In a statement about the end of the six-week strike in secondary education Monday, the Executive committee of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) says that "the teachers' strike threw a huge rock in the swamp of the government's helplessness and cluelessness as to the future of education", CITUB noted that Monday sees the end of the greatest and longest sectoral effective strike in the history of Bulgaria.

The trade union said that a total of 150,00 teachers and non-teaching staff took part in the strike, BTA reports.

CITUB also noted the constructive role of President Georgi Purvanov thanks to whose effort it was possible to open talks with the government, albeit not until the ninth day of the strike.

The trade union's statement also lists the achievements of the strike, among them the increase of 2008 budget outlays for education by 470 million leva compared to 2007, the increase of salaries in the sector by 18 per cent effective on November 1, to be followed by two more increases in January and July 2008 so that the average gross salary of a teacher reaches 650 leva in mid-2008, legal guarantees that expenditure for education will be spent for its intended purpose, without a possibility for transferring such funding to other activities.