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Angel Kabakchiev

After accepting Bulgaria in the European family there are new possibilities opening for education in the western universities in the countries from the European Union. Here we will discuss the opportunities for applying and the specifications of the institutions from the Greek educational system.

Before January 1^st, 2007 the potential Bulgarian students were entering in a special column referring to the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, which are not part of the European Union. And in spite of this fact the documents required for the application in the Greek universities are currently not different. The main documents are two:

• A diploma for completed education allowing the student to continue his education in a institute of higher education.
• A document showing the origin of both parents (the applicants who have Greek origins are in a different category).
• A certificate that the applicant is not currently enrolled in another Greek university and does not own a degree from such university.

All these documents have to be translated in Greek language, however it is not necessary to certify them.

There are several ways in which you could start the uneasy way of submitting the documents and the main ways are as follows:

• Contests organized by the Ministry of education: documents are accepted until the end of January. Usually it is required that the applicant is a student in the first year in one of the Bulgarian universities.
• Contests organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Greece in Bulgaria and the services to it; the requirements change according to the contest.
• Direct application in the Greek Ministry of education and religious affairs.
• Direct application in one of the universities

The program for scientific, educational and cultural cooperation between Greece and Bulgaria is the main “donor” for the Bulgarian students of scholarships in the Greek educational institutions. Under this program each year are given three scholarships for a full course of education, 5 scholarships for 10 months for receiving of doctors degree and scientific research and 11 scholarships for summer courses in new Greek language. The other is the Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic of Greece. The term for application in the Embassy of the Republic of Greece usually varies between the middle of May until the end of June.

And yet if the student applicant does not manage to win any of the contests for scholarships he should not be discouraged as the fees in the public universities for foreign students vary from 33 to 800 euro. This allows to be chosen a university according to the financial possibilities of the applicant.

These options are related to the Greek public universities and higher education institutions, however recently the experience shows that most of the Bulgarians are striving for various branches of English, American (for the branches of the universities from the English speaking countries it is required to have taken the TOEFL or IELTS) and other non-Greek universities. However to what extent they could be seen as Greek universities it is a disputable matter, as usually the education in these universities is in English and according to the programs which have nothing in common with the Greek educational system. This for example is the case of City College, part of the Sheffield University in Thessaloniki. A great part of the students in this educational institution are from the Balkan region. This includes a great number of students from the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria.