WK,QWHUQDWLRQDO&RQIHUHQFHRQ(OHFWULFDO0DFKLQHV'ULYHVDQG3RZHU6\VWHPV(/0$

Problems and 7rends in 7raining of (lectrical (ngineers

Mariya Ivanova Marinova1, Marin Slavov Marinov2
1
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electrical Technologies, TU - Varna , e-mail: m_i_marinova@tu-varna.bg
2
Department of Theoretical and Measuring of Electrical Engineering, TU-, e-mail: m_s_marinov@abv.bg

Abstract — Preparation of highly qualified electrical engineers is

a key issue for the country's economy. Building specialists like that accumulate and escalate in the training of electrical
these is directly related to the secondary education problems, engineers can be summarized as follows:
unclear vision of university education and business. Based on the
analysis of some of the most significant problems, a number of
comparisons and analyses have been made with regard to the
impact of some of the most important factors on the educational
process of training electrical engineers in Bulgaria. Specific
measures are suggested to address some of the issues related to
training, funding and stabilizing the engineering education.

Keywords—Higher education, electrical engineers, problems in

the engineering education

I. INTRODUCTION

University education in the Republic of Bulgaria is a
controversial topic. Very much has been written and discussed,
but real positive changes have not yet been achieved. Over the
last few years, the shortage of engineers in industry has been a
current issue of concern. For some reasons, the initial focus
was on the shortage of IT specialists only. No doubt, the need
for IT specialists is globally recognized, but it is hard to
believe that universities have not prepared enough specialists
in this field, for they are the most wanted specialities in every
technical university. This is not the case, however, with the
training of engineers in the field of machine building and
electrical engineering - the two most sought-after professional
groups of engineers not only in Bulgaria, but also in Europe.
This was also noted in a letter from the Association of
Industrial Capital in Bulgaria dated 3 March 2016 to the
Minister of Education and Science and to the Minister of
Finance of the Republic of Bulgaria [6]. Over the last five
years, the number of students in these specialities has dropped
sharply - Fig.1. And the problem is certainly rooted not only in
the demographic crisis; it is a complex problem directly
reflecting the reality in our educational system. The purpose of
this publication is not only to highlight the main issues, but
also to suggest specific measures for improvement of the
electrical engineers' training environment, including the
motivation of young people to orient themselves to
engineering education.
ȱȱ. ANALYSIS
Based on years of observation from the viewpoint of
managerial positions and participation in projects on high-
quality university education, [3][4][5][9][10] the main problems
Fig. 1. An extract of the announced enrollment of students
in the professional field of Electrical Engineering,
Electronics and Automation for the last five years in the
four universities with the greatest number of students in this
professional field.
¾ The transformation of education into a business
service with a fixed price – each student brings money,
which for the engineering specialities is BGN 1663.2 per
student a year, multiplied by a coefficient for each professional
field in the university, determined by the methodology of
Decree of the Council of Ministers 328 [8]. This coefficient
depends on a complex assessment based on factors, such as: the
quality of training and the need for such specialists on the
labour market. The assessment is based on 20 indicators in
three main groups: training process, research and realization on
the labour market. The three indicators with the highest weight
are: program accreditation (20%), unemployment among
graduates (15%) and applicability of the acquired university
education (10%);
¾ Using university education as part of the social policy
- the number of available places for students' enrolment in the
public and private universities is greater than the number of
secondary school leavers. The policy of funding the university
education does not create a competitive environment;
moreover, it is rather conducive to easy enrolment for everyone
who is willing to become a university student, which eventually
results in so-called "bad" practices of artificially maintaining a
certain number of students. This enables the statistics to report
low unemployment rates among the secondary school leavers;
¾ Motivation of secondary school leavers to apply for
engineering courses - There is a lack of clear vision of the

‹,((( 
secondary education role in the future preparation of engineers.
Fewer and fewer are the school students who enroll in technical
secondary schools - Fig.2. Since funding of secondary
education is similar to that of higher, i.e. the money follows the
Fig. 2. Number of school leavers according to the specifics
of the school
student, most of the technical secondary schools have changed
their profile and now their priority is the admission into
extrinsic but "fashionable" specialities. Figure 2 shows that,
despite the demographic crisis in the country, there is no
strategy for keeping the balance in the 7th and 8th grades. The
profiled secondary schools, which are mainly mathematical and
linguistic, have enjoyed almost constant admission rates over
the past 10 years, while the technical schools have been
increasingly turning into undesirable ones;
¾ Problems in the secondary education, including
shortage of motivated staff in special and specialized technical
subjects - The delegated budgets in secondary education do not
allow the technical and technological schools, which offer
specialities in electrical engineering and machine building, to
develop and maintain adequate material and technical facilities.
Even maintaining the existing ones is rather difficult
nowadays. Fewer and fewer are the teachers who enter the
technical schools to teach special technical subjects. Due to the
limited number of hours in these subjects and the undersized
classes, these teachers are forced to teach a variety of subjects,
often quite different in nature, in order to fulfil the required
work load. It is extremely difficult to fulfil even the required
work load for mathematics and physics, as those are
undesirable specialities at universities with pedagogical
profiles. For example, at Sofia University, in the academic year
of 2016/2017, in the specialities of Pedagogy of Teaching
Physics and Mathematics and Physics and Informatics
(professional field Pedagogy of Teaching ...), the admission
was zero, in Pedagogy of Teaching Mathematics and
Informatics (prof. field Pedagogy of Teaching ...): 30 students
in the first year, Engineering Physics (prof. field Physical
Sciences): 8 students in the first year (17 in total for four years);
Physics (prof. field Physical Sciences): 5 students in the first
year (25 in total) [20]. The situation is similar at Shumen
University, where in the speciality Pedagogy of Teaching
Biology and Physics (prof. field Pedagogy of Teaching ...) only
10 students were enrolled in the first year (23 in total), and in
Pedagogy of Teaching Mathematics and Informatics (prof. field
Pedagogy of Teaching ...): 9 students in the first year [20];
¾
Lack of a real connection between secondary and
higher education, allowing continuity and providing young
people with prospects and realization in our own country - Very
few of the secondary schools maintain a real connection with
the Bulgarian universities. Excluding the two secondary schools
- Secondary School of Computer Technologies and Systems -
Pravets and Technological School of Electronic Systems
within TU - Sofia, as well as the suggested building of a similar
school within TU - Varna, this good practice has not been
developed in Bulgaria. It has become an established idea that
the primary objective of each school is to achieve high results at
the final school leaving exams so as to demonstrate a high level
of preparation, and not to build a strategy for school leavers'
future realization. It is true that each school student is a strictly
individual person and their future development is their own
decision, but in the profiled and general secondary schools,
there are almost none of additional forms of practical training
courses suitable for future engineering education. The
involvement of teachers' teams and students in various projects
under Operational Programme Human Resources Development,
such as: Making the school attractive to young people and
Good luck, is mostly on thematics of representative nature
rather than on applied sciences. Only under the Student
Practices Project do school students experience a real
production environment, but the companies with engineering
focus that participate in the project are too few, especially in the
field of electrical engineering. In the technical secondary
schools, specialities such as Electrical Engineering have long
not been attractive. In addition, admission into state universities
and their funding directly depend on the level of unemployment
among graduates and the applicability of the acquired
speciality. Such information, however, for secondary schools,
such as applicability of the acquired secondary education and
future realization, including the opportunities for further
education in the relevant field, does not have any bearing on
their subsidization. Moreover, very often, the secondary school
teachers themselves demotivate future professional
development at Bulgarian universities by emphasizing the
"class and level" of foreign universities. It has become the
practice of secondary education to boast with preparing
students for foreign universities only, or, at worst, for Sofia
University.
¾ Outdated Higher Education Act, which, in its part on
university student training, is inadequate to real labour market -
There are lots of discussions on the topic of "the outdated
Higher Education Act". In recent years, this topic has been a
hit, although the Act has been changed more than 75 times, of
which 27 amendments and additions have been made in the last
5 years. There are so many changes that some of them
contradict the additional regulations and ordinances. But the
main problem, in the part of university education, is that
dogmas are established which do not correspond to the strategic
goal of high-quality university education. In Article 48 of the
Higher Education Act, for instance, there is a clear regulation
concerning the academic staff: habilitated (associate professor

and professor) and non-habilitated (assistant and head
assistant). Another example is Art. 3. from the Ordinance on
State Requirements for Acquisition of Bachelor, Master and
Specialist Degrees, which reads: "(1) The lecture courses on
compulsory and elective subjects are assigned to habilitated
lecturers. (2) Up to 30 per cent of the lecture courses may be
assigned to non-habilitated lecturers with PhD degree. This
makes it clear that all lecture courses should only be assigned to
habilitated lecturers or to PhDs. However, for some specific
subjects, there is no better lecturer than a representative of a
leading production company. This is especially important in
Master's programs. And it's not about delivering one or two
lectures, but about the entire course. In Bulgaria, however, very
few business representatives have a scientific degree. It should
be noted that the best specialized technical training is acquired
in a real production environment.
¾ Absence of active strategy for higher education
development - The latest strategy for the development of higher
education was adopted in 2015. Overall, the analysis of the
actual situation was profound and accurate. But very few of the
planned measures for the period 2015-2017 have been
accomplished. Out of the 54 activities planned to carry out until
2017, about 15 have been accomplished in full and 5 in part.
Some of the measures planned were rather drastic, such as the
elimination of the Professional Bachelor's degree. This resulted
in transformation of some colleges into universities and so
specialities, for which the 3-year training period was sufficient,
were transformed into bachelor's programs with a 4-year period
of training. Similarly with the idea of training doctoral students
only in so-called Research Universities. If this idea is
implemented this will deprive some of the universities in
Bulgaria of the opportunity to develop actively and to protect
their research function in the future. The delay in the
implementation of certain measures, such as: “Creating a
working and effective mechanism for assessing the professional
realization of graduating students“, “Introducing uniform
national minimum criteria for applicants for academic positions
and academic degrees in professional fields and scientific
fields“, „Introduction of a new methodology for determining
the differentiated norms for the maintenance of the training of a
student on the basis of the real value of the training“, “co-
financing, information provision, .. ... rules for accountability of
the project activity“, “introducing incentives for excellent
students by differentiating the amount of scholarships or by
creating incentives for the payment of student credits“ [17]
and others, makes it difficult to assess universities objectively
and, of course, to fund them adequately.
¾
Lack of clear strategy and motivation for the business
to get involved in training of technical specialists - In general,
business is considered an important factor when it comes to
higher education, but this only reflects the fact that it is the
main consumer and demander. This activity is related to
imposing duties on the coordination of curricula and
programmes, giving opinions on the need for certain specialists,
supporting the training in real business environment, supporting
the development of material and technical facilities, assessing
the students' preparation and their realization. All this means a
lot of obligations along with their specific business tasks. At the
same time, there are no real incentives against these obligations,
which in turn does not motivate them to be active. On the other
hand, for objective reasons, most small and medium-sized
companies, which prevail in the Bulgarian economy, do not
have a high-tech profile and do not look for graduates, which
also alienates business from academic education;
¾
A rating system with a number of weaknesses on the
basis of which the professional fields are funded - the rating
system itself is a good database to allow different users, such as
students, parents, managers of different structures and units, to
make analyses and rankings. But in the last few years, with very
little improvement, it has been used both for determining the
admissions in state universities and for their funding. In
principle, the idea of funding on the basis of various criteria,
some of which are subjective, is controversial. The assessment
is based on 20 indicators, with three of them having the highest
weight: programme accreditation (20%), unemployment among
graduates (15%) and applicability of the acquired higher
education (10%). But is it possible to assess the successful
realization of students (employment rates, starting salary) and
the real unemployment, provided that at present there is no
"effective mechanism" for this assessment? The idea of
realization in the first year after graduation is absolutely
unrealistic nowadays for a number of reasons, such as:
continuing education at a higher level in Bulgaria or abroad,
starting own business in a similar but not exactly the same field
of expertise, looking for a more successful realization, and so
forth. A very large proportion of university graduates seek a
more successful professional realization abroad; however, this
is not reported in the rating system. Perhaps the idea is correct -
to seek only a realization on the Bulgarian labour market, but
considering how limited it is at present and how low the level
of pay, this is not a good alternative for young people. Similar
is the problem with the admission into professional fields. At
present, the only admission really supported by the Ministry of
Education and Science is in the professional fields
Communication and computer equipment and Informatics and
mathematics. The idea is that there are not enough IT
specialists. But even if all students went to these fields, under
the current conditions on the labour market in Bulgaria, they
would again seek realization abroad because of the much better
pay or take advantage of the opportunity to work from
wherever they want. Many such specialists work from Bulgaria
for foreign companies. On the other hand, the increase in the
number of places for these specialities greatly restricts the
admission into the other professional fields, one of the most
disadvantaged being Electrical engineering, Electronics and
Automation. In a few years, under the current system, there
would be no specialists in electrical machines and devices,
automation, electronics, etc. just as there are no machine
engineers now. The system would also destroy the teaching
staff, and that would affect the future training of technical
specialists even deeper. And the idea of limiting the admission
into some professional fields such as Administration and
Management, Tourism, Social Activities and others would be a
good one, if training was only in state universities, but in this

particular case, it is pure populism, as it would give more
chances to private universities, which are already developing in
these areas anyway.
Fig. 3. Relationship between children born in the period 1988-1997,
secondary school leavers from 2007-2016 and announced admission into
universities from 2011 to 2016
¾ Demographic crisis - A lot is being written about this
problem now, and it is of crucial importance for higher
education. Fig. 3 shows the relationship between birth rates
from 1988 to 1997 [21], the actual number of secondary school
leavers for the period 2007-2016 (data for this number are
available in the registers of the Ministry of Education and
Science as well[20]) and the number of first-year university
students (2011-2016 according to the relevant Ministerial
Council Regulations) [11] [12] [13] [14][15][16]. It is clear that
the places available at universities are up to 1.3 times (in 2016)
more than all school leavers in the respective year.
Publications in media show that every year between 50%
and 80% of school leavers from profiled secondary schools
continue their education abroad. Provided that these schools
have been preparing around 30% of all school students in recent
years, it means that about 20% of school leavers on average
leave Bulgaria, and they are the best ones. The elite conquers
the peaks of science in foreign educational institutions, while
the policy in this country, including the Ministry of Education,
is to support this trend. Unfortunately, due to lack of any
adequate measures by the Ministry of Education, this trend is
also spreading to secondary education and if necessary
measures are not taken soon, the secondary education will also
lose its most gifted children. Even on the official website of the
Ministry of Education, there is a large advertisement of foreign
universities and opportunities for realization in them [20] - in
the section "higher schools" - "useful information"
On the other hand, in recent years, the problem of
increasing birth rates among the Roma population rather than
among the Bulgarian, has been deepening. The fact is that these
children study up to 8th or 10th grade. Based on census data
from 2011, the proportion of children aged 0 to 9 with non-
Bulgarian mother tongue is about 26% [2]. At the same time,
according to the psychologist Professor Petar Ivanov for 50% of
the children born in 2013, Bulgarian was not their mother
tongue[18]. Similar data are also reported by the Syndicate of
Bulgarian Teachers: for 43% of first-graders in Bulgaria in
2016, Bulgarian language was not their mother tongue[19].
This means that not only low birth rates, but the children
themselves will be less motivated to continue their education.
Despite the constant desire of each government to address
the "educational problems", it all begins and ends with the
development of documents for secondary education, whereby
the priority is placed on the curriculum mostly. Higher
education needs real steps towards stabilization and
development, and not towards confrontation.
The state of Technical Universities (TU) has been
particularly heavy in recent years. There have been fewer
applicants for such basic specialities as Electrical Engineering,
although various documents, and the media too, emphasize the
"sharp need for qualified technical specialists in a wide range of
occupations in the field of technical sciences, particularly in the
field of machine building, electrical engineering, ... "[6]. An
electrical engineer is difficult to build, a very serious
preparation and excellent material facilities are needed, the
latter, unfortunately, rather expensive. The preparation of such
specialists cannot only be carried out by virtual models and
computer simulations. Adequate funding is needed for
development of models, laboratory exercises with modern
equipment, and practice in real production environment. All
this has to be achieved in State TUs with a subsidy, which is
only slightly greater (1.5 times) than the subsidy for
professional fields which do not require any material and
technical facilities - fig. 4. This is actually an unequal start. The
second important component is research, but that is also
directly related to the available facilities at Universities, and its
development and enrichment depends on the state subsidy. Of
course, work on different projects gives some freedom for
development to Universities, but given the serious workload of
the teaching staff, the remaining free resource for serious
science is too little. The idea of so-called Research Universities
is good, but directing all PhD students solely to them would
negatively affect the development of the other universities, as
they prioritize PhD students for future realization as their
academic staff.
Fig.4. Government allowance for the education of one
student in different professional fields [7]
A number of studies and analyses have been conducted
and some interesting suggestions for appropriate funding made
[1], [3] which can be used as the basis for solving this most

pressing problem of higher education – the adequate funding of
the system.
Suggestions
Based on these analyses, the following specific
recommendations can be given for improvement of engineering
education, particularly in the field of electrical engineering:
1. Development and realization of a feasible strategy for the
secondary education advancement, directly related to the
technical schools preparing for the occupation of an electrician:
turning them into protected ones with smaller classes - up to 10
students per class; limiting the number of students in profiled
schools (for example up to 3-4 classes) and other schools with
profiles that are not conducive to the country's economy;
determining the subsidy for a school student commensurate
with adequate funding of modern material and technical
facilities;
2.Administrative and tax incentives for companies which
cooperate in providing facilities for technical schools and
universities training students in the professional field of
Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Automation, as well as
practice for students in real business environment;
3. A new Higher Education Act, adequate to modern life
and training, with a clear vision of expanding the opportunities
for students' preparation by involving not only highly qualified
academic staff but also leading specialists from the technical
industry with proven contribution to its development;
4. Development and implementation of an effective
mechanism for evaluation of students' future realization
expressed in relative units, related to the data on a particular
region, and not on a national scale only.
5. Taking into account the regional specificities of the
country and the long-term need for technical specialists.
6. Ensuring opportunities for greater admission into
engineering specialities, limited only by the capacity of the
professional field for a given university.
7. Updating Decree No 162 of the Council of Ministers on
differentiated norms for the maintenance of a student in
professional fields, taking into account the actual costs of their
training, in compliance with the modern requirements on
adequate and modern material and technical facilities and
adequate remuneration of the academic staff.
8. Funding of priority professional fields should be based on
an updated methodology, where the number of students is the
average equivalence of admission rates over the last three years
without corrections. This will ensure the sustainability and
stability of the universities and the opportunity, within a three-
year period, to take the necessary measures for alteration of
their policy if necessary. The low remuneration of university
teachers and the restrictions imposed, for instance, the
requirement that a new assistant should defend a doctoral thesis
within four years or otherwise should leave, discourage young
people from scientific careers at universities. And finally, the
decrease in the number of already established academic staff
due to the closure of specialities considered not "attractive" to
young people but essential for the economy, will make it
impossible to prepare such in the future.
III. CONCLUSIONS
This analysis of the problems in higher education and
training of engineers is not complete. There are much more
problems and it is impossible to highlight them all in an article.
The suggestions made above are also a small part of this so
pressing issue. However, they concern not only the training of
electrical engineers but also the training of machine engineers,
energy engineers and specialists in other field of industry, who
can help transform the Bulgarian economy for the better and
therefore improve the living standards in the country and
motivate young people to work and live here. The accumulated
problems cannot be solved immediately, but a consistent
approach is needed, based on a broad academic debate by
people directly involved in the preparation of engineers, and not
just another administrative act developed by an administration
lacking practical experience or adequate ideas of the real
problems and needs of this specific kind of training. This is the
only way to find the most accurate approach so as the effected
change may combine national traditions with international
trends and regional specificities in the preparation of highly
qualified engineers, motivated and adequate to the needs of
labour market.
REFERENCES
[1] Adr., Nikolov, Finansirane na visheto obrazovanie. Mezhdunarodniyat opit
i balgarskite perspektivi, IPI,2013.
[2] B. Yurukov, Urok po zhurnalistika, // yurukov.net., 2014
[3] D. Pavlov, Hr.. Hristov, and M. Marinova, Kachestvo na Universitetskoto
obrazovanie, Sb. Statii na uchastnitsite v TEMPUS proekt, UM_JEP-
13388-98, ISBN 954-9883-06-X, ɋ., 2000
[4] P. Petrov, M. Marinova, M. Todorova, Hr. Tahrilov, and J. Slavova,
Nyakoi problemi I perspektivni vazmozhnosti pri prakticheskoto
obuchenie na studentite ot tehnicheskite Universiteti, Godishnik na TU –
Varna, Sbornik dokladi ot yubilejnata nauchna konferenciya s
mezhdunarodno uchastie “Avtomatika, upravlenie i informatsionni
tehnologii, 2010.,pp-189-193, ISSN 1311-896X;
[5] P. Petrov, M. Iv. Marinova, M. Todorova, and J. Slavova , Innovative
practical training of students from Technical universities in a modern
business environment, VI International Conference, Strategy of Quality in
Industry and Education, 2010, ɪ.696. ISBN 978-966-8125-97-3, ISBN
978-966-1696-24-1 (T.2(1))
[6] Pismo izh. ʋ 371/03.08.2016g. ot Upravitelniya savet na Asociaciyata na
industrialniya capital v Balgariya do Ministyra na obrazovanieto i naukata
na R. Balgariya i Ministara na finansite na R. Balgariya
[7] Postanovlenie ʋ 162 na MS ot 20.06.2001 za opredelyane na
diferentsiranite normative za izdrazhka na edin student po profesionalni
napravleniya, 02.09.2016.
[8] Postanovlenie ʋ 328 na MS ot 30.11.2015 za opredelyane na sredstvata
ot darzhavniya byudzhet za izdrazhka na obuchenieto v darzhavnite wisshi
uchilishta v zavisimost ot kompleksnata ocenka za kachestvo na
obuchenieto i saotvetstvieto mu s potrebnostite na pazara na truda.
[9] Proekt BG 051PO001 -3.3.06-0005 ȾɈ 1-89/19.03.2012 “Razvitie na
potentsiala na doktoranti, postdoktoranti, mladi ucheni I spetsializanti ot
inzhenernite nauki v TU – Varna I tehniya prinos za razvitie na
ikonomikata, bazirana na znanieto, 2012.
[10] Proekt BG051PO001-4.3.04 „Razvitie na elektronni formi za
distantsionno obuchenie v sistemata na vissheto obrazovanie” , 2012-2014

[11] Reshenie ʋ 320 na MS ot 19.05.2011g. za utwarzhdavane broya na
priemanite za obuchenie student i doktoranti waw wisshite uchilishta I
nauchnite organizacii na Republika Balgariya prez uchebnata 2011-2012
[12] Reshenie ʋ 375 na MS ot 11.05.2012g. za utwarzhdavane broya na
priemanite za obuchenie student i doktoranti waw wisshite uchilishta I
nauchnite organizacii na Republika Balgariya prez uchebnata 2012-2013
[13] Reshenie ʋ 288 na MS ot 10.05.2013g. za utwarzhdavane broya na
priemanite za obuchenie student i doktoranti waw wisshite uchilishta I
nauchnite organizacii na Republika Balgariya prez uchebnata 2013-2014
[14] Reshenie ʋ 293 na MS ot 13.05.2014g. za utwarzhdavane broya na
priemanite za obuchenie student i doktoranti waw wisshite uchilishta I
nauchnite organizacii na Republika Balgariya prez uchebnata 2014-2015
[15] Reshenie ʋ 343 na MS ot 18.05.2015g. za utwarzhdavane broya na
priemanite za obuchenie student i doktoranti waw wisshite uchilishta I
nauchnite organizacii na Republika Balgariya prez uchebnata 2015-2016
[16] Reshenie ʋ 328 na MS ot 03.05.2016g. za utwarzhdavane broya na
priemanite za obuchenie student i doktoranti waw wisshite uchilishta I
nauchnite organizacii na Republika Balgariya prez uchebnata 2016-2017
[17] Strategiya za razvitie na vissheto obrazovanie v Republika Balgariya za
perioda 2014-2020.
[18] V. Sherbanova, Balgarskiyat ezik ne e majchin za 50% ot novorodenite u
nas, offnews.bg, 19.12.2013.
[19] V. Stancheva, Za 43% ot decata u nas balgarskiyat ne e majchin ezik,
otbelyazva uchitelskiyat sayuz, news.bg, 25.03.2016.
[20] https://www2.mon.bg/AdminUReg/html/reports.asp#
[21] https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Danni za demografskite pokazateli na
Balgariya