Youth must be educated in order to become competitive and profecient experts, able to survive on on the labor market

Alexander Malinin is headmaster of Aleko Konstantinov Vocational School of Tourism and Administration. In recent years the school used to train staff for the light industry. Today, however, it aims to provide staff in the municipality’s priority field – tourism.

Our meeting with Mr. Malinin coincided with an interesting moment from the life of the school – the state exam for the acquisition of second-grade qualification for professional culinary chefs, specialty waiter-bartender. The lecturers’ panel had gathered together to assess the skills of the would-be specialists. We were kindly invited to sample the beverages made with affection and skill, but also a certain dose of anxiety. Then the principal took us round the school, shared with us the need to renovate it, which we could see ourselves, and told us about the goals, specialties and activities of the school.

The strategic line of our educational institution is its preservation and assertion in the network of vocational secondary schools.

Our major aim is to train students in professions and specialties connected with the development of tourism and administrative service, determined by the infrastructure and the geographical position of Sapareva Banya Municipality and its promotion as an attractive tourism and resort center, whose objectives are set in the Plan for Regional Development of Kyustendil district and the Plan for Development of Sapareva Banya Minicipality.

To create good and competent specialists
An important peculiarity in the strategy of the school is the appropriate selection of specialties for student training and the compliance with the state plan for acceptance.

The need of good and competent specialists is a necessity and requirement imposed by our contemporary times. This objective trend in education, associated with the democratization and humanization in professional training, calls for highly qualified experts – knowledgeable and capable, independent and initiative, flexible in a variety of situations.

Aleko Konstantinov Vocational School offers training in modern and attractive professions and specialties connected with tourism and administrative service: Management and Hotel-Keeping, Organization and Management of Tourism, Secretary-Administrator and Administrative Service.

The teaching staff comprises university graduates striving for professional and personal realization.

Two foreign languages are taught at the school – Russian and English.

The heating in the school building has been supplied by a geothermal installation since 2002. Financial means are needed to carry out reparation works to improve the general state of the school, which led the school board to take the matter up with the Ministry of Education and Science.

For the purposes of effective and high-quality education
Two computer laboratories were set up in 2005. One of them – thanks to the Agency of Development of Communications and Communication Technologies with the Ministry of Transport and Communications under the I-class project, which is connected with the latest tendencies in the introduction of information technologies in education. The other – regarding computerized word processing – with a donation from ITEMA – P.G. Company, Sofia, as well as donations from other sponsors and the teaching body of the school.

For the practical needs of the students in Tourism, there is a detached room for Serving and Cooking, as the goal is to conduct the study and practical sessions in conditions close to the real ones in the tourism business.

Aleko Konstantinov School, Sapareva Banya, cooperates with the organs of local government and non-governmental organizations –ObA Sapareva Banya, the Council on Tourism, Rila National Park, as well as with representatives of the tourism sector – hotels and restaurants from Sapareva Banya and the resort of Panichishte.

The school-leavers find jobs depending on the state of the labour market – permanent or temporary.

The projects
In 2003 Aleko Konstantinov School drew up and carried out a project under Beautiful Bulgaria with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy for the training of unemployed mountain guides. Some 15 participants joined in and passed the final theoretical and practical exams to obtain certificates of professional training.

In April 2004 at the National Conference connected with student tourism in Veliko Tarnovo, I presented a report on behalf of the school about The Eco-tourism in Sapareva Banya – Possibilities and Perspectives for the Development of Student Tourism, and the teacher Dimitrina Malinina made a computer presentation on the topic.

In July 2004 students from the school, led by the teachers Dimitrina Malinova and Vesselka Nikolova, drew up and carried out a project entitled Folklore and Tourism in Sapareva Banya under the program Youth with the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Their partners were adolescents from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “The young Dutchmen got to know their peers, talked with them and touched the beauties and natural phenomena of Rila Mountain – the Ovcharchensky Waterfall, the Skakavitsa Waterfall, The Seven Rila Lakes, the Geyser. Forthcoming is a meeting in the Netherlands, which will be held under the motto “Bulgaria and the Netherlands – History and Culture”.

The achievements
Alongside their studies, students also take part in sports competitions. In the second stage of the students’ games for 2005 – the regional round, the school won a series of awards – second place for the junior football players (9-13 class), third place for the junior basketball players (9-13 class), fourth place for the junior volleyball players (9-13 class), coached by Kalinka Miloshova, the teacher of physical education and sports.

Our school also has a representative in the national junior biathlon team – Ilian Penev, an 11-class student of Management in Hotel-Keeping.

Hopefully with our education, labour and tenacity we will grow up as worthy and equal citizens of the Common European Home, but also with preserved national traditions and identity.