The training of pedagogical personnel in Ruse was first carried out in the period 1894–1898 in Ruse Girls' High School. VI class female students study pedagogical disciplines. They observe and practice in the kindergarten and in the elementary school under the guidance of teachers.
Teacher training took place within the framework of the Higher Pedagogical Course at the Boys' High School in Ruse from 1909 to 1924. Teachers are being prepared for junior high schools.
For the period 1950–1960, kindergarten and primary teachers were trained at the "Mikhail Kalinin" Pedagogical School for Primary Teachers and the "Nadezhda Krupska" Pedagogical School for Children's Teachers. In the first year, students with a certificate of primary education and who have passed a competitive exam in Bulgarian language, arithmetic and singing are accepted.
The Ministry of Education opened in Ruse a semi-university institute for children's teachers with a three-year training course in 1960.
The departmental system was introduced in 1966-1967. Four departments are being formed at the Ruse Institute: in pedagogy, in Marxism-Leninism, in drawing and the Bulgarian language, in music. For three years, the departments formed their physiognomy as a primary administrative-organizational unit for discussion, management and control of educational and scientific work in the institute.
Until 1967, persons who graduated from higher education with at least four years of work experience in the specialty were appointed as teachers. Appointments are made by the Ministry of Education and Culture on the proposal of the teaching council and the management of the institute. Teachers are divided into four grades. The renewal takes place every four years if the teacher has a good teaching and educational work. Since 1967, according to the temporary regulations for semi-higher institutes, the following teaching degrees have been introduced: senior lecturer, lecturer and assistant. The appointment is made through a competitive examination. Graduates of higher education are admitted to the competition. The competition consists of taking a written exam in the specialty and delivering a lecture to the students on a topic from the program that trains future teachers.
The main activity of the teachers is the educational work, which is directly aimed at the preparation of the future teachers. The teachers' lectures are based on rich literary material and personal impressions from observations in kindergartens. They acquire an increasingly better professional orientation in this way. Already in the 1960s, there was the activation of all teachers to break traditionalism and routine in lecture teaching. An atmosphere of searching for new ways to increase the effectiveness of academic work at the institute is being created. Attempts are being made to introduce complexity and differentiation into training.
The institute prepares a special plan for out-of-session training. Students are given tasks in all subjects that they have to solve within a certain period of time. According to the methodology, students are required to prepare exam materials. By making them, the aim is for the students to acquire elementary skills for preparing the necessary visual materials for their work in kindergarten. With some of these materials, the offices of the institute are enriched every year.
As a form of training, the personal technical training of the cold in fine arts, labor training, accordion, physical education, expressive reading and storytelling and theater art is widely used. It aims to create in students the necessary skills and abilities that they will use in their practice as children's teachers.
In order to develop interest in science among students, professors attract them as collaborators in their research work. The circles, improvement groups and representative groups of the institute help with this. Excursions are arranged every year to nearby and more distant cities in the country, where there are well-organized kindergartens, in which female students conduct observations in order to strengthen the love for the profession.
The institute also takes care of the aesthetic education of the students. Artistic self-activity at the institute is headed by a student cultural club, which develops diverse activities: a choir, an accordion orchestra, a folk choir, a children's song group, a puppet theater, a dance group, a literary circle, an artistic speech, friends of opera music, a photo circle and a section for the inquisitive ones.
On various occasions, meetings are held with writers, poets, composers and prominent figures of art and culture.
The research work of teachers is one of their main duties. The first manifestation of the academic staff engaged in scientific activity at the Ruse Institute was the scientific session organized on the occasion of five years since the establishment of the institute. At it, the professors deliver messages and reports with the results of their research work. They take an active part in scientific conferences organized by other pedagogical institutes in the country, as well as in international forums. There is very good publication activity both in the periodical press and in terms of publication of educational literature.
A widely used form of exchange of experience and methodical improvement is the mutual visit between teacher institutes in Veliko Tarnovo, Sofia, Stara Zagora and other cities.
To carry out the pedagogical practice, the institute uses all-day kindergartens, in which, with the assistance of the district and city department "Narodna Prosveta", the best are appointed as exemplary teachers and principals.
In the 1970s, a Regional Methodical Centre was built on public grounds, which was dictated by the ever-increasing activity of the teaching staff on the qualification of children's teachers from Ruse, the district and the region of the institute. It has 6 sections that carry out qualification in the main activities of work in full-day kindergartens. In the 1983-1984 school year, according to the plan of the Ministry of Education and Culture, qualification courses were held at the institute with children's teachers from the Ruse and Razgrad districts under the new program for educational work in the kindergarten. The management of this activity is carried out by the Regional Methodical Center of the institute.
Despite its wide range of activities, the institute does not have its own building. In September 1976, the first sod was laid on the new building of the institute (in the "Zdravets East" district). In December 1980, the institute moved to it.
They are equipped with: an assembly hall, four amphitheater auditoriums, a learning puppet theater, a gymnasium, a library, classrooms for visual arts, work training, solfege, accordion, methodology, artist's studio, a picture gallery. Almost all classrooms have storage facilities for didactic materials and props. The teachers' offices are also next door. In each study room there is a control panel in which educational equipment is placed: overhead projectors, gramophones, cassette players. The rooms are automatically darkened, the projection screen is lowered. In three of the offices according to the methodology, television devices were installed for direct transmission of moments of the regime in the basic kindergarten, located next to the institute. Much attention is paid to the informational and technical provision of the educational process, the enrichment of the didactic base of each office. Teachers from all departments, overcoming many difficulties, make educational films, thereby starting an institute film library.
The joint work with the basic kindergartens is implemented in various forms: consultations with the teachers on current problems of the methodology of work in the kindergarten, planning and reporting the results of courses on diagnosing the educational work, theoretical conferences, summarizing and shaping the scientific reports.
In 1994, the Semi-higher Pedagogical Institute - Ruse was transformed into the Pedagogical Faculty of the Higher Technical School - Ruse. In 1995, the Higher Technical School "Angel Kanchev"- Ruse was transformed into the University of Ruse "Angel Kanchev", in which the Department of Pedagogy, Psychology and History is a worthy continuation of the traditions in the field of pedagogical education in the city of Ruse.
