The Regional Inspectorate of Education (RIE), Bulgaria is the territorial administration of the Ministry of Education and Science in the Blagoevgrad Region for the management and control of the public education system. RIE implements the state education policy to ensure equal access to education for all children of compulsory pre-school and school age (6 -16) in 133 schools and 75 kindergartens. RIE not only to guarantees an equal access to children in school but also makes sure that they stay in education and takes further measures to reduce absenteeism and the number of dropouts. RIE plays an intermediary role between schools and municipalities on local and regional level.
The professional experience of RIE’s staff is linked to inspection, methodological support, coordination of activities and organisation in education. They have the necessary skills to effectively guide the work of a team composed of various specialists with diverse goals (such as participants of the LLL-Forum) – training, evaluating training results, diagnosis and analysis of achievements in education.

The RIE team is involved in the implementation of a number of national programs. Currently RIE monitors and coordinates the successful implementation of projects such as “Improving the quality of education in secondary schools by introducing full-time organization”, “Qualification of teaching staff”; “NELLII – Initiatives to promote lifelong learning” or “Entrepreneurship”. Target groups involved in the project activities are children and students in the region but also parents.
REI also carries out and coordinates activities with representatives of the local government administration, of higher education and of non-governmental organizations.
Twice a year the Regional Inspectorate for Education in Blagoevgrad collects and summarizes the data from 133 schools concerning children attendance and dropouts. To this purpose the REI experts carry out regular school inspections aiming to evaluate children attendance and elaborate preventive measures undertaken by schools according to government regulation.

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