Supporting Civic Education in Bulgaria
May 11, 2023
Share this Article
In spring 2023, a new Handbook on Civic Education for Legal Practitioners Supporting Teachers in Class, jointly authored by Sofia Platform and Street Law, Inc., was published in Sofia, Bulgaria. The handbook results from Street Law’s Integrating Volunteer Legal Professionals into Civic Education project which the two organizations jointly implemented from 2020 to 2022.
The project was created in response to the new, national civic education curriculum developed by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science (MOES). The project’s goal was to improve teaching methods and curricular materials for delivering high-quality civic education throughout Bulgaria, in collaboration with MOES.
The project brought important content knowledge and expertise into Bulgarian civics classrooms. Street Law partnered with Sofia Platform, one of the country’s leading civic education organizations, to develop new law-related lessons and pilot a model of lawyer-teacher teams co-teaching these lessons in Bulgarian secondary schools.
This initiative culminated this spring with the publication of the handbook, which will provide ongoing support to educators and volunteer legal professionals as they teach law-related lessons together in the classroom for years to come. The handbook includes engaging lessons on rule of law, anti-corruption, and EU law, among other topics. Each lesson aligns with the MOES Civics Framework.
Participants spoke highly of the project. One Bulgarian teacher noted, “We will continue to discuss this class for a long time. It was full of creativity and teamwork. Thanks to the feedback, it is visible that the students changed their values and viewpoint.”
A student from Petrich, Bulgaria, said, “The general way of conducting the class was likable. Even though I am acquainted with everything we discussed. The thing that I did not like is that the class is only one and I would like to have many more classes like this one.”
Street Law, Inc. and Sofia Platform hope to scale the success of this project and further expand lawyer support for civic education in Bulgaria.
This project was made possible with support from the U.S. Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the joint efforts of Street Law, Inc., Sofia Platform, and UnitedLex/DXC Technologies.
