Bulgaria ranks fourth from bottom in the European Union for the share of lower secondary pupils who learn two or more foreign languages, Eurostat figures for 2024 show. In Bulgaria that's just over a tenth of children, against an EU average of 58.8%.

Only Austria, with 7.5%, Hungary with 5.6% and Ireland with 5.2% score lower than Bulgaria. Finland tops the list, where 97.2% of lower secondary pupils learn at least two foreign languages. Greece, Italy, Romania, Portugal and Malta all sit between 93.4% and 96.3%.

Over the past ten years the EU average has barely moved — it stood at 59.7% in 2014.

In Bulgarian lower secondary schools, English has almost no rival: 92.3% of pupils learn it, up 5.1 percentage points from a decade ago. German is studied by 4.4% of children, Spanish by 2.3% and French by 1.2%.

In upper secondary school, pupils have more choice of a second language, thanks to language schools and specialised programmes. Among all upper secondary pupils, 73.5% learn English, 30.1% German, 8.1% Spanish and 7% French. In general upper secondary programmes, English reaches 87.6% of pupils.

Eurostat says the biggest gaps between countries show up not in the first foreign language but in the second and any further ones. English leads across European schools too: 82.5% of EU pupils already learn it at primary level, with the share close to 100% in several countries. At lower secondary level the EU average is 97.6%, and in Denmark, Slovenia and Sweden every single pupil learns English.