>1) Job training vs. education--This is a fundamental difference between Bulgaria and the US. I imagine it has to do with economic circumstances. In the US, large numbers of families can afford for children not to work (or to work only a few hours a week or only during school vacations) until they're out of school entirely. We have strict laws limiting how much high school students can work.
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>It's my sense that as a society grows economically, it becomes more feasible for students to focus on a broad education rather than job training.

Bulgaian children(14-18 years) can work only during summer vacations no more than 4 hr per day with permition of National Job Inspection
But most of the students(18-25) in universities should earn money in some way

>2) Age of learning to program--I see nothing wrong with teaching children something about programming. There are valuable skills for all in learning the kind of methodical thinking needed to get a program working. That said, most of the software developers I know learned programming as adults or as college students and seem to do well with it.

it is much easier to explain to young clean brain, what is this relational databases, that to 20-22 years old adult.
This way of training was the reason 10-15 years ago Bulgarians to be famoust virus writers. Now children trained in that way can working for money instead of to lose their time to prove nobody how great programmers they are.