Ivaylo Kalushev was only once in the private school near Sofia, where the murdered 15-year-old boy studied. This is what the retired Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev said in “The Day Begins”. Kalushev gave a lecture about caves. The school did not organize children’s camps with him. Valchev also said that there were other children there who had been absent for a long time, but this will become clear once the inspection is over.
On the occasion of the 15-year-old child who did not attend school, Valchev stated:
“The check has not yet been completed, but the initial data we have is that the child has not attended the school for a long time. In the last school year, 2024-2025, he had 114 days in which he was not present, out of a total of 170, which is almost two-thirds. The school did not impose the absences, the mechanism for covering and effectively integrating the children was not activated. In this way, the school became complicit in not exercising the child’s right to education.”
Valchev also admitted an oversight:
“Yes, the Regional Department of Education is being criticized in this case because it did not carry out an inspection. There are 98 schools in the Sofia region. The Regional Department itself has included an inspection of this school in this year’s plan. A planned inspection. It may sound unconvincing, but… I didn’t believe it at first either, but it is the truth. The fact is that it cannot carry out sufficiently intensive inspection of all schools. How can I say, there is less tendency to carry out inspections in the private schools. In general, there are two private schools in Sofia region, and it is the school with the highest results. In general, there are children who are more supported.”
The Minister of Education noted that in this case it is an exception to the rule.
“In practice, it turns out that in this private school children were paid not to go to school. Writing absences, compulsory education, it was not invented to harass children and parents, it was invented to guarantee children’s right to education. Children’s right to education is realized through the principle of compulsion. We have, unfortunately, quite a few public municipal schools that cover up absences. We have always been uncompromising towards this phenomenon.”
Regarding the concealment of absences, Valchev commented:
“In the case of the private school, I can’t tell you, with the public and municipal schools, so that they don’t lose students or just because they are trying hard enough to try every day to ensure the daily attendance. It is very difficult, especially when we are talking about some communities, to get the children to attend every day, so mediators were also involved, teams or mediators go to the homes every day, literally, as they say to me, wake them up, drive them to school.”
140 children are enrolled in the private school, but there is information that some of them do not attend class regularly.
“I am coming back to the case with the private school, we have yet to clarify the reasons, to see if this is a mass practice. I still do not have the complete information. Yes, we also have information about other children. The school did not enter the absences in the diary, in the national electronic system. There are 140 children in the school, most of them attended regularly, but there are other cases in which absenteeism was concealed.”
Valchev pointed out that the private school cannot be punished except by deregistration, but the decision will be up to the next Minister of Education.
“We control both private and public municipal schools. This is a school that is registered. We checked the registration process. It formally met the criteria for registration, but I say formally because they are documentary. A school guarantees that it has all the prerequisites for carrying out the educational process, but from then on it must comply with the regulations. The colleagues will have a comprehensive report, the next minister will decide on the basis of this report what measures to take. There is one inequality, it is that we cannot initiate disciplinary proceedings against the principal and the municipal school, we can only take disciplinary proceedings against the teachers. I say again, the decision is up to the next minister, but it is not completely responsible to speak without having the complete report of the educational system. I said yesterday that half of the teachers are ineligible. We see that some of them are exotic from an educational institution a collective resembles a circle of friends. The school has classes, there is a weekly timetable, there are extra activities of interests. I am cautious before seeing the full report. “
Valchev pointed out that the main problem with the private school near Sofia is that not all teachers there are legally competent.
“Each curriculum for each subject for each class is told what topics are studied, what knowledge, skills, attitudes are acquired, the so-called competences. The teaching methods each teacher has the freedom. But he must achieve these results, which are laid down in the curriculum. At the moment, we have no data that the school did not carry out training according to the curriculum.”
Regarding a possible lecture by Ivaylo Kalushev at the school, Valchev said:
“The information we have is that he was only on one visit, which was in the form of a talk, outside of school hours. There was no ongoing interaction between the school and his organization. The ministry controls the school, just to note, but it does not control private schools.”
date:2026-02-14 09:25:00
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