Today is my first day back at school.

<em>Hello</em>, ACS!

I've been looking forward to getting back into my classroom, making some plans and getting organized, catching up with my colleagues and writing letters of recommendation for some of my favorite students.

So I'm sad to say that I find myself kind of bummed out. The fact is, I just read this article about <a href="http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=142863" target="_blank">the fact that Bulgaria  is threatened by a shortage of teachers</a>.

I've know for a long time about the poor state of education in Bulgaria but here's the breakdown in numbers:
<ul>
	<li>The average age of teachers in Bulgaria is 50.</li>
	<li>The (maybe) average salary is 650 leva (or 325 Euro) a month but the average salary is very likely less than this.</li>
	<li>There is a shortage of teachers in the sciences.</li>
	<li>There are practically no male teachers.</li>
</ul>
Phew. That's depressing.

Then I wondered if my school ACS is included in this survey. It's interesting because in the English department we've got 50/50 split male and female teachers and I would guess our average age is probably 35-37. Then thinking about our school as a whole, are certainly more female teachers than male teachers but overwhelmingly so.  If our numbers are included in this, what would the numbers look like without us?

I didn't spend too much time thinking about this because there are clearly bigger issues to worry about and it boils down to this: the Ministry of Education doesn't get it.

The part that's the most alarming is how dismissive the Ministry of Education is about the shortage of teachers. The article explains the Ministry has "no reasons for alarm over the number of teachers in the country on grounds the number of students is also going down."

Oh, it's <em>almost</em> laughable. The only thing is, I pretty sure they are serious and this makes me sad. It also makes me wonder this big, hard question: <em>how can anyone get an education in a country like this?</em>

I'm afraid that they can't. So here I am. I'm left doing the only thing I can do.I shake my head and go to school. I find myself glad that I'm working at the American College of Sofia and sad for everyone else. And for the record, I hate this feeling.