The Education and Work: (Un-) equal Transitions with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe conference organized by the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Basel was held on the 24-25 September 2015 at Sofia University. The conference was attended by more than 60 participants including academic scholars from Bulgaria, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Rumania; policy makers, national NGOs, international organizations (ILO) and sociology and political sciences students.
On the second day the two policy sessions were moderated by the journalist Irina Nedeva from the Bulgarian National Radio and various stakeholders took part. European MEP Eva Paunova, Bulgarian MP Mariana Todorova, the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy – Zornica Rusinova, Natalia Georgieva from UNICEF, Anna Delibasheva from the Bulgarian National Employment Agency discussed together with the scientists the NEETs in Bulgaria and the policies focused on the education and the school to work transitions in Bulgaria including the pilot implementation of the dual system of education and training.
The NEGOTIATE project was briefly introduced by Rumiana Stoilova and project’s flyer in English and Bulgarian were handed over to the audience.
The Education and Work: (Un-) equal Transitions with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe conference is part of the final stage of the project “Social disparities and regional differences in school-to-work transitions in Bulgaria” (http://www.schooltowork.bg/), a bi-national research project that includes lead experts from the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at BAS and the University of Basel (Switzerland) and it is funded by the Bulgarian-Swiss Cooperation Programme, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science.
On this event the leaflets of Negotiate project were distributed among the participants ang guests and additional information on the two research modules – employers vignette experiment and in debt interviews with three generations about difficulties within their early stage labour market entry.
words by Gabriela Yordanova