FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   >>   >|  
certs, and other cultural activities are popular leisure-time diversions. The cinema is extremely popular in both town and village, although increasing television viewing has been reducing cinema audiences. In addition to sports, young people spend much of their leisure time listening to popular music and also dancing. In fact, they are periodically reprimanded by the BKP leadership for spending too much of their time in leisure activities and not enough in socially useful work. CHAPTER 6 EDUCATION The educational system in Bulgaria, as in the Balkans generally, began to develop in a real sense only in the nineteenth century, principally because Bulgaria had been under Turkish rule for 500 years. As education was of little concern to the Turks and an educated Bulgarian population would only represent a threat to their regime, the advancement of a formal educational system was either openly repressed or neglected by the Turks. As a result, the literacy rate in Bulgaria was one of the lowest in Europe at the time of liberation in 1878. During the six decades between liberation and World War II, the educational system had made great progress in providing basic education to young people, but there remained a hard core of illiterates in the adult population. After the Communists took over in 1944, a massive drive in adult education virtually eliminated the problem of illiteracy within a decade. The educational system under the Communists was essentially patterned on that of the Soviet Union, and the desire on the part of Bulgarian authorities to stay within that pattern brought about a general cautiousness as they restructured the system to make it coincide with the newly imposed ideology. Although educational reforms have been enacted with great frequency, they have often dealt with matters of form rather than of substance. The basic adherence to Soviet guidelines has remained intact throughout the years of communist rule. As in most Eastern European countries, the major objectives of the Bulgarian educational system have been premised on both ideological issues and the demands of the national economy. One of the primary goals of the system--both stated and implicit--is the production of the ideal communist citizen who will work for the realization of "socialist construction" and the betterment of the socialist society. A second major premise of the system is that the demands of the economy must be met
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

system

 

educational

 

Bulgaria

 
popular
 
leisure
 

education

 

Bulgarian

 
liberation
 

demands

 

communist


Communists

 

population

 

economy

 
remained
 

people

 

cinema

 

socialist

 
Soviet
 

activities

 
virtually

imposed

 
coincide
 

massive

 

ideology

 
general
 

authorities

 

desire

 

decade

 

patterned

 

essentially


pattern

 

brought

 

cautiousness

 

restructured

 
eliminated
 

Although

 
problem
 
illiteracy
 
production
 

citizen


implicit

 

stated

 

primary

 
realization
 

premise

 

construction

 

betterment

 
society
 

national

 
issues