to overcome the existing segregation in education and the creation of a multicultural environment in Chapter 5: the previous draft of the regulation offered good texts in this regard. For example:

- Requirement to organize systematic extracurricular activities with students of different ethnicities and cultures in the case of schools with students of only one ethnic group;

- Requirement for the formulation and implementation of inter-school and municipal policies to prevent secondary segregation;

- Requirement to reduce the stages of education that students acquire in segregated schools to just one;

2. Including a separate article in Chapter 3 or a special appendix to determine mandatory minimum of hours and forms for carrying out CHEIE and its four components: on types of training and levels of education;

3. Increasing the number of hours provided for tolerance and intercultural dialogue in Annex 5 "Framework requirements for the organization of the lesson of the class"

Comments and proposals to the published for public comment texts should be submitted to "Educational programs and educational content", e-mail: kosta.kostov@mon.bg and a.zgurov@mon.bg to September 7, 2016.

The draft version, see here