Between 1921 and 1932 all primary and _progymnasium_ teachers had to complete the normal school section of the gymnasium. In 1932, however, all normal schools were abolished, and teachers were trained in two-year pedagogical institutes that demanded completion of the gymnasium for admission. The pedagogical institutes were subdivided into three sections: the humanities, the sciences, and arts and crafts. Gymnasium teachers, in turn, had to have a university degree. Vocational-school teachers generally were vocational-school graduates themselves.
In 1944 two new forms of teacher training, both based on the Soviet model, were established. Teachers in the kindergartens and the four-year elementary schools, who had already completed seven years of elementary school, attended five-year teacher training schools. Teachers of grades five through seven, who had completed their secondary education, trained at two-year institutes. As before the communist takeover, teachers of secondary education and university professors had to complete their training at a university. Teachers of physical education, fine arts, and music were trained at the appropriate section of an institution of higher education.
In 1953 the government established the Institute for the Improvement of Teachers for the purpose of providing refresher courses for teachers. This institute also provided teachers with the proper ideological orientation. The government stated that the objectives of this institute were to provide the "dogmatic ideological improvement of teachers ... and ... the study and application of [the] Soviet teaching experience." The institute offered such courses as pedagogy, psychology, Bulgarian language and literature, Russian language and literature, Bulgarian history, the Bulgarian constitution, mathematics and physics, natural science and chemistry, and geography.
In 1959, however, it was decided that all elementary-school teachers--those who taught grades one through four--would be trained at teacher training colleges, and all secondary-school teachers--who taught grades five through eleven--would attend higher educational institutions.
In mid 1973 both kindergarten teachers and teachers of the first to fifth grades were trained at intermediate teacher training institutes. Teachers of grades five through eight also began their training at the same institutes, where they trained for three years after the completion of their secondary education. When they had completed this level of their education, they continued at an institute of higher education. Teachers of the fifth through eleventh grades had to have a diploma from an institution of higher education. Vocational-school teachers and art teachers were trained at appropriate faculties of higher educational institutions.