In total of 1,134 pupils in 32 vocational schools in 19 towns are enrolled in dual education under the Swiss Cooperation Project DOMINO (the Bulgarian acronym for “Dual Education for the Modern Requirements and Needs of Society”) in the new school year which opened on Monday, 17 September.
More than 170 Bulgarian and foreign companies are participating in the dual education project.
Launched in 2015 in Sofia and Kazanluk, Southern Bulgaria, with two occupations, the project now covers eleven occupations which are in big demand by businesses.
More than 80 per cent of the participating companies are Bulgarian, active mainly in machine building (24 per cent), food making and tourism (17 per cent), furniture making (16 per cent), electrical and energy engineering (15 per cent), electronics (15 per cent), transport engineering (13 per cent), and mining (two per cent).
Nearly 90 per cent of the 93 pupils who completed their dual education in the first two classes of the project have full-time jobs in companies where they were interns while studying.
Since the introduction of dual education, a total of 2,900 pupils have been enrolled in it.