10. Education of students with special needs

Some of the students who are disabled or/and disadvantaged need special treatment. A group of them consists of the mentally and/or physically disabled. According to experts, students with special educational needs add up to 10-20% of the total number of students, but only the needs of 2-3% of them result from their health condition. According to the Act on Public Education, students whose condition differs from the others have the right for an education that is appropriate to their condition, but not necessarily in the regular school system. The Act follows the tradition of providing separate education for the disabled.

10.1 Disabled children

Education for disabled children has a time-honoured tradition in Hungary and has very good results. The largest part of the educational institutions for disabled children comprise the general schools for the disabled. In 1995/96, the number of special general schools was 197, which amounts to 5% of the total number of general schools (see Table 10.1).

Table 10.1
Education for the disabled, 1991-1996

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	1990/91	1993/94	1994/95	1995/96
Institutions	175	191	196	197
Separate classes in normal general schools	440	462	459	462
Classrooms	3,262	3,415	3,498	3,443
Teachers	6,163	6,238	6,405	6,433
Students	39,393	40,890	41,696	41,924
in nursery schools	821	901	1,129	1,188
in general schools	35,921	34,594	35,021	36,069
in special short vocational schools	2,651	5,395	5,546	4,667

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Source: Statistical Yearbook of Hungary, 1995

The proportion of disabled children is similar to that in the countries where disabled students are taught separately. Over 90% of the separately taught disabled are mentally disabled children. There are debates upon whether the low achievements are caused by some biological damage. According to some surveys, there are no big differences between the one-fifth of students at special schools and the students at normal schools with the lowest achievements. It means that the criteria for selection are not clear.

There are proportionately more Gypsy students among the slightly disabled. Their proportion at the schools for the mentally slightly disabled children is between 30 and 50%. Their special needs are predominantly rooted in their socio-economic and cultural environment. The proportion of those who are only physically disabled (with speech impediment or sensory defect) amounts to 5-10% of the total number of the disabled students.

There are few secondary level institutions for the disabled. There is one general secondary school for students with a slight disablement, and another one for those with an auditory defect. The Education Act of 1985 authorised the establishment of 2-year-long special vocational schools for the mentally slightly disabled. The number of students learning in this kind of institutions is around 5,000. They are given some special training that prepares them to enter the labour market.

Ten to twenty per cent of the disabled students have more than one deficiency. Other groups of children do not belong to the disabled students, still they have severe communication problems (like autistic children or dyslexic students, etc.). Wherever possible, they are given special treatment within the regular school system. There are some initiatives to integrate the disabled children into the regular school system. The normal schools that also admit disabled children receive a higher amount of support.

One of the best known fields of Hungarian special education is `conductive' education, which is associated with the name of András Pető.

Besides the special educational institutions, there are some special educational services available for the students with special needs. The system of the early development and consulting service has been elaborated since 1992. There are 170 to 180 centres employing 300 to 350 experts to help approximately 2,000 families that struggle with these problems. There is also a special educational advisory service for children with adjustment problems.

Speech therapy is of a high standard in Hungary. Ten to twelve per cent of the students need some help in improving their speech. This kind of service is integrated into regular education.

10.2 The disadvantaged

Economic recession, inflation and growing unemployment has created striking differences in Hungarian society. A part of the people was able to exploit the opportunities given by the developing market economy, but a larger part has been experiencing increasing poverty and a loss of prospects. Many young people are facing the danger of not finding a job after leaving school. This has a strong influence on their expectation toward school.

During the 1990s, the number of students in need of support and aid was increasing. At the same time, the prices of the services, such as meals at schools, was increasing. Therefore large groups of needy children might be excluded from this provision. The number of groups in day-care has decreased. The proportion of students demanding school lunch fluctuated in the beginning of the 1990s between 54 and 57%.

Social expenditure on basic education added up to less than one-forth of the total expenditure in 1993. The proportion of the amount spent on secondary education was approximately 20% (see Table 10.2).

Table 10.2
Proportion of social expenditure in the current expenditure of educational institutes, %, 1985, 1990-1993

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Year	Basic education	Secondary education
1985	34.4	30.1
1990	28.6	20.9
1991	26.5	19.3
1992	25.3	18.4
1993	23.2	18.2

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Source: Ministry of Finance

The proportion of social expenditure has gradually decreased in the last few years: this proportion in the 1980s was one-third. The greatest part (60%) of the social expenditure is spent on day-care provision. One-third of the total expenditure is spent on school lunch. The highest decrease in expenditure occurred in the field of boarding: the expenses have fallen below 5%. The central authorities' role in maintaining social provisions is decreasing. Most of the costs are met by the municipalities.

High unemployment and poverty have an increasing effect on young people. The more educated have better chances in the labour market. Those having completed only the 8 grades of general school are at a higher risk of not finding a job than those with higher qualifications. This risk is five times higher among people with a general school certificate, and ten-twenty times higher among the unqualified. Therefore those are the most disadvantaged who fail at school.

One of the most disadvantaged groups of society is the Gypsies. They are overrepresented among the poor and the unemployed. In the school-year of 1992/93 (the last year when data were collected on the number of Gypsy students), 74,241 students, i.e. 7.12% of the total number of students were Gypsy. The distribution of studentsĹthe number of Hungarian Gypsies is an estimated half millionĹis uneven. They are concentrated in the less developed Northern-Eastern part of the country. There is a marked segregation of Gypsy students. In half of the schools, their proportion does not amount to 2%. 70% of Gypsy students attend schools where their proportion is over 10%. 42% of them attend schools where their proportion is as high as 22%.

According to nation-wide surveys on the Gypsy population made in 1971, 26% of the 25-29 year-old Gypsies had completed the 8 grades of general school. This proportion, according to a similar survey made in 1993, had grown to 77%. However, the rate of those who did not complete general school is still high: 23%. In 1993, only 13% of the Gypsy population had a skilled worker's certificate, and only one percent of them have passed the matriculation examination. The chance of the Gypsy population to enter secondary education has not improved since 1971. They are not successful at schools and are insufficiently motivated to achieve results. Moreover, they are not able to pay the growing expenses of education.

The most comprehensive initiatives for helping the disadvantaged students were launched in the field of vocational education. The 1990 Amendment of the Educational Law of 1985 authorised the admission of `normal' children to special vocational schools, originally established for the disabled. In 1990-1991, a mass of schools of this type was established to provide education in the fields of home-making, agriculture and traditional trades.

However, most of the special vocational schools with a very high proportion of girls cannot improve the chances of youngsters in the labour market. They work more or less as a pool for students who otherwise would find themselves in the streets. According to surveys made in this field in 1993 and 1994, three-quarters of the students were girls, and one or both of the parents of the students were unemployed in every second case. These institutions are small, and run one or two classes only. Often there is a lack of appropriate textbooks, equipment or workshops needed for training.

10.3 National and ethnic minorities

One of the most important conditions for the education of minorities is to guarantee the civil rights for them. The Act on National and Ethnic Minorities was passed by Parliament in 1993.

The network of kindergartens that work on the basis of a programmes for minorities began to develop in the mid-1970s. In 1995, 20,446 children attended 364 kindergartens (see Table 10.3).

Table 10.3
Education of national minorities, 1995/96

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	Kindergarten	General school	Secondary school
Institutions	364	371	23
Teachers	935	1,255	160
Students learning
German	14,589	35,558	1,376
Slovak	3,234	4,109	197
Croat	1,603	2,468	214
Romanian	647	1,041	114
Serb	184	281	75
Slovene	79	88	11
Greek	-	110	-
Other	110	27	-
Total number of students	20,446	43,672	1,987
Number of students learning in their national language	1,830	2,530	1,237

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Source: Statistical Yearbook of Hungary, 1995

The increase in the number of the kindergartens for minorities is due to the growing number of German kindergartens. The number of schools for ethnic minorities increased from 360 to 371 between 1960 and 1995. The rate of growth was much higher among the students and teachers of these schools. The number of teachers rose from 636 to 1,255, and that of the students increased from 29,057 to 43,672 in this period. This rapid development is due to the spread of educational programmes in German. But without taking into account education in German, education for the ethnic minorities is declining.

The number of secondary schools did not change, but that of the students doubled in the given period in these institutions. In 1995, the schools working in accordance with the educational programmes conceived for the ethnic minorities were given a supplementary support of HUF two billion from the central budget.

There are two types of educational programme for the ethnic minorities. The first type is one in which the national language is also taught, but education in general is conducted in Hungarian. In the bilingual programmes, some subjects are taught in the language of the ethnic minority concerned. Most of the schools for minorities are bilingual.