Chapter C
The education system, progress within the system

1. The structure of the education system in Hungary

Compulsory schooling in Hungary lasts from 6 to 16 years of age. (The legal regulations allow for the differentiated beginning of school between ages 5 and 7). The 1996 Amendment to the Public Education Act raised the end of compulsory schooling to the age of 18, but only starting with those who enter primary school in the 1998/99 school year. So the vast majority of children at school today have to participate in school education until they are 16. Children can satisfy the requirement of compulsory schooling by attending educational institutions at the primary and the secondary levels.

The system of Hungarian school education has been under review for many years. The structure of the eight-grade general school and the consecutive 3 or 4 years of secondary education, which was established in most socialist countries of Europe after 1945, started to come under question after 1990, when the autonomy of the local and the institutional levels increased and the educational monopoly of the state was abolished. The 1993 Public Education Act already reflected the changing school structure. As a consequence, the definitions of primary schooling and secondary schooling were modified and the formerly firm division between general and vocational secondary education disappeared.

It is important to emphasise that the transformation of the Hungarian school system is not controlled by the state, nor is it the product of far-reaching, central strategic decisions. It has basically taken place as the result of numerous, small-scale efforts at the regional and institutional levels. The most important demographic reason for the structural changes in secondary education is the decline in the number of pupils who leave the general school. Between 1989 and 1996 the number of general school leavers dropped from 171 thousand to 120 thousand and the schools had to make great efforts to ensure the pupil numbers that would allow for the continuation of their operation. The important administrative reason for the changes is that decision-making about pupil enrolment and about the determination of the educational profiles is allocated to the local, maintainer level. The factors mentioned so far have been further strengthened by the financing system of education, which makes the support of institutions mainly dependent on the number of pupils. Due to the special interaction and the parallel timing of these factors the educational institutions have found themselves in a hitherto unknown field of competition, where they have to exploit every means available to ensure an appropriate number of pupils so that they can continue their operation and maintain their number of teaching posts.

Figure 1 shows the vertical structure of Hungarian education and reflects the recent changes.

Changes in the horizontal structure of the education system. Due to the general crisis and the re-structuring of the vocational training sector which does not lead to (upper) secondary qualifications, the number of pupils enrolled in the technical education of skilled workers decreased dramatically, and the numbers enrolling in secondary schools leading to the final examinations has risen in parallel. While in the 1990/91 school year 48.6% of the general school leavers enrolled in schools leading to the final examinations, the corresponding rate was 61.9% in 1996/97. Within secondary education enrolments in the secondary vocational schools grew more than enrolments in the general secondary schools (gymnasium).

A characteristic of the horizontal structural changes is that the number of secondary institutions with a mixed profile has grown considerably. This does not mean that new institutions have been founded but that a growing proportion of the secondary schools offer more than one types of educational programme for their pupils. Besides their own characteristic choice (dual language classes, 6 and 8-grade gymnasium, specialised classes or classes following advanced level curricula, etc.) the gymnasia often offer optional vocational programmes to prepare their students for the labour market, and they organise courses for those beyond the school leaving final examinations. The secondary vocational schools often start gymnasium classes, and the technical schools start secondary vocational classes.

Figure 1
The structure of the Hungarian education system: a static overview

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A: secondary school leaving certificate
B: secondary school leaving certificate and vocational qualification
C: technician qualification
D: skilled worker qualification
E: lower-level trade school qualification

Changes in the vertical structure of the education system. The vertical re-structuring of the education system, the changes of the division lines between the educational levels, and the changes of the lengths of certain educational cycles all reflect the spontaneous processes of the past few years. As a result of the changes, some of the general schools provide longer or shorter schooling than formerly. They often start 9^th or 10^th grades, a special trade school,¹ or gymnasium classes. The growth of the special trade schools is recently the most common phenomenon. A majority of the general secondary schools, the gymnasia, offer today 6 or 8-year-long education as well, and the 5-grade educational forms (with a 0^th preparatory year) have also become common. Most of the new-structure gymnasia have adopted the 6-grade form. A lot of the secondary vocational schools have started 5^th and 6^th grades. The changes in the vertical structure of the system are influenced by the National Core Curriculum (NCC) from September 1998 on, when the schools introduce the local curricula, in accordance with the requirements of the NCC in grades 1 and 7 (for more detail on this see Chapter D: Curricula, examinations and pupil attainment).

As a result of the structural changes, multi-level connections characterise the transition between primary and secondary schooling, i.e. there are several vertical structures side by side. Thus, pupils, for example, may decide to enter a secondary school at various ages (at the age of 10, 12, or 14) but they may stay on at the general school until they are 16. These options have increased the freedom of schooling and the variety of schools to choose from, but they may give some cause for concern when it comes to their implication for social policies. (See in more detail in Chapter F: The strengths and the weaknesses of the system.)

The data that show the participation of the various age groups in education reveal a lot about an education system. According to the data of the 1996 Micro-Census only slightly more than 40% of the 18 and 19-year-olds were still in the system, and a little more than 11% of the 20-24 old age group. Participation in education is very low for those over 30 years of age: life-long learning may become a mass phenomenon for the young generations still growing up today. The changes of the school structure are also well reflected by the data that show grade by grade how many pupils take part in the different educational programmes. Due to the spreading of the 6 and 8-grade gymnasia more than 8% of the 7^th graders attended a gymnasium rather than a regular general school in the 1996/97 school year. The dynamic processes, i.e. the movement of pupils within the education system, is shown by Figure 2.

From the perspective of educational policy the structural changes in Hungary in the 1990s can be described as the expansion of secondary schooling. The expansion of secondary schooling,² the rapid growth in pupil numbers began in the second half of the 1980s. By the middle of the 1990s some two-thirds of every age group entering secondary education enrolled in a secondary school, and one-fourth of them entered a secondary school that offered general education, and one-third a school of vocational education.

Figure 2
The structure of the Hungarian education system: a dynamic overview, 1995/96 academic year

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Π8-grade general school for children with special educational needs (3%)
 other trade schools (4%) Ž full-time secondary school for skilled workers (6%)
 5th and 6th grades of secondary vocational schools
Note: The thick arrows indicate the 'royal route' of further education, the one leading to higher education. The numbers in brakets indicate the proportion of the age-group attending to the given educational form. The numbers in italics indicate the drop-out rate estimates at the given educational level or form.
Figure 3
Rates of enrolment in secondary schools and in other forms of further education after the completion of the 8-grade general school, 1985/86-1996/97, (%)

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Source: Ministry of Education, educational statistics; pre-disclosed data of the Central Statistical Office.

1.1. The kindergarten

Hungarian kindergartens have a long pedagogical and professional history. The past 20-year development of the kindergarten infrastructure has reached the level that it can now cater for the total kindergarten age population. Kindergarten education has long been treated by the public educational acts as an integral part of the education system.

Kindergartens educate children from age 3 to the time when they reach the level of maturity to enter school, but there is an age limit of 7 for this. From the year when the child reaches age 5 he/she has to take part in the school-preparatory training that is carried out as part of kindergarten education. This obligation is sometimes called compulsory kindergarten schooling, sometimes compulsory nurturing. The number of kindergartens decreased from 4718 to 4708 between 1990 and 1996. The biggest decrease happened among kindergartens maintained by the local governments (from 4620 to 4540) but in parallel the number of non-local government-maintained kindergartens rose from 98 to 168. Among the latter especially, the number of church and foundation kindergartens increased. During the same period the number of kindergarten places decreased from 385 thousand to 371 thousand though the annual number of kindergarten age children remained around 395 thousand. As a consequence, the number of children per group and per adult slightly increased and the kindergartens became overcrowded. (See the summary of the data in Table 1.)

Table 1
The major indicators of kindergartens, 1990/91-1996/97

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	1990/91	1994/95	1995/96	1996/97	1996/97 1990=100
Number of kindergartens	4718 (4620)*	4719	4720 (4522)*	4708 (4540)*	99.8
Number of places available, in thousands	385.0	376.4	373.2	371.4	96.5
Number of teaching staff	33 635	33 007	32 320	31 891	94.8
Number of children in kindergarten, in thousands	391.1	396.2	399.3	394.3	100.8
As a percentage of all entitled to provision	84.9	86.3	87.2	87.5	103.1
Number of children per 100 places	102	106	107	106	103.9
Number of groups	16 055	16 072	15 813	15 701	97.8
Number of children per group	24.4	24.7	25.3	25.1	102.9
Number of children per adult	11.6	12.0	12.4	12.4	106.9

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Source: Pocketbook of Hungarian Statistics, 1996.
^* number of kindergartens maintained by the local governments

Children of the suitable age attend kindergarten in large numbers in every age group. In 1992, 85% of all 3-5-year-old children attended kindergarten and this rate reached 90% by 1996. Practically all children over 5 years of age attend a kindergarten. The number of children enrolled in kindergartens in Hungary is very high by international comparison. (See Figure 4.) According to the comparative data of the OECD in 1994 children in Hungary attend kindergarten for an average of 3.2 years. As a consequence of the differentiated primary school entry, half of the children who enter kindergarten at the age of 3 attend it for 4 years. Reaching the maturity required for schooling is the condition for entering the primary school. Maturity is certified by the head of the kindergarten, who consults the kindergarten teachers and the speech therapist. (If the child has not attended kindergarten the certificate is given by an educational counsellor.) The certificate has to be shown when the child is being enrolled in a school.

Figure 4
Rate of kindergarten enrolments in Hungary and in the OECD countries, 1994

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Source: Education at a Glance, 1996.

1.2. The general school

The most important institution of basic education in Hungary is the 8-grade general school. According to ISCED, the International Standard Classification for Education, this type includes the primary and the lower secondary levels of education.

The number of general schools was fairly stable in the 1980s, grew in the first half of the 1990s, but then the growth came to a halt in 1995 followed by a decrease. Yet in September 1996 there were still 6.7% more general schools than in 1990. The number of classrooms grew until 1995, then started to decrease a little. The number of classes has decreased since 1988, and the number of pupils has been in a decline since 1987. The last peak in pupil numbers was in 1986 with 1,300,000. Within ten years this number decreased by more than 300,000: in 1996 only three-thirds of the pupil numbers of ten years before attended the general school. The number of general school teachers grew significantly in 1987, fluctuated around 90,000 for several years, then shrank sharply in 1995 and 1996. (See Figure 5.)

There are several, hardly irreconcilable trends behind these rather controversial data. The dramatic decrease in pupil and class numbers cannot solely be explained by the general and constant decline in the birth rate: a previously populous age group (those born between 1974 and 1978) started to leave the general school from 1988. At the same time this was the period (the beginning of the 1990s) when - as a consequence of the political change in the regime the state monopoly on schooling was abolished - a number of new schools were opened. (This explains the increase in the number of schools and partly the increase in teacher numbers.) There were schools opened by private persons, foundations and denominations but also by a number of small towns as well. When the schools ownership was transferred to the local governments nationwide many of the small local governments decided either to re-open their former school - which may have been closed by a former centrally-decided dictat - or to found a new school if they had never had one. This, on the one hand, resulted in the favourable changes of the most important indicators of the general school in the 1990s (e.g. the number of pupils per teacher or per classroom) but, on the other hand, led to difficulties in the financing of schools. (See in more detail in Chapter F: The strengths and the weaknesses of the system.)

Figure 5
Changes in the indicators of the general school, 1985/86-1996/97 (1985 = 100%)

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Source: Ministry of Education, educational statistics, pre-disclosed data.

The structure of school maintenance has undergone significant changes as well. In 1996/97 92% of the schools belonged to the local governments, and 94% of all pupils learnt in such schools. The proportion of denominational and foundational schools has grown dynamically but they remain a small sector: in the school year of 1996/97 5.4% of the institutions and 4% of the pupils belonged to them as opposed to the 3.1% and the 2.1% of three years before (see Table 2).

Table 2
The numbers and rates of general schools, pupils, and teachers by maintainers, 1993 and 1996

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	local government		county government		central budgetary organ		church		foundation/private individual		other		total
	1993	1996	1993	1996	1993	1996	1993	1996	1993	1996	1993	1996	1993	1996
number of schools	3574	3470	49	60	30	30	94	145	21	56	3	4	3771	3765
schools, %	94.8	92.2	1.3	1.6	0.8	0.8	2.5	3.9	0.6	1.5	0.0	0.0	100.0	100.0
number of pupils	969 409	908 164	4841	6582	13 210	12 413	19 449	32 486	2212	5907	295	446	1 009 416	965 998
pupils, %	96.0	94.0	0.5	1.7	1.3	1.3	1.9	3.4	0.2	0.6	0.0	0.0	100.0	100.0
number of teachers	86 000	78 490	486	553	1332	1191	1521	2643	283	731	33	50	89 655	83 658
teachers, %	95.9	93.8	0.5	0.7	1.5	1.4	1.7	3.2	0.3	0.9	0.0	0.0	100.0	100.0
pupil/teacher ratio	11.3	11.6	10.0	11.9	9.9	10.4	12.8	12.3	7.9	8.1	8.9	8.9	11.3	11.5

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Source: Ministry of Education, educational statistics, pre-disclosed data.

So far we have spoken of the general school with 8-grades, as this is the main type. However, in 21.7% of the general schools there are less than 8 grades but only 5.3% of all pupils attend such schools. The majority of the general schools that have less than eight grades operate with four. General school education can be characterised by two extremes: the majority of the pupils attend bigger-size schools of which there are fewer, and the rest of the pupils go to a large number of small schools. While 5.5% of all schools have fewer than 20 pupils, only 0.3% of all pupils learn at such schools. The proportion of schools with under 100 pupils is 25.8% but only 4.9% of all pupils learn in them. In 1996/97 the average school size was 257 pupils per institution but in half of the schools the pupil number was under 200.

A small school as an institution is first of all the problem of the small towns and villages in Hungary. More than half of the schools operate in villages (for the distribution of schools by settlement type see Figure 6) but only 44% of the classes, 42% of the teachers, and 37% of the pupils attend these schools. Consequently the number of pupils per school is much lower in villages than in towns. There is a smaller difference between town schools and village schools in the number of pupils per one class or one teacher.

Figure 6
Number of schools by settlement type, in 1996/97

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Source: Ministry of Education, educational statistics, pre-disclosed data.

Pupil flows

In 1996/97 2% of the children started school at the age of 5, 81% of children at the age of 6, and 16% of the children at the age of 7. Enrolling children in school when they are over 6 is more and more popular with parents. The pupil retaining capacity of the general school has been more or less stable for years. Dropping out during the school year is fairly rare, and 99% of pupils enrolled in September finish the grade they started. The number of pupils repeating a grade is higher in grades 1, 5, and 6, and the lowest in grade 8. (For example, the number of repeaters was highest in grade 1: 3.9% of all first-graders failed in 1996 while only 0.5% of eighth-graders did so.) 3.2% of pupils did not complete the general school until the end of compulsory schooling (this rate was 6.1% in 1990).

It has already been mentioned that as a consequence of the vertical changes in the school structure the length of the educational cycles and the division lines between the various educational levels have changed. In the 1994/95 school year 55.5% of the traditional gymnasia (general secondary schools) and the ones with a mixed profile started 6 or 8-grade-long education. This process has major implications for the pupil flows within the compulsory period of schooling: the 6 and 8-grade gymnasia mean serious competition for the upper grades of the general school, and the spreading of these types of secondary schools determines the possible progress within the school system of the 10-14-year-old pupils. Though the number of 5-8-graders who attend 6 and 8-grade gymnasia has grown dynamically (their 1993 number doubled by 1996, and as compared to 1991 their number became 7 times as much) the proportion of pupils within the age cohorts attending such classes is still rather low. 3.2% of 5^th and 6^th graders, and 7.7% of the 7^th and 8^th graders attend these gymnasia.

The proportion of pupils who chose further studies upon the completion of the general school rose from 93.6% to 99.3% between 1985 and 1995. But there was a decline in the 1996/97 school year. As we have indicated it before the number of pupils who chose secondary schools leading to the final examinations has grown constantly and steadily, and the number of those entering a technical school decreased. The number of pupils enrolling in the gymnasia in 1996 was more than one quarter, and the number of pupils enrolling in the secondary vocational schools was more than one third of all general school leavers. Pupils continuing their education in the technical schools is still high but it has been decreasing since 1989, and this decrease seems to have accelerated recently. (See Figure 7.)

Figure 7
Enrolment rates in the major secondary school types, 1985-1996 (%)

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Source: Ministry of Education, educational statistics, pre-disclosed data.

1.3. Secondary education

Secondary education in the Hungarian system may be defined as the institutional level that receives pupils who have completed the 8-grade general school. The international standard classification of education (ISCED) calls this level upper secondary education. We have to differentiate between the institutions of secondary education in two respects. One is whether they offer general or vocational education, the other whether they prepare for the secondary school leaving examinations or not (the ones that do are usually called by the collective term of secondary education).

As a consequence of the structural changes in the school system we have to differentiate more and more often between three different concepts: a type of school, an educational level, and an educational or training programme. Within any institution there can be a variety of educational programmes followed, which lead to different educational qualifications. There are more and more institutions in Hungary today that offer educational programmes at different educational levels so it is difficult to introduce the system of secondary education with the help of school types. Here will be introduced the three basic institute types of secondary education and the most characteristic changes within them highlighted.

The type of general secondary school that prepares for the school leaving final examinations, the gymnasium, nowadays refers to a variety of institutions with different lengths (4, 6, or 8 grades) and different standards. Though preparation for higher education remains the major objective of gymnasium education, many of the gymnasia see the support of the preparation for the labour market an objective of similar importance.

The type of school that prepares for the school leaving final examinations and offers vocational training at the same time, the secondary vocational school, used to refer to three types of schools with different educational objectives: (a) the 5-year-long secondary vocational school, which trained secondary level technicians, (b) the 4 or 5-year-long secondary vocational schools, which mainly prepared for occupations in the service sector, and (c) the 4-year long secondary vocational and technical schools, which lead both to the final examinations and to the skilled worker qualifications. Nowadays the first two grades of the secondary vocational schools are similar to those of the gymnasia, and vocational training often takes place in grades 5 and 6 (see in more detail below).

The main institution type of secondary vocational education that does not lead to the school leaving final examinations is the 3-year-long technical school for skilled workers. Taking the enrolling pupil numbers the 2-year-long trade school is of decreasing importance.

The characteristics of the institutions

According to the official statistics the number of secondary schools rose from 560 to 980, that is by 75%, between 1985 and 1996. But this growth rate reflects the inadequacies of the official statistics rather than the actual growth because the statistical tools cannot handle the schools that offer different programmes as one, but count the different educational programmes as separate schools. This is why the number of institutions cannot be accepted as authentic. The changes in secondary education are better described by the number of the pupil classes or groups that follow a given educational programme, or by the number of students.

The number of classes at the secondary schools that lead to the final examinations rose by 68% compared to 1985, and by 24% compared to 1990. The number of classes at the technical schools on the other hand has decreased since 1992: the rate of the decrease between 1992/93 and 1996/97 was almost 18%.

The total number of students in secondary education grew until 1992, since when there has been a slight decrease. The main reason for this can be sought in demographic trends: the catchment base of secondary education has become smaller. Another factor is that the growth rate of secondary enrolments has slowed down. The biggest growth rate of the past few years has been produced by the number of secondary vocational school students: their number increased by 70% compared to 1985, and by 40% compared to 1990. The number of students attending a gymnasium increased slightly, with a lower rate than the average, during the 1980s, and there came a bigger than average increase in the first half of the 1990s: the growth rate was 25% between 1990 and 1996. But then the growth halted. As an overall outcome, the proportion of those in secondary education who attend a gymnasium has always decreased slightly for the past decade, except for 1992/93. Their current proportion is less than 40%. Within secondary vocational schools the number of those students has grown most dynamically who study in the economics fields (commerce, hospitality, economics). The number of technical school students decreased steadily in the 1990s, since 1993 it has been below the level of 1985. The numbers enrolling in trade schools have also declined significantly (see Figure 8).

Figure 8
Changes in student numbers by school types, 1985/86-1996/97 (1985 = 100%)

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Source: Ministry of Education, educational statistics, pre-disclosed data.

As opposed to the general schools the number of teachers continued to rise in the secondary schools after 1995 as well. In 1996 secondary schools leading to the final examinations employed 1.64 times as many teachers as in 1985 while the number of students became only 1.53 times as many. The number of teachers in the technical schools has decreased since 1991, and the number of teachers in the trade schools of shorthand-typing has decreased since 1990. The student/teacher ratio in the whole of secondary education leading to the final examinations has not changed much in the past one or two years.

In the 1996/97 school year 86% of the secondary schools were maintained by the local governments or by the state, and 14% were a church or a foundational school. The number of secondary schools maintained by the local governments has gradually decreased, while the ones maintained by the county governments became more numerous. The most dynamic among growth of the church and foundational schools has been produced at the secondary level, especially among the gymnasia: the biggest expansion has happened in the number of denominational gymnasia. Due to the smaller sizes of the institutions the proportion of students attending private or church schools is much lower than the overall proportion of such institutions. In 1996/97 school year 92% of all students attended a school maintained by a local government or by the state, and 8% studied in the church and private sector (see Figure 9).

Figure 9
Breakdown of secondary students in schools according to maintainers, 1996/97 (%)

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Source: Pre-disclosed educational statistics.

Preparation for higher education. The students of the high-standard secondary schools are good achievers at the study competitions, and their educational attainment is well over the average as it is confirmed by the Monitor surveys (see Chapter D on Curricula, examinations, pupil attainment). These schools are much sought-after and the majority of their leaving students are admitted to the higher educational institutions. Most of these elite schools are regular gymnasia, but some of the World Bank-supported secondary vocational schools belong to them, too. Beyond some regular 4-grade gymnasia, several 6 or 8-grade gymnasia are part of this circle, as are the dual-language gymnasia. (The 6 or 8-grade gymnasium programmes usually run parallel with the 4-grade gymnasium, so they do not usually operate as separate schools.) The majority of the denominational secondary schools are gymnasia, and most of them have the 6 or 8-grade long structure.

As we have seen earlier, the number of students attending the 6 or 8-grade gymnasia has grown dramatically for the past few years but their proportion within the age group is not significant. The situation is different if we analyse the phenomenon from the point of view of gymnasium students. The 6 and 8-grade gymnasia play an ever more important role among the gymnasia. Students attending such gymnasia constitute 27% of the total number of gymnasium students and, according to reliable short-term forecasts, this proportion may raise to 30% before 2000. So, even though the presence of the 6 and 8-grade gymnasium classes make the educational choice wider, and they are important venues of the nurturing of talents, they actually limit the chances of the 14-year-olds to get into a gymnasium. Many of the gymnasium places are filled with pupils of 10 to 14 years of age and the number of places does not increase fast enough to meet the demand for them. The demands for general academic secondary education are partly satisfied by the new-model secondary vocational schools but, in view of the enrolment proportions, these schools cannot yet replace the traditional gymnasia.

The combination of general and vocational education: schools with a mixed profile. The spreading of schools with a mixed profile shows that general education and secondary education are coming closer to each other: more and more gymnasia offer practical, market-oriented programmes, and a lot of institutions of vocational training introduce a new model of vocational education where general education is offered at an advanced level.

In the new model of vocational education, introduced at the beginning of the 1990s with the help of a World Bank loan and expertise, the formula of the training structure is 2+2+(1-2). The first two years follow the requirements of the National Core Curriculum and offer general education. 40% of the lessons in the second two years serve the foundation of the vocational training but the students of the different occupational branches still study together in this cycle. The finishing cycle, grade 5, or even grade 6, is devoted to specialised vocational education. This model has been spreading fast, for a long time now it cannot be considered a pilot model. Initially there were 61 schools, then another 18 applicants, selected to take part in this programme. With the financial support of the European Union (PHARE programme) further 71 schools joined in. The managers of the programme know of some further 70-80 schools that follow the same model without any central support. Almost one-third of the secondary vocational schools have at least one World Bank class. There were 15 to 20 thousand secondary vocational students who followed a World Bank programme in 1996/97, which means every tenth student in secondary vocational education in general, and every fifth or sixth student in grade 1. The first students having completed this programme took the final school-leaving examinations in summer 1997.

Technical schools and trade schools. According to the ruling of the 1993 Public Education Act and the National Core Curriculum in grades 9 and 10 technical schools have to provide general education as well. (Vocational education traditionally started in grade 9.) This is a big challenge for most of these schools because assuring the proper standards is a difficult task for a lot of them, and because temporary employment problems might arise with the teachers of practical vocational subjects.

As was mentioned before, the most dynamically increasing institutional sector of public education was the special trade school in the first years of the 1990s. This type of school first served to cater for the demographic peak (age groups from the baby-boom between 1974 and 1978), then provided compensation for the narrowing possibilities of further studies when the infrastructure of technical education for skilled workers was being dismantled. The special trade schools also admitted those pupils who could not make it into the technical schools for skilled workers. Special trade school education was usually offered by the general schools and by the technical schools. The launching of this kind of programme by the general schools was usually aimed at the maintenance of pupil numbers and at the acquisition of the substantial state grants. A further aim was to start practical vocational programmes in villages and small towns where there could be no opportunities earlier to offer such programmes. There is a lot of variety of, and a lot of uncertainties over the educational contents, the curricula, and the certificates issued by these schools. In the 1990s there have been two basic forms of education carried out in the special trade schools. One is a transitional type of practical training to provide the pupils with career-orientation, the other is teaching the pupils some vocational skills to improve their chances of employment. From 1994 on, the number of pupils attending such schools has decreased. But the extension of general education until the age of 16, and the condition that vocational education proper may only start upon the completion of grade 10, makes it hard for the bottom quarter of the pupils to enter the system of vocational education.

Pupil flows

There are several entry points to secondary education today: after grade 4, grade 6, and grade 8 (at the ages of 10, 12, and 14)³. The organisation of entrance examinations by the secondary schools - on local initiatives - has become a common practice of the past few years. Earlier it was only the specialised secondary schools that organised entrance examinations to select those pupils whom they thought the most able, then more and more secondary schools followed suit, in line with their enrolment strategy. According to a recent survey that covered 304 institutions, (Liskó, 1996) the secondary schools admit some three-thirds of those applying and reject one-fourth of them. The ratio of the admitted as compared to the rejected has improved a little due to demographic decline (from 72.8% to 75.3%). However, the order of admittance chances among the types of the secondary institutions has not changed. Selection is strongest at the new-structure gymnasia, there are more or less equal chances for admittance to the traditional gymnasia and the secondary vocational schools, and admittance is easiest to the technical schools (see Figure 10).

Figure 10
Changes in the percentages of students admitted in upper secondary education as proportion of all applicants, by school type, 1991-95

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Source: Liskó, 1996.

The chances for admittance to the various school types depend greatly on the type of the educational branch and on the type of location of the school. The high-prestige, big city gymnasia have the highest number of applications among the gymnasia (10 times as many as they can admit), over-application is much lower (2-3-fold) in the lower prestige, 6 or 8-grade classes of the gymnasia in the smaller towns or in the non-central districts of Budapest, and applications just meet the number of places available in case of the traditional (4-year) classes of the small-town gymnasia. The number of applicants for the secondary vocational schools mostly depends on the vocations being taught: over-application is highest (10-fold) in the secondary vocational schools that offer the most popular courses (tourism, hospitality, informatics), it is much lower at the schools of other tertiary-sector vocations (2-3-fold), and the number of applicants at schools that teach low-prestige trades hardly surpasses the number of places. At the technical schools the number of applicants has generally decreased but there are big differences here as well according to the trades on offer. The decrease is biggest in trades connected with the heavy industry, construction industry, machine industry, light industry and agriculture while there continues to be over-application for the trades of the tertiary sector (commerce, hospitality, service industry).

The differences between the chances for admittance are well reflected by the comparison of the pupils average educational achievement at the general school, which at the same time shows the hierarchy of the secondary schools, too. The 6 or 8-grade gymnasia and the dual language gymnasia are at the top: pupils need to achieve well over mark 4 in average to get in them (see note to Figure 11). Among vocational schools, the World Bank secondary vocational schools, even in smaller towns, are more sought after than the gymnasia, pupils with a mark 3 average cannot get into them either. A mark 3 average suffices for the traditional secondary vocational schools, and an achievement lower than that is only enough for the technical and the special trade schools (see Figure 11).

Figure 11
Average student attainment levels on entering secondary school, by school types

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Source: Calculated data based on Liskó, 1996.
Note: Student attainment in Hungarian schools is marked 1 to 5: 1 is the lowest mark (fail), 5 is the best.

The rates of drop-outs and repeaters are important indicators in secondary education as well. But dropping out at this level, especially after the end of compulsory schooling, may have reasons other than in primary education. Dropping out may not only indicate that the students under-achieve or lack motivation but also that some outdated educational programmes are still running which students want to abandon. There are few career correction possibilities especially in the technical schools for skilled workers so the majority of drop-outs leave the school sensing the lack of prospects of their chosen trade.

Drop-out rates are lowest in the gymnasia and highest in the technical schools. But for the past few years the rates have decreased both in the secondary and in the technical schools. The rate of dropping-out during the school year has improved at the gymnasia (due to the selection procedures) but has further deteriorated in vocational training (see Table 3). In the secondary vocational schools and the technical schools dropping out is most common between grades 1 and 2, which shows that choosing a career at the age of 14 may not be well grounded. Partly because the pupils may not yet be mature enough, and partly because the parents and their children are almost completely left to themselves when making this choice. From grade 2 on mid-year dropping-out decreases.

Table 3
Mid-year drop-out rates in secondary schools, 1990/91-1995/96 (%)

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	general secondary school				secondary vocational school				technical school
grade	I-II.	II-III.	III-IV.		I-II.	II-III.	III-IV.		I-II.	II-III.
1990/91	5.3	3.2	3.4		6.2	5.5	5.0		15.7	9.1
1991/92	3.3	2.7	3.4		6.3	5.1	4.6		16.2	8.4
1992/93	2.3	2.7	3.2		6.4	5.2	5.6		15.3	8.0
1993/94	3.0	2.5	3.7		6.8	2.8	4.5		15.8	6.8
1994/95	2.8	2.6	3.8		8.7	1.4	5.2		16.4	6.0
1995/96	2.2	2.1	3.1		6.5	1.1	4.3		16.1	4.5

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Source: Szakképzés Magyarországon, 1997.

The number of those repeating a year at the secondary schools stagnated between 1993 and 1996, even decreased a little in 1996, but increased at the technical schools. This phenomenon also shows the “creaming-off" effect of secondary schools (see Table 4).

Table 4
Number and percentage of year-repeaters in secondary schools, by school type, 1993/94-1996/97

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Academic year	general secondary school		secondary vocational school		technical school
	number of repeaters	percentage of repeaters	number of repeaters	percentage of repeaters	number of repeaters	percentage of repeaters
1993/94	1879	1.4	4716	2.5	5545	3.2
1994/95	1992	1.4	5182	2.6	5958	3.6
1995/96	1916	1.4	5464	2.6	6028	3.9
1996/97	1784	1.3	5069	2.3	6070	4.2

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Source: Ministry of Education, educational statistics.

The secondary school leaving examination. 73 thousand students passed their secondary school leaving examination in 1996. The number of those taking this examination has grown steadily for the past few years despite the decrease in the number of the age groups. All this means that secondary schooling in Hungary has become a level of mass schooling, which in turn has made the reconsideration of the contents and functions of the school leaving examination necessary. (See in more detail in Chapter D on Curricula, examinations and pupil attainment.)

Table 5
Summative data of upper secondary school graduates, 1990, 1994, and 1996

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	1990	1994	1996
general secondary school, full-time	24 136	31 029	32 133
general secondary school, total	27 241	34 413	..
secondary vocational school, full-time	28 903	37 575	41 280
secondary vocational school, total	40 633	45 788	..
full-time upper secondary education, total	53 039	68 604	73 413
obtained a secondary school leaving certificate, as proportion of all 18-year-olds	36.9	37.9	44.5
number of applicants to higher education	46 767	79 419	79 369
the admitted as percentage of all full-time graduates	31.7	43.4	52.3

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Source: Pocketbook of Hungarian Statistics, 1996; Pre-disclosed educational statistics.

In vocational education, output control is the task of the National Training Register (OKJ), and of the vocational examinations organised in accordance with the OKJ. The Register lists the completion of five possible levels of schooling as entry points into vocational education. With most vocations this level is the secondary school leaving certificate (examination), and very few vocations are connected to the fundamental knowledge examination. Almost half of the vocational qualifications can be obtained after having the secondary qualifications, and almost half after the basic qualifications (see Figure 12).

Figure 12
Breakdown of the vocational qualifications listed in the National Training Register by the required qualification at entry to training

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Source: Degéné, 1997.

Continuing studies after secondary education. Progress from secondary education is determined by the rules of entry to higher education. As opposed to earlier when entry to higher education was only via an entrance examination more than half of the higher educational institutions today do not admit their students on the basis of an entrance examination but take a combination of their achievement at the secondary school and the results of their secondary school leaving examinations (or count these two as well). But this practice is usually a characteristic of institutions that have fewer applicants. A significant change can be expected from the new regulations of the school-leaving examinations when they come into force, since - according to the ruling of the Public Education Act - students may not be required to take a written entrance examination in the subject in which they had passed an advanced-level school-leaving exam in the same year⁴. (See in more detail in Chapter D on Curricula, examinations and pupil attainment.)

One of the most innovative developments of the past few years in the educational scene of Hungary, but also the one most under-researched, is the expansion and differentiation of the forms of education after the secondary level. The traditional higher educational sector, the universities and the colleges are themselves undergoing transformation but there has appeared a new institutional sphere, post-secondary education, which receives an ever increasing number of secondary school leavers. The growing number of secondary school leavers generates a demand in higher education and induces its expansion. At the middle of the 1990s the rate of those entering higher education were some 55-60% of those with secondary qualifications, while the corresponding rate used to be 36-42% a decade before. In other words, every fourth 17-18-year-old youth continue their studies in higher education today, which surpasses the former 13-15% by far.

The number of students applying for higher education rose steadily until 1995. The yearly growth rate between 1990 and 1994 was more than 10%. The rate of growth has slowed since 1993, and for the first time in 1996 the number of students applying decreased, too, almost by 9% of the former year. The increase was not the same in all fields: it was strongest in law, economics, and college-level medicine. There was no change in the engineering field of higher education, and there was a little decrease in the agricultural fields. The number of applicants decreased by 35-40% in the teacher education institutes, by 27% in the art academies, and by some 15% in the faculties of humanities and natural sciences (see Figure 13).

Figure 13
Percentage of applicants to full-time higher education, 1987-1996 (1987=100%)

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Source: Neuwirth, 1997.

Two-thirds of those entering higher education come from a general secondary school, the gymnasium, and one-third from secondary vocational schools. Despite the fact that the number of secondary school students rose faster than that of the gymnasium students, the number of students from secondary vocational schools did not increase in higher education between 1995 and 1997. All in all, the chances for admittance improved a little both for the gymnasium students and the secondary vocational school students but the difference between the chances offered by the two different school types has hardly diminished. If we take all students who pass the secondary school leaving examinations and not only the ones who apply for higher education we can see how significant the difference is between students progressing into higher education from the different school types. In 1996 36.5% of the gymnasium leavers, 20% of students leaving a mixed-profile school, and only 14.5% of those leaving a secondary vocational school got into higher education in the same year when they left secondary school.

1.4. Post-secondary education

Post-secondary education is a widespread form of education with a vocational direction after secondary education but it does not yet operate as a coherent institutional system in Hungary. We are in the first phase of organising this form into a system. This process is naturally characterised by professional debates and heated conflicts of interest, and by the mixture of models envisaged. Even the exact definition of the term is problematic as there is not yet a name in the Hungarian language for this type of postsecondary or semi-higher educational training. It involves secondary vocational education, higher education and labour-force training, and all three of these sectors are interested in its regulation and in the expansion of its supply. If we take a salient feature of post-secondary education, which is the type of vocational education following the secondary level, then it has been in existence in Hungarian vocational education for decades in the form of the training of technicians. There are large numbers of youths with a secondary school leaving examination or with a secondary vocational qualification in post-secondary vocational education today organised by the market sector, or by the educational provision for first-time job-seekers.

The size of the demand can be estimated by the number of youths who have taken the secondary school leaving examination but have not been able to get into higher education. There are tens of thousands of such young people every year. Those with a general secondary school leaving certificate appear unqualified at the labour market and their chances for employment are more limited. But there is a labour market demand for them in information technologies, communications and other fields of related services, the jobs in which are not fully covered - due to fast changes - with the official system of occupations. Some of these young people as first-time job-seekers are entitled to further education financed by the state and carry on with their studies in the system of labour force training or in secondary vocational education. School-leavers of the secondary vocational schools get into higher education in more limited numbers but many of them enter a form of full-time vocational education which requires the school leaving examination (see Table 6).

Table 6
Data on secondary-level vocational training based on a secondary school leaving certificate, 1996/97

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	industrial	agricultural	other	total	change compared to 1995 (%)
number of students	12 899	2 291	24 878	40 068	127
of which full-time	11 793	2 255	19 223	33 271	138
passed the technicians' examination (in 1996)	8 806	2 169	623	11 598	112
of which full-time	8 119	2 115	579	10 813	106

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Source: Pocketbook of Hungarian Statistics, 1996.

An important share of post-secondary education is organised within higher education. These courses at the moment cannot be considered an integral part of traditional higher education, they are very varied, have sprung up spontaneously and not on the initiative of the central government. Perhaps this is why this unregulated form of training can flexibly follow the labour force demands which may arise at the local level and may not be covered by the vocations listed in the official register. Due to the lack of, or the shortcomings of, the current legislation there have been delays in the launching of accredited post-secondary courses in higher education. The number of students attending post-secondary courses in higher education has reached 20-25% of all traditional higher educational students. Most of these programmes charge high fees, close to the ones charged by the training market.

1.5. Higher education

In 1995/96 there were 90 higher educational institutions operating in Hungary, 30 with a university rank and 60 colleges. 58 institutions were maintained by the state, 28 by the churches, and 4 by foundations. The number of students in higher education rose from 77 thousand to 142 thousand between 1990/91 and 1996/97, and within them the number of first-year students almost doubled, rose from 23 thousand to 45 thousand (see Table 7). As a consequence, the proportion of 18-22-year-olds in higher education increased from 10.4% to 16.4% between 1990 and 1996 (see Figure 14).

Table 7
Basic data on higher educational institutions, 1990/91-1996/97

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	1990/91	1993/94	1994/95	1995/96	1996/97
number of institutions	77	91	91	90	89
number of students	76 601	103 713	116 370	129 541	141 871
of which university	39 510	52 324	56 539	61 169	70 583
non-university	37 091	51 389	59 831	68 372	71 288
first-year student	22 662	35 005	37 934	42 433	44 595
female (%)	48.8	51.9	51.1	52	52.1
resident in student hostel (%)	46.8	39.8	36.7	33.5	32.2
number of lecturers	17 302	18 687	19 103	18 098	19 426
graduated	15 963	16 223	18 041	20 024	22 129
graduates as proportion of all 22-year-olds	10.9	11.6	12.6	13.3	13.7

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Source: Pre-disclosed educational statistics. Figure 14
Rate of full-time higher education students compared to all 18-22-year-olds, 1990-1996 (%)

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---

Source: Public and higher education. Central Statistical Office.

It is worth noting, however, that according to the official statistics the rate of students in higher education in Hungary remains much below the corresponding indicators of the developed countries (see Figure 15). The picture would be modified by the system of short-term, post-secondary vocational education (see the section on post-secondary education above) but this field is not yet reflected in the statistical data of higher education.

Figure 15
Percentage of youth in higher education in the developed countries and in Hungary, by age group, 1994 (%)

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---

Source: Education at a Glance, 1996.

As a result of the expansion more than 20 thousand people acquired a higher educational degree or diploma in 1996/97, most of them at the non-university college level. This number expresses a 38% rise as compared to 1990. The biggest proportion of the graduates are comprised of teachers and primary teachers. It is important to point out that the rise in student numbers brought about the deterioration of some important quality indicators: the number of full-time students per one lecturer, for example, rose from 4.4 to 9.46 between 1990 and 1996.

Before the change of the political regime the number of students to be admitted were centrally prescribed for every higher educational institution and course. This practice has been ceased completely. But the government continues to play a decisive role in setting the total number of students when using the indirect means of setting the numbers by way of financing. Following the recommendations of the Higher Educational and Scientific Council and the approval of the Parliament the government guarantees the central budgetary support (the per capita grant) for a set number of students. The sizes of the grants differ according to the educational field and level, and labour market analyses and prognoses are taken into consideration when they are calculated. The institutions are free to admit more students than determined centrally but in that case they have less money per one student. This is the reason why the higher educational institutions have a stake in expanding the fee-paying, shorter types of education (which, at the same time, is in accordance with the objectives of the government and with the European trends of development).

The development of higher education in the past few years can be characterised - beside the growth of the supply - by another trend already mentioned before: the supply is becoming more differentiated. The diversification of higher education has continued from other aspects as well. Within the institutional infrastructure there are institutions that are more open, that admit 40-60% of those applying, and there is a more closed circle, which admits 20-40% of the applicants. Universities and colleges of engineering, the agricultural universities, the colleges of economics, the faculties of natural sciences, and the colleges of kindergarten and primary teachers belong to the former, while the latter circle includes mostly universities, from the art academies to the law faculties.

1.6. Special education

In Hungary the education of disabled children, or children with special educational needs, is provided by an independent sub-system within public education. But it is a spreading practice with many schools to nurture and teach children with special educational needs integrated into ordinary classrooms.

The Public Education Act allows the use of more time than the average for the education of children with special needs. This means an extra 10% of time for the mildly and moderately handicapped but it may reach 40-50% in case of severe sensory handicaps. The maintainers of institutions for children and pupils with special needs receive a higher normative grant than the average, which is currently 103,000 HUF per child. This support is granted irrespective of whether provision is given in a special institution (branch, class), or in an integrated form.

Early development, transfers, counselling services. The Public Education rules that severely handicapped children, who cannot take part in regular schooling, have to receive early development from the age of 5. From 1997 the normative grant for children taking part in early development and care is 90,000 HUF. In some big cities early development is carried out in special development centres, elsewhere it is organised by experts or rehabilitation committees. In 1995 there were 199 such centres, where 340 teachers of special education carried out the early development of 2077 disabled children, of whom 30% were under 3 years of age. Following the adoption of the Public Education Act the development and counselling services and their institutional infrastructure not only stabilised but have been further developed. In 1995/96 some 3.5% of kindergarten and primary school children consulted an educational counsellor, and speech therapists worked with 2.8% of them.

The institutions of special education. In 1996 there were some 49,000 children and young people with special educational needs for the state to provide kindergarten and school education for. The public educational provision of severely handicapped children who are reared in their families is the task of experts and rehabilitation committees. If these children are raised in institutions of social care their education is carried out there. According to the data of January 1996 there were 1461 such severely disabled children who received obligatory developmental education. From 1996 on the same normative grant is due for the developmental education of severely handicapped children as for kindergarten or primary school education.

In 1996/97 there were 669 public educational institutions that took part in the education of pupils with special needs. 200 of them were independent special schools (special general schools and multiple-purpose institutions comprising of a kindergarten, a general school, a student hostel and a special trade school). There was a special education branch or class in 469 general schools. 656 of the institutions were maintained by a local government (settlement government: 573, county government: 83), 7 were maintained by a foundation, 4 by a church, 1 by the state and 1 by another maintainer. In national average 3.57% of all general school pupils (some 36,000) attend a special school. The mainstream general schools provided integrated education for 1928 pupils with special needs.

One of the important measures to help the integrated kindergarten and school education of children with special needs is that when determining the number of pupils in a kindergarten group or a school class, mildly mentally handicapped and speech impaired children have to be counted as two pupils, and children with a physical, a sensory or a moderate mental handicap, and autistic children, have to be counted as three pupils. The groups or classes that undertake the education of children with special needs can be formed with lower numbers of pupils than is prescribed for able children.

Secondary education. In the school year of 1996/97 564 students with special needs took part in integrated education in the mainstream secondary schools (gymnasia, secondary vocational schools, other vocational schools). There were 172 such students in the gymnasia, 233 in the secondary vocational schools, 59 in the technical and trade schools, and 28 private students in all the secondary schools. The Public Education Act rules that special trade schools may be organised for students with special educational needs. These schools may prepare for a vocational examination in two years of vocational education at most and may teach skills that are necessary for students to start their independent lives. In the latter case, the education may be twice as long as it is determined for the given trade in the National Training Register. In 1996/97 there were 4607 students with a mild mental handicap or with multiple disabilities learning in the special trade schools. The number of students with a moderate mental handicap in the special schools of employment preparation and skills development was 765.

Teachers. In the school year of 1996/97 there were 6517 teachers teaching disabled pupils in the schools of special education, 63% of whom had a teaching qualification in special education. There is an independent teacher education institute for special education, the Gusztáv Bárczi College of Special Teacher Education.

1.7. The education of the national and ethnic minorities

The regulation of minority education. The regulatory frameworks of minority education in Hungary today are laid down in the 1996 Amendment to the Public Education Act of 1993, the National Core Curriculum adopted in 1995, and the guidelines of the kindergarten and school education of the national and ethnic minorities issued by the Ministry of Culture and Education. The objectives of these documents are to harmonise the regulations of the minority legislation, the LXXVII Act of 1993 on the rights of the national and ethnic minorities, with the educational regulations, to expand the system of preferences concerning the minorities, and to adjust minority education to the new elements of content regulation in school education.

The Public Education Act assures the right for the members of a minority to be educated in their mother tongue and prohibits any form of exclusion or negative discrimination of these persons. According to the Act it is the right of the parents to decide what kind of kindergarten or school education they choose for their children.

The organisation of minority education - similarly to mainstream education - is the task of the local governments. The institutions of minority education do not constitute a separate, autonomous system of institutions. Though the 1993 Act on the rights of the minorities allows the minority local governments to found and maintain a school, there has not been a single school like this founded. According to the legislation, the minorities have the right to ask for information, to initiate measures, to make proposals, and to file in an appeal against a practice or decision that infringes minority rights. They have a right of agreement in decisions about the education of minorities, i.e. the school-maintaining local governments cannot make a legally valid decision without an advance agreement with the minorities concerned. The minority local governments may also delegate members to the school boards to be able to influence the operation of the educational institutions, and they can take part in the institutions professional control.

The Public Education Act created the National Committee of the Minorities, which is a counselling body, and takes part in the preparation of the Minister of Education's decisions concerning the education of the minorities. The members of the Committee are delegated by the national minority governments, and its legal status equals that of the National Public Education Council (see OKNT in Chapter B on Educational policy, the administration and financing of education).

The National Core Curriculum (NCC) devotes a separate section to the basic principles of minority education. The NCC recognises intercultural education as a minority education programme, it makes the education of the Gypsy children equal that of the national minorities from linguistic and contents aspects, and makes the teaching of minority ethnography compulsory in the case of five minority education programmes.

The institutions of minority education

Kindergartens. Two-thirds of all national minority kindergartens are of a pure nationality character. The proportion of kindergartens that educate Gypsy children only is much smaller partly because there are no pedagogical reasons to segregate Gypsy children when there are no Gypsy language programmes, and partly because the proportion of Gypsy children attending a kindergarten is much lower. The number of children educated according to a minority kindergarten programme almost doubled between 1980 and 1995 but much of this growth has been produced by the German kindergartens. The number of children taking part in a German language programme grew from 57% to 71% in the same period. But in the school year of 1995/96 the number of children belonging to the major national minorities increased, except for Romanian children. Since 1993/94 the educational statistics do not gather data on the number of Gypsy children. According to the data of financing and to the estimates of the children taking part in national minority kindergarten programmes, there are about 15 thousand children taking part in a kindergarten programme for Gypsy children.

General school education. The education of pupils belonging to a national minority usually takes place in a common general school but in a separate study group or class. The education of Gypsy children is mostly integrated but a lot of schools organise separate Gypsy classes. Due to the lack of dual language programmes these separate classes are considered segregated education by analysts. The growth rate of children belonging to the major national minority groups halted in the middle of the 1990s. Within this the number of German and Romanian pupils has grown for the past few years, the number of Serbs stagnated, and the number of Croatian, Slovakian and Slovenian pupils has decreased. According to the estimates based on the data of financing less than half of the Gypsy pupils take part in Gypsy minority education programmes. We have no data on the number of pupils belonging to the smaller minority groups who attend auxiliary education in Sunday schools, outside the regular school system. The number of teachers teaching in minority education programmes is increasing, slowly but steadily, and to a greater extent than the number of minority children.

Secondary education. The development of the network of national minority gymnasia was completed with the division of the Serbo-Croatian gymnasium, with the opening of the German education centre in Baja, and with the completed building of the German student hostel in Budapest. Currently national minority education programmes are followed at ten independent gymnasia and at further ten gymnasia with a national minority branch. The Ghandi Gymnasium and Student Hostel in Pécs provides secondary education for Gypsy students.

Programmes. A problem related to the new content regulations is that the minority education programmes are not complete. The mother tongue programmes of minority children usually come to an end when the pupils leave the general school, and for a majority of pupils it will not be possible to prepare for the basic knowledge examination in their minority language as the number of students taking part in minority education is much lower at the further levels of schooling than in the kindergartens and general schools (see Figure 16).

Figure 16
Percentage of pupils following a minority education programme, by school type, 1996/97

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Source: Data of the Ministry of Finance.

The modernisation initiatives and experimental programmes characteristic of the public education system in the 1980s and 1990s practically did not extend to minority education. The education of minority children today is still mostly based on curricula developed in the 1970s. At present there are four basic types of minority education programmes followed at the general and secondary levels of schooling: teaching the minority language, dual language education, education in the mother tongue, and remedial education for Gypsy pupils. Among the schools offering minority education the language teaching programme is the most common: 6% of the general schools teach in the mother tongue, 13% run a dual language programme, and 81% teach a minority language. According to a 1995 survey of 900 general schools where there was a sizeable proportion of Gypsy pupils 433 of these schools ran a remedial programme for Gypsy pupils. More than half of these programmes aimed only at the revision of the learnt subjects, the rest at revision combined with skills development or partial ethnographic studies, and only a very few were devoted to pure skills development.

Special problems concerning the education of Gypsy pupils

The biggest linguistic minority in Hungary is the Gypsies, who speak the Gypsy language or the Romanian language (the Boyas dialect). Despite this fact there is practically no general school running a Gypsy language programme. The general aim of the programmes organised for the Gypsy children is to make them “educable" in the linguistic sense of the term.

The education of the Gypsy children is a complex matter extending much beyond the narrow interpretation of minority education. Partly because this education, besides conveying the minority language and cultural contents, has to bridge very significant cultural differences, and partly because it has to alleviate a vast disparity between the educational levels of the majority population and the Gypsy population (see Table 8). For all these reasons the problematic of educating the Gypsy population cannot be narrowed down to the question of Gypsy education programmes.

Table 8
The educational qualifications of the Gypsy population,
by age group, 1993 (%)

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age	grade 0	1-7 grades	grade 8	trade school or technical school	general or vocational secondary school	college or university	total
14-19	1.5	32.4	55.3	10.4	0.4	0.0	100
20-29	1.7	22.4	59.7	14.5	1.7	0.0	100
30-39	4.6	32.5	47.4	12.5	2.5	0.3	100
40-49	10.1	39.7	40.8	7.4	1.4	0.6	100
50-59	32.0	42.3	20.5	3.7	1.4	0.2	100
60-69	39.6	51.2	6.4	2.1	0.4	0.4	100
70-	50.9	40.2	7.8	1.0	0.0	0,0	100

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Source: Kemény, 1996.

The financing of minority education. The financing of minority education is a multi-channel system where the elements of normative financing mix with the elements of the separate financing of minority programmes. The 1997 budget contained an item of 3.2 billion HUF to supplement the normative financing of minority education, which was 173% of the grant given in 1994. The proportion of the supplementary minority grants within the total budgetary expenditure for education - except for a slight decrease - practically remained unchanged. Programme financing plays a very important role in the operation and development of minority education programmes. A smaller part of these resources is a separate item in the budget of the Ministry of Education, which serves the purpose of the execution of developmental minority education programmes, and the bigger part is channelled into a fund which the various public and private foundations can apply for. The most important ones of such foundations are the Public Foundation for the National and Ethnic Minorities, the Scholarship Scheme operated by the Soros Foundation, and the Romani Educational Developmental Programme of the Soros Foundation.

2. The education of underachievers and of people returning to education; adult education

According to cautious estimates the number of people taking part in the various forms of adult education amounts to several hundred thousand. These kinds of training programmes attract a growing number of young people who have not yet entered the labour market, who are no longer students but have not yet become employed either. Adult education increasingly serves the underachievers and the drop-outs of the public education system as an opportunity for remedial education. Besides a new interpretation of the old term, adult education, the concept of life long learning is receiving more and more attention in the terminology of adult education. This phenomenon is the accompaniment of the expansion and diversification of the training forms that follow regular schooling and of the explosive growth of demands for such forms of training. The strongest motivation for participation in adult education is related with employment or rather, with unemployment. (This motivation develops as a result of unemployment or aims at preventing such a condition.)

School-based adult education. The original function of school-based adult education was to provide an opportunity for adults with low or incomplete levels of schooling to obtain qualifications (at a more mature age, and parallel with working). However, adult education has undergone a significant development in the past fifteen years: from the schools of workers the institutions have become the alternative institutions of the education of young people. In accordance with the levels of the regular school system the institutions of adult education operate at three levels: at the general, the secondary and the higher educational levels. Adult education may take the general or the vocational direction. Basically there are evening classes and corresponding classes (but the organisation of the training is usually more flexible than this). (For the collective data see Table 9.)

Table 9
Number of adults in school-based education by age, 1995/96

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	8-grade general school for adults	upper secondary school for adults	university	total
15-year-old	556	488		1 044
16-year-old	1122	1 765		2 887
17-year-old	1343	7 874		9 217
15-17 year old	3021	10 127		13 148
18-year-old	673	11 881	1 045	13 599
19-year-old	391	11 444	2 260	14 095
20-year-old		9 840	2 939	12 779
21-year-old	124	7 152	3 470	10 746
22-year-old		4 902	3 469	8 371
18-22 year old	1188	45 219	13 183	59 590
23-year-old and over	996	20 545	36 841	58 382
Total	5205	75 891	50 024	131 120

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Source: Szakképzés Magyarországon, 1996.

Labour-market training. Besides the school-based forms of adult education, the importance of the so-called labour-market training has grown considerably in the past few years. Though these forms of training are not part of public education, they deserve some special attention as their development has an impact on public education as well. This training sector operates within the organisational structure of labour affairs, which has been developed by the state. Another important segment of this form of training serves the maintenance and development of the active labour force in forms of studying beside work, training on the work-site, and in-service training.

The training within the organisational structure of labour affairs serves the training of the temporarily inactive population. In 1995 6.7-7.6% of the unemployed took part in such training. There are some remedial and rehabilitative forms of training within this organisational structure, too. The organisational hubs of this sphere of training are the regional centres of labour force development and training. These centres came into being with the help of the Human Resources Development programme sponsored by the World Bank, and they appear as a new type of institution with a lot of additional capacity in the structure of training in Hungary. These centres organised the training of 94 thousand people in 1994, 71 thousand in 1995, and 69 thousand in 1996. The development of the choice of courses is strongly influenced by the preference of training with low demands for equipment or training in groups. This partly explains why this training system mostly targets people with higher qualifications. But there are courses organised in this system for target groups in special situations which are not much sought by the market sector (uneducated people, Gypsies, and people with reduced working abilities).

One-fifth of the participants of these courses have lower than the general school qualifications, though the proportion of such people among all unemployed is much higher, between 40 and 44%. The presence of youths in this sector is significant, similar to the rates in school-based adult education. The proportion of youths under 24 years of age in this form of training is high (42-44%) though their proportion among all the unemployed is lower, 23-27%. The participation of first job-seekers is also significant, the regional variation of their rates is between 34 and 37%. The average length of the training courses is 4 to 6 months. 80% of the courses aim at the acquisition of a vocational qualification. The majority of participants in the employment-oriented courses are unemployed but the regional training centres have registered a slow increase of people in employment. The proportion of the unemployed taking part in the courses of the regional training centres was 67% in 1994, 47% in 1995, but only 30% in 1996.

Training the active labour force. The necessity to deal with the determinant phenomenon of the 1990s, mass unemployment, and the social problems stemming from this, resulted in the development that in labour force training the attention has focused on training the inactive groups. The current regulations and financing systems motivate to a much lesser extent the training of the active employees whose individual choice is to study. According to the earlier regulations participation in schoolbased adult education is supported (for example, a study leave can be granted if there is a contract made with the employer) but these regulations do no cover participation in the professional in-service training courses or non-school based forms education which are initiated by the employees.

The structural reform of the economy, the appearance of the new technologies and occupations, and mass unemployment have created a quantitative demand in the field of in-service training and re-training. As a result a training market has developed, which has become fairly flexible by today and offers a manifold training supply. There are no reliable data available about the exact number of training institutions. An estimated number of some 2000 institutions deal with training on a more or less regular basis, with training as their main or minor profile. The National Statistical Data Collection Programme (OSAP), which operates as a result of a decree that rules about obligatory data provision, registered 4200 training courses, in which 105,000 people enrolled. (The numbers greatly overlap those in the training system of the unemployed.) There are a number of qualifications and types of training which are only offered by the training systems outside public education (these mostly satisfy the most up-to-date demands in the field of white-collar service activities).

There is no overall statistical information available on the training courses at the work-place either. According to surveys the largest volume of company training is the practical training of vocational school students, so much of the training expenses of the companies is devoted to this type of training. Some half of the companies with 10-100 employees receive vocational school students, and the bigger the company, the more likely it is to take part in practical training and the more students it is likely to receive. The average number of students received by companies is 90. Not counting the very small enterprises some half of the economic organisations organise their own training courses besides training vocational students. Companies with majority foreign ownership are usually more active in the organisation of internal training courses and are more reserved concerning the participation in the vocational education of students.