The material presents a genealogical model of development of the Bulgarian vocational education. This model of socio-economic mechanisms for professional training and development represents the integration of the various components that are key to the overall professional and personal profile of the specialist, its entry in the society. The text illustrates the rapid movement and synchronous parallel levels in the creation, establishment and regulation before the Liberation in 1878 and during the first decades after that - a true Renaissance period of economic, managerial, educational progress. The thesis is that craftsmanship is the prototype of vocational education in Bulgaria. On this background, the figures of remarkable institutions, pedagogues and managers have stand out. They set the beginning of the Bulgarian vocational schools - centenarians. Their history continues today as the most stable tradition-perspective for the development of Bulgarian vocational education and training in all its forms - formal, non-formal, continuing education for adults, informal education, handicraft work and qualification at the workplace.
