Four schools will start teaching a new programme called "Literature in the Present Tense" from September 2026, Sofia University's press office says. The programme is run by the university's Faculty of Slavic Studies.

The schools are in Sofia, Blagoevgrad, Elin Pelin and Godech. The lead school is 203rd Language High School "St Methodius" in Sofia, which built the model with the faculty and tested it as a pilot. Three schools are joining: "Acad. Lyudmil Stoyanov" Language High School in Blagoevgrad, "Vasil Levski" secondary school in Elin Pelin, and "Prof. Dr Asen Zlatarov" secondary school in Godech.

In the 2025/2026 school year, the compulsory literature course gained extra modules, contemporary authors, discussions and project work. In elective modules, pupils read Bulgarian and world literature from the 20th and 21st centuries and meet living writers. Classic works stay at the centre of the course, linked to modern authors, themes and points of view.

The Sofia school will share what it learned in the first year with its new partners: how the modules are built, how to work with contemporary texts, teaching methods, and feedback from teachers and pupils.

In 2026/2027, the four schools will form a partner network. Sofia University explains why: the Sofia school's experience needs to be adapted to different school settings, and teachers will swap practical models, texts and ideas. Running the programme at the same time in one Sofia school and three schools outside the capital will show how the model works in different school communities. The university says this expansion is a step toward giving 20th- and 21st-century literature a bigger place in secondary schools, and toward a dialogue between the classics and texts that speak to people today.

The programme's partners include the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, Queen's, "Az cheta" and Storytel. Eight libraries and cultural institutions also take part: the "Peyo K. Yavorov" regional library in Burgas, "Zahari Knyazheski" in Stara Zagora, "Hristo Smirnenski" in Pleven, "Hristo Smirnenski" in Haskovo, "Pencho Slaveykov" in Varna and "Lyuben Karavelov" in Ruse, the "Dobri Voynikov – 1856" chitalishte in Shumen, and the "Yordan Yovkov" memorial house in Dobrich.

A national "Literature in the Present Tense" event took place in May 2026, with the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency and the partner libraries and chitalishtes taking part.

The push to update how literature is taught began with the "Literature Is Not a Museum" campaign and a round table of the same name, held by the Faculty of Slavic Studies on 25 March 2025. At the event, then-education minister Krasimir Valchev said Bulgaria needed a plan to change literature curricula, and that room could be made for new literature without dropping the classics.