HUNGARY
Hungary is a historical country
in Central-Eastern Europe. They have an established and fine economical
background, some market analysts remark that Hungary has the strongest
economy in Eastern Europe. Hungary is a member of many European educational
boards (and many other EU boards) and is a hopeful future member of the
European Union. Still Hungary is –without doubt- one of the most complex of
countries in Eastern Europe.
The Söderström Foundation
already has some endeavours and projects in Hungary, for example the
“Sommaraktivitet” summer-camp pre-scholarships and certain investigations and
researches in the field of sociology and education.
We are planning to open the higher education
scholarships (which paves the way for Hungarian students to Swedish
universities) in September 2002.
The Söderström Foundation is to start a huge,
in-depth investigation in Hungary (May 2002- June 2003) about the social
status of pedagogues of public education and about public education in
Hungary itself. The project’s code is TT-45-88-998-Hi/III and the foundation
is going to grant computers and complete Internet access to participating
Hungarian schoolteachers, who in exchange will provide us with their
information and experience for a year through the Internet. After the
projects the participants can keep the computers, which have been donated by
a Swedish IT company earlier this year. According to the foundation’s project
plan about three thousand Hungarian teachers should participate in the
undertaking. This is the foundation’s leading project for years in its
volume.
Public Education in
Hungary:
Public education in Hungary is indeed in trouble.
Consequently many talented people leave or are made to abandon the country,
mainly to Germany, USA or Canada.
The problem –according to our pre-studies- is
interestingly not with the lack of funds for public education, as elsewhere
in Eastern Europe. The problem with the system is the system of public
education itself. Hungary is about to join the EU but certainly with the
current system of education it will be awfully difficult for them to match
the EU standards. Fortunately most of the prominent lecturers now see the
problems (an excellent book of comparative studies was published last year
about the issue by Istvan Polonyie and Janos Timar, unfortunately still not
available in English) and realize that the entire system will have to be
changed and developed in the near future.
Higher Education:
Higher education is especially in a crisis, since
public universities get funds from the state based on the number of students
only, thousands flooded the easy-to-get-in institutes whereas not many
developments have been realised to handle the sudden rise in the number of
students.
Participation rate is 40 %, which is a fine rate nevertheless
the institutes of Hungarian higher education do not seem to produce quality
education.
A considerable difficulty lies
in the lack of funds for scientific researches (which parenthetically is a
most current problem in E. Europe) and in the fact that instructors are
chronically over exhausted with every day work. But thanks to the revitalised
economy in Hungary some fields of scientific researches match Western
standards.
|
