At the same time the new law provided for the improvement of teacher training. All teachers who taught in the fifth level or above were required to have a university education or its equivalent. Teachers who taught in kindergartens or the first to fourth levels were required to take a three-year course after the obligatory twelve-year course of schooling.
The reforms were later criticized, however, on much more far-reaching grounds. Some felt that technical specialization was stressed to such an extreme that the liberal arts were altogether ignored. Some complained that, although students were overburdened with superfluous details of overspecialized subjects, teachers were still basically unprepared to teach these subjects. Others felt that there was a lack of correlation between the work that the student had to perform and his or her area of expertise. Still others realized that there was a basic clash between the managers who supervised the worker-students and the students themselves.
Despite much criticism about the reforms, in terms of bare statistics they were successful in greatly increasing the emphasis on technical-vocational training. Although the number of primary and secondary students remained approximately at the same level and the number of primary and secondary schools declined drastically, there was a tremendous increase in technical-vocational schools, students, and teachers.
In 1967 there was another wave of educational reform in Bulgaria, as well as in all of Eastern Europe, that once again changed the direction of education. Although most Eastern European countries began to deemphasize polytechnic instruction, Bulgaria's course was more cautious and ambivalent. On the one hand, Bulgarian educators stated that the time allotted for practical training would be increased, while on the other hand, efforts were made to reintroduce the humanities into the curriculum. In the last three grades of the upper course, the curriculum was divided into two branches: natural science and mathematics, and the humanities. The number of general education subjects was gradually increased, and there was renewed emphasis on foreign languages and the social sciences.
By 1969, however, authorities once again perceived certain problems in the educational system and proposed counteracting reforms. One problem was the relative cost of higher education, which was expanding, as compared to the cost of primary education, which was both cheaper and contracting. A second problem was the question of the availability of trained persons for the national economy because of the long periods of schooling then required. It was argued that by the time a young man had completed his education and his military training, he was twenty-five or twenty-six years old. A third problem was the intense competition for places in higher education and other postsecondary institutions. In 1969 approximately 70,000 to 75,000 students leaving secondary schools competed with each other for 20,000 places at the university level. A fourth problem was whether the polytechnic school should place primary emphasis on trade specialization or on academic subjects.