News

7 July 2025

The Ombudsman Institution sent a letter to the Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev because of complaints from parents and kids who go to Sunday schools abroad.

The reason is the new draft Order determining the amount of funding for schools included in the list of Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad for the next 2025/2026 school year. Citizens disagree with the draft order published for public discussion, which “introduces a territorial restriction on the funding of students studying online when a subsidized Sunday school already exists in the relevant country” in point 8.

Therefore, the Ombudsman Institution requested the Minister of Education to provide an opinion on the need to introduce the territorial principle in organized e-learning without attendance hours for children living abroad. It states that if this change needs to be introduced, it should apply to newly enrolled students in the 2025/2026 school year, so as to avoid a possible outflow and demotivation of children wishing to study in Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad.

According to the complainants, the Ministry of Education and Science is introducing the change in question in contradiction with “the spirit of Council of Ministers Decree No. 90/2018, which does not provide for territorial division in online education” and there are inconsistencies in legal and organizational aspects. They find that “there is no justification for the need to link the funding of Sunday schools to the country of residence and that the restriction contradicts Article 26, para. 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria and Article 4, paragraph 1 of the Pre-school and School Education Act for equal access to quality education, regardless of place of residence.”  

Parents insist on the possibility for their children to study online in Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad in authorized schools in a country other than the one where the family resides. They also request that “the choice of organized online education for their children should not be limited by geographical principles.”