Kindergarten

Bulgaria is a republic with a parliamentary system of government. The territory of the Republic of Bulgaria is divided into 28 regions and 264 municipalities. The public education system includes kindergartens (detska gradina), schools and education services. Bulgarian is the official language in kindergartens. There are state, municipal and private kindergartens. The state kindergartens are regarded as being of national importance and therefore are directly funded by the central authorities, the Ministry of Education and Science or other ministries and bodies. The municipal kindergartens may be opened, transformed or closed upon an order issued by the mayor of the municipality following a decision of the Municipal Council. The funds for Education and Care in Early Childhood (ECEC) provision for the municipal kindergartens are allocated at local level by municipalities. Private nurseries (detska yasla – for children from 10 months to 3 years old) and kindergartens are not subsidized from the public funds.

Full information about early childhood education and care: http://www.minedu.government.bg/en/top_menu/general_education/

Another opportunity is to hire a babysitter. You can search suitable babysitters according to your criteria on the website: http://www.detegledachki.com

You can see the full list of all kinder gardens and schools in Bulgaria on: http://www.goldenpages.bg/en, on which are listed public as well as private institutions.
To orientate for their situation you could search them on the map: http://www.bgmaps.com

The schools, which offer foreign-language education, are mostly the private schools, the language high schools and those with extended education of foreign language.

The school education is free for foreigners with permanent stay in the country, accepted with an act of the Council of Ministries or accepted according to intergovernmental agreements, regulating this issue. The rest of the foreigners are accepted in Bulgarian schools and pay for their education in compliance with the Bulgarian legislation and the acts of the Minister of education.

You can also search for suitable kinder gardens and schools in the whole country on the websites:

• http://www.minedu.government.bg – a registry of the Ministry of education and science with a search engine with multiple criteria /town, type of the school, financing/
• http://www.kadedaucha.com
• http://www.zadecata.com – for some big cities like Varna, Burgas, Stara Zagora, Ruse, Sofia and others, information for the children with special needs, kinder gardens, sport clubs for children and other useful information.