By Petar Kostadinov

At first underestimated by the academic community in the country, private universities today are strongly represented on the market. The best examples are New Bulgaria University in Sofia, Varna Free University and American University in Bulgaria in Blagoevgrad. The reason for this doubt was more than obvious. All of these three universities started teaching students by applying the Western type of education, which included credit systems, written tests, guest speakers, etc.

It took state-owned universities 10 years to acknowledge the advantages of this system and the shortcomings of Bulgarian traditional education.

But it is still with such shortcoming that some professors at state universities continue to hold course. Take, for instance, how exams are conducted at what is considered to be the best Bulgarian university, St Kliment Ohridski in Sofia.

An exam organised by the university’s law faculty can last a day or even more, depending on the number of students needing to undergo oral evaluations.

The students are given a book, usually written by the professor who performs the exam.

Along with that, the students are given a list of questions that, in 90 per cent of the cases, match the textbook’s content.

This is all the students need in order to take the exam, because any other additional material or literature is simply not on the list of questions compiled by the professor.
The exam itself is a journey to eternity. Usually the students in the most popular disciplines, such as law and international policy, number about 100 every year.

On the day of the exams, students are asked to come to the university and line up in front of the professor’s office. The reason is because the professor wants to conduct an “interview” with every individual student so that he can see how well the student has learnt the textbook. Because it is not physically possible that this happen in one hour, students make their own waiting list. Following the list, students start entering the office one by one. This usually begins at about 9am.

Inside, the professor presents each student with one of the questions from the list and the latter has about 30 minutes to think over it. Meanwhile, the professor conducts his quizzing with the previous student to have entered. With 100 students waiting to be examined, the professor has little choice but to organise the exam over three or even more days.

There are, of course, some individuals who are ready to face the students in a single day. For the latter, however, this means a day of waiting outside the door, waiting for their turn to arrive unless they have managed to place themselves early on the waiting list.

Let alone the fact that students waste an entire day literally hanging at the door, the lack of objective examination criteria makes the whole exercise an ineffective one because all that students need to do is memorise the textbook. This is more than sufficient to please the professor.

Anything else could mean another day of waiting in September, when those who have failed can try again.