2. Present Situation

2. 1. Promotion of Social Integration of People with Disabilities

• As an effect of the joint education trend in international practice, as well as the social demand expressed by the families involved, the effort for integration fortified since the eighties in Hungary. The law of public education gives opportunity for the realization of this demand since 1993. Integration appears today also as a social and pedagogical goal of educational policy, and it is a general expectation, that anti-discrimination efforts should be better emphasized in the educational process and in the activity of joint institutions.
• The legal environment regulating institutes activities and education finanancing also favours joint education of people living with disabilities. The active reforms and development goals place special emphasis on the need for establishing integrated education in as many institutions as possible. To support this goal, a comprehensive action and development plan was elaborated.
• The appearing legal regulations of the past years targeted the fortification of the social integration of children in need of special education (living with disabilities). These regulations have been introduced in the past decade to reach the strategic goals and legal efforts in order to ensure the process of integration resulting in the status of social cohesion.
• In Hungary during the decade before the EU accession the government took steps concerning the independence and quality of life of people living with disabilities. A welfare system consisting of financial aid for the disabled and benefits for their relatives living in one household with them (nursing aid, extra family aid etc.) was developed. The law on the rights (and equal chances) of people living with disabilities stated that the integrated (or supported, incubator-like) employment of the concerned should become common practice.
• One of the most important elements of this law is that it urged the development of a system of tools capable of promoting the rehabilition as much as possible (environment, communication, traffic etc) by ensuring the realisation of these laws.
• The National Program for the Disasabled added and amendemnt to this law containing those startegic goals which are crucial for the realization of absolute social equality

2. 2. The System of Assessment

• During the past years the problem of cost efficiency of the system of public education was under the spotlights. The thinking of quality, effeciency and productivity was motiviated by the assessment of competence started in 2001, the reform of matura, and the ever spreading practice of institutional quality development.
• Systematic evaluation and assessment helps the realization of the longterm goals of public education. These goals are: competitive knowledge, an effectively functioning public education system, the moderation of inequities and the fortification of fair public education.
• The development of a common system of quality assurance is an inevitable tool in reaching the following goals set by the National Development Plan: content regulation, system of governance, financing and efficiency of development. The above goals are accomplishable with the involvement of the public education system.

2. 3. The Legal Assessment System

The Quality assessment System

The elaboration of laws discussing the assessment of education and the accomplishment of developmental acts are the tasks of public education according to paragraph 99.§ (1) of the 1993. LXXIX. As a result during the past years int he practice of public education, three levels of quality assessment can be distinguished.

1. The quality assurance system on its institutional level internal auditing is control of legal function and finances, as accepted by strategic documents. The areas of institutional self-assessment is the evaluation of the success of educational tasks, students achievements, efficiency of institutional function, the use of resources, the level of student and parent satisfaction and the work carried out by teachers.
2. Areas of quality assessment on the maintainer"s level are the following: self-assessment, self-control (legitimacy of function, fulfilment of the set professional requirements and necessary conditions) and the self-assessment of the institutions (success of educational activities, the functional existance of the institution, the realization of educational programs, and the work of the leader of the institution).
3. The two basic functions of quality assessment at branch level are: the branch audit (state control of the institute, audit on the use of public funds, and authority control) and the branch assessment (systematic national students performance evaluation, exam system, indicator system of public education and developments of public report, selective indicator system and monitoring of students" rights, and national thematic assessments supporting actual goals of educational policy).

2. 4. Content Regulation in Public Education

• The tools of content regulation are the National Core Curriculum, the optional frame curricula and the institutional recommendations. Since september 2004 new contential and developmental trends were described in the National Core Curriculum as a strategic document. The available curricular alternatives are developed by the supporting system helping the preperation of local curricula. Institutional recognition of the professional content and principals identified by the National Core Curriculum, and their incorporation into local regulations are insured by the optional frame curricula and related educational programmes.
• Pedagogical programmes of educational institutes were reviewed based on the National Core Curriculum. The system of educational goals are set by the new central and institutional content regulating documents based on which the success of individual institutes and public education as a whole may be assessed and measured.
• When developing their own local pedagogical programmes and curricula, the following are taken into consideration by the schools: relevant parts of the law of public education and the National Core Curriculum, the optional frame curricula, the dormitory pedagogy, the local goals and opportunities of education, the maintainer"s requirements concerning school education as described in the document of “quality governance policy”, the parents" expectations, and their children’s individual needs.

Content Regugaliton and the specific care requirements of students with speciacl educational needs

• The National Core Curriculum is also the basic document of the school education of children with special learning needs. According to their specific needs schools may use the National Core Curriculum when developing their pedagogical programmes. Educational and development content described in the basic document are necessary for all children inspite of the individual differences among them.
• Individual differences among students are taken into consideration by the schools when developing educational prorammes. Disability is such a form of differences among children which makes differentiaton on a larger scale and application of special methods and additional educational services necessary.
• Goals, tasks, content, activities and requirements concerning the development of students with special learning needs must be shown in the institutes educational and quality governance programme, in the local curricula, int he teaching-learning programme in connection to the thematic units in the individual development plans.

Provision of Habilitation and Rehabilitation

• The whole educational system of public educational institutes taking part in the education of students with special learning needs is determined by the overall longterm habilitation/rehabilitation goals and tasks described in the institution’s documents. The habilitation, rehabilitation activities are accomplished in team-work and through an organized open teaching-learning process requiring the processes timeframe, tools, methods and therapies depending on the needs of individual group.
• The factors influencing the content of the habilitation/rehabilitation activities are the following: the type of disability, its degree, its time of formation, the age of the student in need of special education, his/her health conditions, physical and psychological status, improveability, abilities, skills, cognitive functions and acquired knowledge.

2. 5. Assessment and Evaluation Methods and Exams

National assessment tasks of Public Education

• The national assessment tasks of public education are the following: the actuation of the national exam system, concerted action, determination and revision of the requirements of the basic and the final exams, development and modernization of the national exam system, the development of assessment activities. Upon the request of the minister of education the National Insitute for Evaluation and Examinations and educational counselling services may cooperate in the national assessment measurement and evaluation tasks.
• The ongoing educational activities, especially the development of basic skills and abilities must be regularly assessed and evaluated in the frame of the national measurement tasks. The national measurement tasks are determined annualy by the minister of education. The results of the national assessments and evalutions must be published in the official paper of the ministry of education and the data at institutational level for further use.
• The annual measurement of the development in the native language and maths skills must cover the 4^th, 6^th, 8^th and 10^th grades of public education in the case of all students.

The Output Regulation: exam system

• The output regulation or the system of exams is not merely for student assessment, but it also determines the further pathes and possibilities within the school system.
• There are four types of state axems in Hungary regulated in the law for public education: (i) basic exams, (ii) basic exam of arts (iii) final exams of arts (iiii) matura, which must be conveyed nationally according to the central requirements.
• Matura is raditionally and also at present the most important exam of the hungarian public education system. The 2 level matura was introduced in 2005. The detailed exam requirements are set in the misteral order (40/2002.(V. 24) and they urge the measurement of competences. The system of the 2 level matura is common and based on public requirements, a 2 level state exam system functions in all school types ending with matura and is able to fulfil the role of the content regulator. The standard 2 level matura makes it possible for senior students to take matura at different levels of each subject.

• The centralized requirement of the matura exams are determined based on the exam regulation and the exam requirements of the matura which may be completed by local exam requirements according to the local curricula of the school.
• The establishement and announcement of the central exam requirements and the regulation of the assessment is the state"s task. The exam is organized by schools. Oral exams are public. Publicity may be banned by the chair of the exam committee, if he/she finds it necessary in order to keep the order of the exam. The exam is conducted in the language of education – in hungarian, in the language of the national or ethnic minority or other foreign languages.
• According to the law of public education, the basic exam may be first rquired from the students who have entered grade 1 on september 1st, 1998. This exam is not required for further studies or for entering the labour market. Its role lies in providing the chance for schools to assess their pedagogical work according to an external point of view, therefore it may become a part of the quality assurance system of education.

The exam system in case of students with special learning needs

• Students of special education needs or struggling with fitting in, learning and behaviourial difficulties can get exemption from the assessment and evaluation in some subjects or parts of subjects – except practical education – this can be grabted by the director on the opinion of the expert and rehabilitation committee or educational adviser. In this case, for the period determined in the educational law individual teaching is organized for him/her - based on an individual development plan – helping the students in joining the others.
• Students can choose subjects – from the ones determined in the exam regulation – another subject instead of the one included on the basic and mature exams.
  A longer preparation time for the different (entrance, classification, intermediate, correcting, basic and matura) exams, and the use of helping tools applied during the school studies, if needed, changing the written exam to an oral one and vica versa must be insured for him/her.

2. 6. Assessment of student achievements

National assessment-evaluation

• Existance of basic skills (reading comprehension, knowledge of mathematical tools) is assessed extending to all students in the choosen class years by the national competency assessments. The goal of these assessments which have been delivered three times since 2001, is to mediate the standards, methods and new developmental needs to the teachers, and help the local assessment practice.
• All the students of the choosen class years partcipated, however the "central" assessment was carried out by the National Insitute for Evaluation and Examinations only on a determined sample. The development of the local assessment was helped by the recognition of the the tools and nationally assessed results by the institutions to the complex assessment the achievements of their students based on the centrally evaluated data.
• Functional deficiencies were indicated by the experience collected throughout the competency measurements, and by their elimination the National Competency Assessment may developed the most important tool of information for quality assessment.

2. 7. Assessment of student performance (achievements)

• Students achievements are regularly assessed by the teacher during the year by merits. Merits given during the year are supplemented by the marks at the end of the semester and the school year. The new process introduced in the first three years is different from this practice it orders assessment in report forms.
• According to the parliament’s decision, the assessment in report forms will be replacing traditional marking. This will be obligatorily introduced from the first of September 2004 – in upgrading system – by the end of the semester and the year, and in the forth year by the end of the semester. The stress was shifted from the conservative achievement centricism to the students personality development as compared to him or herself, fortifying that not the qualification, but the information and feedback given to the student, teacher and parents gained significance.
• The general practice is supported by more additive orders in order to avoid the students unsuccessfulness and failure in the school (70. § 7-10.).

Assessment of students with special learning needs

• These orders are also apply for the students with special learning needs taking part in the intergating process. Deviation from this is permitted only when the student is made exempt of assessment/qualification in a subject, or in a part of it by the director based on the experts" opinion.
• The student"s progress can and must be assured in this situation, assuring individual teaching programmes by the school for the students involved, and – based on the opinion of the expert committes – correcting till the end of that year until the student reaches his or her fellows’ achievements.