From 24 to 26 April, the 19th Olympiad in Civic Education was held in the city of Gabrovo, where Karolina Hampton and Atanaska Kyoseva from the National Commercial High School showed what it means to be an active young citizen!
The students developed projects and carried out activities in order to implement them in the community. With these activities, they qualified at the regional level – the first round of the Olympiad.
In the second round, they participated with an analysis of cases on current civic topics and problems assigned to them by the National Commission.
The third round is the oral defense before the members of the National Commission at the Ministry of Education and Science, composed of Prof. Hr. Todorov, Prof. M. Metodiev, DSc, Dr. E. Vardzhiyska, Assoc. Prof. G. Kotsev, L. Grigorova, and an audience. In this part, the competition is especially intense because the students must demonstrate complex skills in order to defend their project and answer the commission members’ questions. They proved that their ideas are an expression of critical thinking and creativity and have high social significance, changing the lives of the people around us.
✨ What did they achieve? They were the only ones in Plovdiv Region in their age group admitted to the oral defense. They entered into competition with the best projects in the country. They received high marks and flattering reviews from the National Commission.
Karolina Hampton, with the project “The Uncomfortable Questions We Need to Ask,” related to students’ sex education, placed fourth in the third age group. In the intense competition among the students, only 0.5 points was the difference between third and fourth place in the group.
Atanaska Kyoseva, with the project “Safe Step” on how to integrate technology into the safe crossing of the roadway, managed to win laureate status, which is equivalent to the grade Excellent 6.00. This means that she may study in all specialties of the Faculty of Philosophy at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” without taking an entrance exam.
�� The secret of success? The projects of Karolina from 10th grade “g” and Atanaska from 11th grade “zh” are the result of interdisciplinary learning in the Civic Education group under the National Programme “Student Olympiads and Competitions” with leader Velichka Kalaydzhiyska. They combined knowledge and skills from biology and health education, accounting and statistics, technologies and engineering thinking with personal and civic competences. This is the education of the future – connected to real life and developing teamwork, critical thinking, civic awareness, and media literacy.
We congratulate the girls and their mentor on their brilliant performance! You are proof that young people in Bulgaria have the will and the knowledge to build a better society.
