9. Educational achievements

The standard of achievement in Hungarian public schools was last assessed in 1995 by the Evaluation Centre of the National Institute of Public Education. This kind of assessment was first made in 1986, second in 1991, and third in 1993. A part of the monitoring is made in co-operation with other international organisations such as IEA, while another part is carried out only on a Hungarian sample.

Monitor '95 covered reading, mathematics and information science taught in schools. It included 6 grades, 150 schools for each grade, i.e. grades 3, 4, 7 and 8 in general school and grades 10 and 12 in secondary educational institutions. The sample of general schools is representative of the distribution of the types of settlement, the sample of secondary schools is representative of that of the types of institutions.

Differences are high between schools in Hungary. Although the achievements are determined both by the type of the settlement and of the school, striking differences can be observed (see Appendix figures 1-2) even within the same group.

9.1 Performance in reading

Students have difficulties in understanding texts, and there are marked differences in each age group. Also, there are tangible differences between the performances of the urban and rural students. Surprisingly, at grade 8 two-thirds of the students learning in Budapest and half of those from schools in towns reached more points than the average. At the same time, three-quarters of the students of the same age in the villages performed under the average in reading. Moreover, it is interesting that the differences between schools are high in the cities, but lower in villages. So rural schools are more homogeneous, though on a lower level. The advantage of the urban school increases in the higher classes/grades.

With regard to the various types of institutions of secondary education, one can find differences among students in their understanding of texts. The best results in understanding are achieved by those in general secondary school, and the worst performance was made by those in vocational schools. Among the classes which have taken part in the survey, 94% of the general secondary classes and 50% of the vocational secondary classes achieved results above average, while this proportion for the short vocational classes was only 10%. This is regrettable, since half of the 16-year-old population attend this type of institution. The differences in performance among the different types of secondary educational institutions remained unchanged for years.

Comparing the performances achieved in 1986, in 1991 and 1993, the signs of a decline in their quality can be seen. Compared with 1986, there is a significant fall in performance. In 1995 the students of grade 12 achieved worse results in 97% of the tests than those in 1986.

9.2 Performance in mathematics

With regard to the types of settlement, the differences in performance in mathematics are as significant as in reading. Also, the differences are greater among urban schools than among rural ones. The achievements of students in towns are better than the performance of those in the villages.

In the light of the monitoring, two tendencies seem to take shape. One is a growing gap between the urban and the rural areas. The other one is an overall decline in performance. One reason might be the significant expansion of secondary education, which naturally entails a decline in average quality. The other one is the growing isolation of villages.

9.3 International comparison

In the academic year of 1983/84 the comparative international analyses (IEA/SISS Study) showed that Hungarian 14-year-olds topped the list along with those of Japan and Canada in general science. The comparative international analysis revealed that in the academic year of 1990/91, Hungarian 14-year-olds obtained seventh place in the IEA Reading Literacy Study. Although Hungarian students were on the top in the 1980s compared with students of other countries, there are some unfavourable tendencies in their achievements in reading and mathematics in the 1990s. In 1995 Hungary was the sixth in science and the ninth in mathematics among 26 countries according to the mean of overall achievement of the eighth-grade-students (see Appendix Figure 3-4). It indicates that there has been a decline in achievement since 1984/85. However Hungary is still among the leading countries.