A kindergarten with just five children, whose number is barely larger than the number of staff looking after them. This is the reality at “Happy Childhood” Kindergarten in the Kaolinovo village of Naum. Two years ago, nine children attended the kindergarten; by 2025, that number had fallen to five.
The situation is little better in the Kaolinovo village of Doyrantsi, where only nine children attend kindergarten. In Zagoriche and Sini vir, the kindergartens each have 12 children. In all of these villages, the children are grouped together in a single class.
Over the past three years, the number of children in Kaolinovo municipality has continued to fall, from 300 in 2023 to 281 in 2025. The figures come from the municipality’s strategy for supporting the personal development of children and students for the 2026–2028 period.
The demographic crisis in Kaolinovo has been building for years, and nothing in the region’s development suggests a better future. The municipal strategy simply documents the continuing decline in the population, resulting in fewer and fewer children in kindergartens and schools.
That, in turn, is affecting their education. In kindergartens, children aged between three and six are often brought together in a single group, while in schools the number of undersized and combined classes is increasing.
Kindergartens on the brink
Kaolinovo municipality has 15 kindergartens serving children from the age of three until they start school. In almost every village, the number of children has declined over the past three academic years.
In 2025, the number of children attending the kindergartens was:
Klimеnt – 18 children; Dolina – 16; Naum – 5; T. Ikonomovo – 73; Pristoe – 17; Kindergarten No. 1 in Kaolinovo – 19; Lyatno – 17; Kindergarten No. 2 in Kaolinovo – 12; Tkach – 17; Sini vir – 12; Gusla – 14; Branishtevo – 27; Zagoriche – 12; Doyrantsi – 9; Sredkovets – 13.
A total of 58 children aged between three and three and a half underwent early assessment of their needs and measures aimed at preventing learning difficulties.
Throughout the year, all kindergartens also carried out activities designed to help children develop their command of standard Bulgarian, according to the municipal strategy.
70% of school classes are undersized or combined
Kaolinovo municipality has six schools – one secondary school, two comprehensive schools and three primary schools.
Over the past three years, the number of students has fallen from 830 to 793. Despite this, the number of classes has remained unchanged at 54 across the six schools.
What has changed is the composition of those classes.
In 2025, there were 34 undersized classes, as well as four combined classes. That means 70% of all classes in Kaolinovo municipality are either undersized or combined.
At two schools, every class is below the standard number of students. In Lyatno, all six classes are undersized, while in Pristoe all seven classes fall below the required threshold.
At the municipality’s largest school, “G. S. Rakovski” Secondary School in Kaolinovo, 263 children study in 15 classes. Two of those classes are below the standard.
At “Yordan Yovkov” Comprehensive School in Branishtevo, 119 students are spread across 10 classes. Every class is undersized.
At “Panayot Volov” Comprehensive School in T. Ikonomovo, 226 students attend 12 classes. Four of the classes are below the standard.
At “N. Y. Vaptsarov” Primary School in Lyatno, 68 children attend six classes. All are undersized.
At “G. S. Rakovski” Primary School in Kliment, 41 students attend four classes. Three are undersized or combined.
At “Hristo Smirnenski” Primary School in Pristoe, 76 children attend seven classes. Every class is below the required number of students.
Extra support for learning Bulgarian
The municipal strategy also records the number of children who received general support to improve their command of standard Bulgarian.
In 2025, such activities were organised in all schools except the one in T. Ikonomovo. They included 68 students in Kaolinovo, 38 in Branishtevo, all 68 pupils in Lyatno, 41 children in Kliment and 16 in Pristoe.
Additional classes were also organised for students who had gaps in their knowledge or had missed school because of illness. Most of the additional teaching was in Bulgarian language and literature and mathematics.
At the school in T. Ikonomovo, during the 2024/2025 academic year, additional Bulgarian language and literature classes were held for 29 students, mathematics classes for 15, history and civilisation classes for nine, among others.
But there is another revealing figure in the municipality’s strategy.
Over the previous three years, not a single student in Kaolinovo municipality was identified as having outstanding talents and received additional support for personal development, the document says.
The figures paint a stark picture: fewer children, shrinking classes and schools increasingly dependent on exceptions to maintain their existence. In Kaolinovo, demographics are no longer a distant statistical concern. They are already reshaping the education system.
