The town of Varshets is a small village with about 9000 people. It is located near Stara Planina mountain and is famous for its SPA tourism and natural mineral water deposits. It is nonetheless located in one of the poorest areas in the EU – north-west Bulgaria.

Ivan Vazov High School was founded in 1944 and now is one of the biggest general schools in the area. It is a state general primary and secondary school, i.e. providing full first-level education (before higher education) including classes for students from the age of 7 to 14 (primary) and 15 to 19 (secondary). The school employs 64 staff members, including more than 50 teachers, management and administrative staff, pedagogues and medical staff. We enroll more than 600 pupils in all classes – in daily form of education and private training according to special needs. The pupils come from different social backgrounds, many of our students come from working-class families. The majority of our students have special needs insofar as they come from families with fewer opportunities and do not travel abroad. We have pupils from different minorities (Roma, karakachans, others). We also have a group of students disadvantaged for socio-economic reasons or at risk of social exclusion, or coming from dysfunctional families where the parents are addicted to alcohol or use domestic violence. Some of our students are in danger of demoralisation or various addictions. We try to prevent them from social exclusion, provide them with equal access to learning and other school activities and equip them with skills allowing them to function successfully among their peers.

Opportunities offered for training are based on the orientation of students and labor demand in the labor market. From I to IV grade students are educated in general education classes. After VII grade education is directed to two profiles:

- "Foreign languages - English," a second language Russian;

- "Natural sciences and information technologies" in English.

The teaching staff is highly qualified, under his skilful leadership students have won awards at national forums - conferences, competitions in physics, chemistry, painting, literary competitions and many more.

The main needs of our school are to ensure better perspectives for our graduates for employment in their specialty and for progressing to higher education.