Around 5000 high school and college students have been on an educational visit to the National Assembly. The visits are part of the founded, 10 years ago, by the parliament’s Press Center program for active education and communication.

The busiest months were March with 1263 visitors, April -1013 and May -1027.

The most visited sittings have been the ones on Fridays when parliamentary control is held. More than 200 young people have visited the parliament in the course of six parliamentary control sittings and more than 420 visitors on March 30th,  2012 alone.

Until the month of August, 2012 the number of educational visits was 150. More than half of them were initiated by the students themselves, the other half were at the invitation of members of the parliament. Those who most often pay visit to the National Assembly are Law, Economics, Public Administration, Political Science, Journalism, Bulgarian Philology, European Studies students as well as representatives of civic and youth organizations, members of different schools students’ parliaments.

It has become regular for universities and different institutions to hold various initiatives, most often simulated parliamentary debates at the premises of the National Assembly. This year for example, students from the Sofia University “St Kliment Ohridski” European Studies Program played the role of deputies, held debates and passed in the plenary a new Law on Higher Education.

Regular visitors of the parliament are graduate students from the master degree program “National and International Security” taught at the Military Academy “Georgi Rakovski”. They have conducted meetings and discussions with leaders of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on issues regarding the National security.

Among the school students who visited the National Assembly have been 30 children from Russia, visiting Bulgaria as part of the International Ecological Movement “Living Planet”

A part of the educational tours some 3000, mostly young people, paid a visit to the National Assembly at its Open Doors Day, held on June 10th, 2012 and dedicated to the 175th Birthday of Vasil Levski.

The parliamentary Press Service has set as its priority to develop educational programs satisfying the increased interest of young people toward the legislative institution. In the last year a number of educational materials covering the history and contemporary life of the National Assembly, in Bulgarian and English language, were published and distributed. The publications shed light over the work and the protocols of the Constituent Assembly of Bulgaria and its founders, over the work of its first President Antim I and the adoption of the Tarnovo Constitution. The editions provide information in what consist the powers of the parliament and the legislative process and how a draft bill becomes law. They also contain information on the history of the National Assembly’s building, which at the same time represents a cultural monument of national significance.