A „nursery“ for nuclear energy personnel is planned.
The aim of the planned initiative is to solve the already acute problem of the lack of personnel in the nuclear energy sector. According to Lyuben Marinov, Executive Director of Kozloduy NPP – New Build, the lack of personnel is largely the fault of the organizations in the nuclear sector themselves. It is also their responsibility to help create personnel for the industry. According to him, their training should begin at the secondary education level. The idea for this comes from the Deputy Chairman of the Energy Committee in the National Assembly, Valentin Nikolov. Bulgaria will face a shortage of nuclear specialists as early as 2025. According to data from Kozloduy NPP, if the trend of reducing the number of students in technical specialties serving nuclear energy continues, by 2025 Bulgaria will experience a shortage of personnel to manage the currently operating nuclear units. Currently, all students studying in specialties related to nuclear energy number 80 people. At the same time, 380 specialists are needed to operate just one unit. One of the big problems for teachers is that, according to the currently established system, they are paid according to the number of students they teach. They can only count on a full salary if they have 12 students. With six students, the salary is halved, and its decrease continues with the dropout of each subsequent student. Another problem is related to the autonomy of universities, which can decide on the dropout of specialties themselves. Therefore, Bulatom "New Build" will insist that nuclear energy be legally declared „"protected"“ specialty.