One month after the supposed start of the school year (school here always starts on the 15th of September, even though that day fell on a Saturday this year, oddly), classes have yet to begin. But not everywhere. Some schools are open and functioning normally. Some are partially teaching. Some are closed. Some are open but not teaching. What am I talking about? There is a teachers strike in Bulgaria, but no one really understands what exactly is happening. Here’s what I’ve pieced together through various sources.The majority of teachers in Bulgaria from all grade levels are striking for higher wages. Some schools, however, are not striking at all, and no one can tell me why. At the schools that are striking, some are being picketed and no students are being taught, period. Some, however, are having a “sit down in-class” strike, meaning the teachers are showing up to school as they normally would, but then just sitting at their desks without saying a word.
Then of course there are the Peace Corps volunteer English teachers – some of whom are teaching, some of whom are not. Officially, the Peace Corps takes no stance on the strike, and teachers are, I believe, expected to teach as they normally would. So bizarrely, in some cases, students are expected to show up for their English classes but have no other classes during the day. Not surprisingly, few students bother to show up for English class, leaving many PCVs with empty classrooms. Then there are other volunteers who have been instructed by their principals to not teach at all, which must make for a very boring life for the poor volunteers.
The striking teachers are demanding a 100% raise. The education system here is run by the national government, not local, so striking teachers have been coming into Sofia to march and picket. Bulgarian teachers are paid a pittance by Western standards – average pay is around $150-$200 per month (and that high end only after 20 years experience), which is not enough to live on even in this cheap country. But still, to demand a 100% raise at one step is asking a lot. The Prime Minister was quoted as saying recently something along the lines of, “do they think we have a giant vault of money to tap?”
One of the biggest challenges the European Union faces in Bulgaria is the disparity in standard of living across member states. It is exceedingly difficult for a Bulgarian teacher to look across the continent and see, for example, a Dutch or German teacher making perhaps 3,000 Euro a month (more than 20 times what a Bulgarian would make) – and yet officially, on paper, all are members of this same unwieldy association, the EU.
In the abstract and rarefied world of Brussels, the Bulgarians have the same voting power in European affairs (the rich don’t get more votes, obviously), have the same rights, and are subject to the same laws. Yet at a very real, tangible, personal level, the standard of living and quality of life is vastly divergent between the poor East and the rich West.
I took the picture above in Sofia last week. I was sitting at a sidewalk café, and down the street came this parade of striking teachers.
