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3. Education policy in the transition period
3. Education policy in the transition period
3.1 The legal framework
After 1989 the first measures related to education served the purpose of reinstating the freedom of learning, the freedom of conscience and the freedom of religion. The establishment of non-state public education institutions was authorised by the 1990 Amendment to the 1985 Act on Education. Act IV of 1990 recognised the right of historical Churches (Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran and Jewish) to education and charitable activities and the right of the citizens to educational institutions of religious commitment. With reference to this Act, Churches which had maintained about 60 per cent of all educational institutions until 1948 could reclaim part of their property, which was expropriated by the state in 1948, in order to provide education or charitable activities. Act LXV of 1990 conferred the responsibility to provide education upon the municipalities and to that end, also transferred upon them the ownership rights of formerly state-owned institutions of public education. As the first milestone of the reform process after 1989, the Education Act of 1993 specified the new legal framework of responsibilities and control mechanisms in public education as follows:
| a.) | The responsibility to provide education was conferred upon the municipalities; the Education Act regulates the division of responsibilities among the municipalities to perform this task. |
| b.) | The Churches and the private sector regained the right to maintain schools. |
| c.) | The obligation to participate in full-time general education was extended from 14 to 16 years of age. |
| d.) | The regulation of curricula is effected on two levels. The state issues the National Core Curriculum (NCC), which is a framework curriculum. On the basis of the NCC, the schools develop their own local program suited to the specific needs of their clients and they teach accordingly. The local curriculum is (also) a document of financing, which is to be approved by the maintaining authority. |
| e.) | The Act prescribes national examinations to be set at the main points of exit of the education system, i.e. at the end of the period of mandatory schooling and at the end of the secondary education. These examinations are linked to the implementation of the two-level curriculum control. |
| f.) | In order to guarantee social control over schools, the Education Act introduces the institution of the school board, on which the parents, the school and the maintaining authority are represented. |
The October 1995 Amendment to the Education Act introduced certain restrictive elements into the exceedingly liberal structural regulation: thus, for instance, declared that the general school generally has eight, and the secondary school generally has four grades and, at the same time, specified the conditions of deviation from this.
The 1996 Amendment to the Education Act promotes the modernisation of the public education system by aiming at stabilising the school system, to make it more transparent and to increase its accountability through implementing from 1998 the National Core Curriculum (issued in 1995), the examination system and a quality assurance system. One of the most important features of the amendment is that it provides regular further training for teachers and rules for the necessary financing arrangement, and establishes stricter qualification requirements for teachers whom the schools can employ. After a period of grace of about six years, the law introduces the institution of an examination for specialisation linked to teaching experience and specialisation in at least one area of educational sciences (e.g. methodology, evaluation, etc.).
3.2 Strategy for development of public education
The strategy of the long-term development of the Hungarian public education was elaborated by experts between 1994 and 1996, and was issued by the Ministry of Culture and Education at the end of 1996. The most important aim of the current education policy is to expand secondary education in order to maintain the number of students at the secondary schools that provide matriculation exam. To reach this aim, the proportion of students who proceed to secondary schools must be increased to 80% because the number of students is decreasing.
The other main target of education policy is to modernise education through the implementation of the National Core Curriculum, the new evaluation system and a regular in-service training for teachers.
To help schools keep up with the fast development of information science, major efforts are made to provide schools with computers and to help them to link up to the Internet. The schools can get earmarked support or increased normative sum per head to help the disadvantaged pupils with special programmes.