Education in Hungary 2000

Chapter 2 - Public Education Administration

2.1 General Features of the Hungarian
Administration of Public Education

With the new government taking office in 1998, and the major amendments to the Public Education Act in 1999, key elements in the administration of public education have been affected, but the model of shared responsibilities that came about in the early nineties has basically been unchanged. The essential characteristics of this model are as follows:

• the administration of public education is rather decentralised and administrative responsibilities are shared by a number of players;
• horizontally speaking, responsibilities on a national level are shared by the directly responsible Ministry of Education and some other Ministries;
• vertically speaking, responsibilities are shared on a national, regional, local and school level, which means a total of four levels of administration;
• on the regional (county) and local levels educational administration is integrated into the general system of public administration; in other words there is no separate organisation for the administration of education;
• the role of the regional level is relatively weak, whereas the scope of local responsibilities is fairly wide;
• local governments are many, their average size is small.

There are four distinct levels within the Hungarian system of public education administration: (a) central or governmental, (b) regional, (c) local and (d) school level. There are three distinct functions on each level: (a) politics, reconciliation of interests or consultation, (b) governmental, administrational or authoritative and (c) professional functions. All these functions are associated with players of various administrational responsibilities (organisations, institutions and bodies) (Table 2.1 on the next page).

The system is characterised by a set of complementary and mutually confining autonomies. Potential conflicts between these autonomies can be handled in a system of conciliatory relations and partnerships, or through legal action. The prevailing system of public education administration provides a rather large scope of freedom for the players, with equally large inequalities in provision and quality. In the given system special efforts have to be made, and special tools applied, for quality assurance.

The Administration of Various Fields

Significant changes took place in public education administration due to the 1999 amendment of the 1993 Public Education Act. The autonomy of the school and its maintainer were, to some extent, reduced, whereas the role of national level increased. In particular:

• Decisions concerning the content of teaching can be made only at the school or on the national level, the regional and local levels are insignificant in this respect. Since 1993 schools were relatively free to decide on the number of lessons per week for compulsory school subjects. Frame curricula to be introduced by the 1999 amendment are expected to limit this freedom considerably.
• As for planning and school structures administrative responsibilities are spread among the various levels. The list of compulsory school subjects and the related teaching content are defined centrally, optionally augmented by schools with locally specific subjects and content. Institutional structures and potential deviations from it are defined by provisions of the law. School foundation is a local matter. Exams are regulated centrally, with an option of extra local content.
• Schools and local authorities have a major role in personnel decisions, on the basis of national regulations. (Teachers are employed by the school, headmasters by the local government. Promotion and salaries are decided locally, on the basis of national regulations.)
• The local level has a decisive role in the allocation of resources, however, most schools make their own financial decisions.

 

Table 2.1    The system of Hungarian public education administration: levels, functions and players

Levels	Politics, conciliation of interests, consultation functions	Governmental, administrational or authority functions	Professional functions
National	• Parliament • The Parliament Committee for Educational, Scientific, Youth and Sports Affairs • National Public Education Council and its standing committees • National Committee for Minorities • Council of Public Education • National Council for Vocational Training	• Ministry of Education • Office of the Commissioner of Educational Rights • National Public Education Evaluation and Examination Centre • Other Ministries	• National institutes involved in educational research and development (OKI, OI, KÁ OKSZI, NSZI, PTMIK, Comenius 2000 Programme Office)*
Regional	• Education Committee of County-level regional government • County-level bodies involved in regional development and education planning • County-level Committee for Vocational Training • Board of Trustees of Public Foundation for Public Education	• Regional units of the National Public Education Evaluation and Examination Centre • County clerks • Education department of county-level regional government	• Public education institutions financed by county governments • Educational service providers of counties and small regions (MPIs, service associations)
Local	• Education Committee of local government • Decision-making bodies of Task Forces	• Town clerk • Mayor's Office • Administrative bodies of school control	• Local educational service providers
Institutional	• School Board • Students' Union	• Headmaster	• School staff

NB: Players introduced after 1998 are italicised.
The individual functions are often indistinguishable in practice (eg. on a school level the headmaster has certain
professional functions, the teaching staff has certain functions in conciliation of interests and administration).
* See the List of Abbreviations
 
Source: Report on Education in Hungary 2000

The Responsibility of Providing the Public with Education;
Owners and Maintainers of Schools

In Hungary the provision of education is the responsibility of local communities and their authoritative bodies, the local governments. The overwhelming majority of public education institutions are owned by local and regional (county) governments. A peculiar feature of the system of administration is the fact that education providers are not obliged to finance the educational institution. Local governments are free to decide how they intend to provide the education: they can either have their own educational institution or make an agreement with the maintainer of an educational institution. The other key feature of the system is that the provision of education, although it is associated with levels of administration, is not monopolistic.

Between 1993 and 1999 the proportion of schools maintained by local governments dropped from 90% to 82% and the proportion of schools maintained privately or by churches increased from 4% to 10%. Local governments transfer more and more schools to regional (county) governments.

Although the basic characteristics of the system of administration have prevailed, there were changes in certain areas in the late nineties. After the general elections of 1998 cultural responsibilities were taken away from the former Ministry of Culture and Education as its new name is the Ministry of Education (OM). At the same time, responsibilities concerning the governmental control of vocational training were transferred from the former Ministry of Labour to the Ministry of Education (where they had been in the first place, before the early nineties). Other Ministries still have a say in this matter, however, integrating the administration of vocational training with public education administration has reduced the number of governmental players and on the whole has facilitated coordination.

The 1999 amendment of the Public Education Act has consolidated and extended the responsibilities and scope of governmental bodies in general and the responsibilities and scope of the Ministry and the Minister in particular, primarily with respect to the teaching content of public education, control and in-service training for teachers. Vertically speaking, responsibilities are still shared by central government bodies and their local units, regional (county) governments, local governments and public education institutions. All these have their own sphere of authority, limiting each other and presuming active cooperation. The rights of institutions and their maintainers have been limited to some extent.

On the basis of the 1998 amendment, the Ministry of Education has created its own administrative authority, the National Public Education Evaluation and Examination Centre (OKÉV). The organisation’s competence includes: (a) the management of the national control of education, measurement, evaluation and quality assurance, (b) acting as an authority with respect to matters within the Minister’s scope, (c) organising state exams and deciding about requests for remedy, (d) editing the national list of experts and examiners, (e) contribution to regional development in educational matters, (f) running the public education information system and tasks incurring therein.

Public Administration and Educational Administration

Ten years of experience since 1990, and preparations to join the European Union have made it clear that certain changes are necessary in the system of Hungarian public administration, which may affect education. The two-year government agenda to develop this field (1999-2000) has the objective of creating a system that provides services, making its operation more transparent, making more effective use of resources and primarily relying on quality improvement as a way to increase its capacities. The ministries will have to work out the strategies of their respective sector and not get lost in dealing with individual cases. Cases will have to be dealt with by national and/or local authorities and administrative bodies. The government policy does not support the creation of further decentralised organisations, instead, it calls for a new scope for administrative authorities that are directly responsible to the government and have improved working conditions.

A key feature of the proposed reform in public administration is the revision of regional divisions, in accordance with the requirements of EU-ascension and regional development. During this process the focus of public administration has shifted to the regional level, which also led to the strengthening of small regions.

2.2 Levels of Control in Public Education

Central Control

The cabinet member responsible for the sector of public education is the Minister of Education, who also supervises higher education, vocational education and scientific research. Following the 1999 Amendment, the central administration can only interfere with the management of an educational institution as a final resort: provisions of the law assign strategic leadership to the Minister, who can maintain legal provision by indirect means only. All this is a significant extension of the scope of central responsibilities, but in no way limits the tasks and resources of local administrations and school maintainers.

The Public Education Act assigns three types of responsibilities to the Minister: (a) direct control, (b) regulatory powers and (c) development tasks. The 1999 Amendment has broadened the sector-related responsibilities of the Minister considerably, and prescribed new tasks (e.g. issuing frame curricula, providing the necessary conditions for quality assurance). Direct supervision of public education is performed by the Deputy Secretary.

As vocational education is a high priority, the role of the Deputy Secretary responsible for controlling and supervising vocational training should be given due emphasis. The Deputy Secretary is responsible for preparing regulations concerning vocational training, supervising additions to the National Training Register, as well as the international equivalence of professional qualifications, the system of professional examinations, tasks related to professional textbooks, adult education within and outside the school system, career orientation and finally taking care of issues related to the financial background of vocational training in general and the Vocational Training Fund, in particular.

The 1999 Amendment to the Public Education Act introduced the Office of the Commissioner for Educational Rights (OJBH), providing the Minister with new means. The newly created office is an organisational unit of the Ministry of Education and it is responsible to the Minister. The function of the office is to protect the rights of parents, children, pupils, students and instructors as specified in the Constitution and other acts of Parliament. The Commissioner issues a yearly report.

It is remarkable that in Hungary the Ministry of Interior has relatively high number of responsibilities concerning public education. Since the administration of public education has been integrated into the system of local governments, and the state funding of public education into the funding of local governments, the Ministry of Interior-as the supervisor of the system of local governments and public administration-inevitably plays an important role in the control of public education, although in a rather indirect way. The cooperation of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance has become more significant. As the significance of applying financial means to influence processes on the local and the school level in public education increases, the Ministry of Education has to play an active role in elaborating financial regulations affecting public education. Cooperation with other Ministries is also necessary. Among others, cooperation with the Ministry of Economy - the department responsible for the implementation of the government’s employment and welfare policy-is a high priority, as well as cooperation with the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs. This is most evident in areas affecting the relations between education and the labour market and dealing with underprivileged youth on the periphery of society.

The ascension process preceding the EU membership has greatly increased the significance of cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, the department responsible for the coordination and control of preparing a national plan for development. Such a plan is a prerequisite for Hungary to join development programmes of the community and to gain access to Structural Funds allocated for the development of education, as soon as Hungary becomes a full member of the European Union. Furthermore, it is the Ministry of Economy that is responsible for the elaboration of the national employment policy and for the operation of the labour market organisation, which are key factors for public education.

The central administration of public education relies on various national institutes responsible for development, providing services and performing research-these are the so-called background institutions. The Ministry of Education controls (a) the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research (OI), the National Institute of Public Education (OKI), (c) the Kiss Árpád National Service Office of Public Education (KÁ OKSZI), (d) the Comenius 2000 Programme Office (responsible for preparing quality management in public education, in cooperation with the OKÉV), (e) the Methodology and Information Centre for In-service Teacher Training (PTMIK) and (f) the National Institute of Vocational Education (NSZI).

Regional Control

The regional level in the control of education is comprised of counties. Their responsibilities and powers are weak in comparison with the local and particularly with the national level. Local authorities are not subordinated to county authorities. According to the provisions of the Local Governments Act, however, county governments are responsible for all tasks of public education beyond the scope of local governments (e.g. secondary education, special education, art schools). County governments maintain somewhat more than 6% of all educational institutions and 22% of secondary schools.

The county level has gained considerable significance since the mid-nineties. One of the reasons for this is the fact that more and more settlements yield some of their secondary schools to county governments, and another reason is that due to the 1996 Amendment to the Public Education Act, county governments are responsible for regional planning, a task to be performed in cooperation with local governments. Mid-range plans for development (planning for a period of six years) were completed in 1997, observing the content and structure proposed by the Ministry of Education. These plans were recommendations for local governments. In half of the counties local governments were requested to pass a decision on the acceptance of the plans, a condition often required if one applied for financial support by public education funds, in accordance with the 1996 Amendment to the Public Education Act. In the late nineties tasks related to regional development and regional planning have gained significance within the Ministry of Education-primarily in view of the preparations for EU-membership and the access to Structural Funds.

Local Control

In Hungary most decisions concerning public education are passed by local governments. In 1999 there were 3 153 local governments in Hungary and 2 432 of them maintained some public education institutions, 1798 maintained at least an eight-grade primary school (Table 2.2). 75% of all local governments functioning as school maintainers and 55% of local governments maintaining at least an eight-grade primary school operated in settlements with a population of 2 000 or less, a proportion identical with the one three years before. In other words, there is a large number of small local governments providing schooling on the equivalent of ISCED 2 level (Table 2.3).

 

Table 2.2    The number of local governments with educational responsibilities, 1994/95 and 1999/2000

	1994/95	1999/2000
Total number of local governments	3 147	3 153
Local governments maintaining no educational institution	704	721
Allows for member schools only	nd	69
Total number of local governments maintaining schools	2 443	2 432
Local governments maintaining nursery schools only	177	201
Local governments maintaining primary schools only	116	44
Local governments maintaining nursery schools as well as primary schools	2 149	2 072
Local governments maintaining at least eight-grade primary schools	1 822	1 798
Local governments maintaining secondary schools as well	223	233

Source: Calculations by Mrs László Szalay based on statistical data of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Education

Regardless of their population size, all 2 432 local governments that maintain educational institutions have extensive local rights as guaranteed by the Public Education Act. This rather large number is unparalleled in Europe (in countries where local responsibilities are as great as in Hungary the total number of local governments is about 200-300).

Control skills of local school maintainers concerning public education vary greatly. For instance, 60% of local governments have no clerk dealing with educational matters and this proportion is much worse in smaller settlements.

The largest proportion of educational institutions are maintained by small towns and villages. Because of the large numbers and the small sizes, cooperation between settlements deserves much attention. There is little willingness for partnership in Hungary, in spite of the fact that the educational administration encourages cooperation in several ways. Cooperation between settlements has many forms besides maintaining a common school (e.g. jointly employing a speech therapist or organising in-service teacher training). Local cooperation is aided by educational planning and public funds support on the county level. Cooperation is not only justified between small settlements. It is particularly important that cities with capacities allowing for students to commute from neighbouring settlements should jointly organise related tasks. Contracts or agreements, however, are not made frequently, the only exception being pedagogical service providers (e.g. educational counselling), the activity of which is in fact characterised by formal cooperation.

 

Table 2.3    The number of local governments with educational responsibilities, according to population size, 1999/2000

Population (January 1st, 1998)	Total number of local governments	Local governments maintaining
		no educa- tional institution	member schools	a less-than-eight-grade primary school (as well)*	at least eight-grade primary schools	secon- dary schools**
below 500	985	724	40	123	32	2
500-999	689	67	27	221	328	6
1 000-1 999	663	2	2	27	625	5
2 000-4 999	517			10	513	28
5 000-9 999	136			22	136	47
10 000-19 999	77			36	78	62
20 000-49 999	45			35	45	42
50 000-99 999	28			25	28	28
100 000-199 999	12			12	12	12
above 200 000	1			1	1	1
Total	3 153	793	69	512	1 798	233

* Six-grade and eight-grade general secondary schools appear in the statistics as less-than-eight-grade primary schools
** Local governments maintaining general secondary schools, secondary vocational schools and technical schools
 
Source: Calculations by Mrs László Szalay based on statistical data of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Education

Institutional Control

No major changes took place in the late nineties concerning the legal framework of school responsibilities, defined essentially by the 1993 Public Education Act and its 1996 Amendment. Schools have a great autonomy. Most are managed independently with school directors as employers and the pedagogical programme drawn up by the school itself. Despite an increase in central responsibilities, school autonomy is still a decisive feature in the control of Hungarian public education.

The greatest challenges for independent institutions in the recent years were diminishing number of children, budget restraints and the preparations of pedagogical programmes.

Particularly difficult tasks included accepting the timetables that define the workload of teachers and which distribute responsibilities among school staff; the wording of pedagogical programmes; choosing or creating local curricula and adapting it to the idiosyncratic circumstances of the school. An important task on future agendas is going to be the control of school tasks related to the modification of pedagogical programmes, which will rely on experiences concerning motivation and conflict management. A new and distinguished task of control will be the establishment of quality assurance systems on the level of institutions, which-according to the provisions of the 1999 Amendment to the Public Education Act - is a mandatory supplement to pedagogical programmes.

More and more attention is paid to the training, selection and in-service training of school directors due to the great significance of decisions passed on the school level. A market for school management training has emerged in the nineties: there is a greater selection of locations and content of such programmes; accredited programmes are spreading rapidly, the role of county pedagogical institutions has diminished and private companies have appeared.

2.3 The System of Evaluation, Statistics and Information Flow in Public Education

The new government, taking office in 1998, aims to develop a system of supervision, evaluation and quality assurance in Hungary. These functions were defined in the 1996 Amendment to the Public Education Act and the government was entitled to establish the OKÉV in order to organise and coordinate these activities.

Supervision in education is performed by those listed in the National Expert List. Their number leapt in the late nineties: in 1999 the list contained 4 878 names, 72% more than two years before. The work of experts may be improved by way of defining standards with references to quality. The evaluation of the work of public education institutions is the responsibility of school maintainers. National evaluation on the part of the state examines strategic issues and national indicators of efficiency. These include Monitor-type measurements of student achievements, some of them with the coordination of international organisations (IEA, OECD).

One of the main objectives of the central administration is to set up quality assurance systems on the school level. National guidelines for quality assurance activities taking place in schools are elaborated by the OKÉV. The elaboration and coordination of the related development programme is done by the newly established Comenius 2000 Programme Office explicitly maintained by the Ministry of Education for this purpose.

The statistical system of public education has been in a state of emergency and transformation ever since the early nineties. Current statistics are unable to monitor students according to programme type and are also unable to distinguish schools from locations of operation, or to size up educational workforce. The information system introduced in public education is characterised by the following features: (a) three levels of observation (administrative, public education institution, applied programme levels); (b) data collection will be rendered to level of observation, location and content of activity; (c) a new unified conceptual model will be applied, based on acts of Parliament and statistical requirements; (d) the scope and quantity of collected information will be increased. In the new system data will be collected primarily by electronic means.

2.4 Pedagogical Services

The Public Education Act obliges county governments to organise pedagogical services. A large part of these services are provided by pedagogical institutes maintained by county governments. Other service providers include central institutes of research and development and private enterprises, whilst the role of higher education is becoming more and more important.

The most important pedagogical services are tasks related to evaluation; counselling in the field of school subjects and school management; services for authorities (e.g. professional support for county-level planning); documentation and information tasks (e.g. forwarding professional information, collecting educational documents); and organisational tasks of in-service training, student contests and student orientation and counselling. In 1999 there were 18 operational county-level pedagogical institutions, plus 1 in Budapest; all were maintained by local governments. Services are provided for public education institutions, school maintainers, teachers and students (student unions).

According to the provisions of the Public Education Act, the key function of pedagogical counselling is to introduce and disseminate teaching methods, assist the preparation of regulations on the school level (pedagogical programmes, local curricula, school rules), assist pedagogic development and the selection of textbooks and teaching aids as well as individual counselling. In 1999 there were 1 514 counsellors in Hungary (Budapest included), a figure practically identical with the 1996 data (1 515).

Institutions providing pedagogical services are but one of the players active in the field of in-service teacher training. In the school year 1998/99 a total of 1 474 in-service training courses with 30 or more contact hours were taught, and the total number of participants was 35 193. This is a quantum leap compared to 1996. More and more courses were organised in the form of training sessions and in-service training was related to specific pedagogical tasks (mental hygiene, measurement and evaluation, development pedagogy, children and youth protection) in an increasing proportion. In-service training had the largest participation rate among nursery school teachers (32% of them enrolled) and primary school teachers (23% of them enrolled) and participation was the lowest among secondary school teachers (14% of them enrolled in such training). In addition to this, 13 institutes were engaged in the organisation of higher educational or professional training, offering courses for teachers on a university level at county towns. Monthly publications of institutes (newsletters, brochures etc.) and web-sites (each institute has its own) play an important role in the mediation and dissemination of professional information.

2.5 The Involvement of Social Partners

The legal provisions of 1993 brought about bodies and organisations for consultation and the reconciliation of interests whose function is to involve the broader profession and social partners into decisions concerning public education. The role of these bodies and organisations have been altered considerably by later Amendments.

The most important changes affected the National Public Education Council (OKNT) and its professional committees. The function of the OKNT is to involve partners that have a stake in issues related to the content of education (curricular regulations, textbooks, teaching aids, examinations, in-service teacher training). The Council is made up of representatives of professional organisations of teachers, teacher training colleges, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, since 1996 the Minister of Education, and since 1999 the representatives of national associations of employers and chambers. According to the 1999 Amendment, the powers of the Council are limited in passing judgement on the National Core Curriculum and textbooks. The OKNT helped set up the National Committee of Secondary School-Leaving Examination with half of its members delegated by the OKNT, the other half by the Council of Higher Education and Science, and the National Pedagogical In-service Training and Accreditation Committee (PAB). The latter played a dominant role in in-service teacher training (for instance in the accreditation of programmes) up to 1999, when it was terminated and its function was taken over by the PAB with far more limited powers, basically as a consultative body. Accreditation of in-service teacher training programmes was transferred to the Body of Pedagogical In-service Training and Accreditation (PAT) set up by the Minister, with a few members delegated by the OKNT. The other important body involving social partners is the Council of Public Education (KT), which helps the Minister by supporting decisions, counselling and making proposals in the field of public education. The KT deals with all issues of public education policy, except for ones related to the status of public employees and waging. The KT is comprised of representatives of all the major stakeholders in public education (national organisations of teachers, trade unions, organisations of parents and students, local governments and self-governments of minorities, maintainers of schools other than the state or the local government, Ministries and national authorities having a stake in education). Each partner has four delegates, except government offices, which have one each. Due to its composition, the KT may play an important role in discussing the key issues concerning those regulatory and financial issues of public education that need a broad social consensus, however, it has failed to play such a role. We have to emphasise that the secretarial tasks of both the OKNT and the KT are performed by the staff of the Ministry of Education, Department of Public Education and Minorities Relations, which limits the independence of these bodies.

Professional committees have an important role in supporting the decisions of the Minister. The role and scope of the National Committee for Minorities has increased considerably. Recommendations and opinions concerning students’ rights are given by the National Council for Students’ Rights. Its nine members represent the Minister, unions of students aged 6-14 and unions of students aged 15-18, in equal proportions.

An important role, affecting public education among others, is played by the Council for the Reconciliation of Interests of Public Institutions (KIÉT), which is part of the Council for the Reconciliation of Interests. This body consists of representatives of employers, trade unions and chambers and it reconciles interests related to the status of public employees and wages. The role of this body was limited by the fact that it had no representatives of local governments maintaining schools. In the Council for the Reconciliation of Interests in Public Education, (KÖÉT) newly set up in 1995, local governments were also represented as employers.

Reconciliation with social partners is particularly important in vocational training. The National Council for Training (OKT) set up in 1991 is a trilateral body. Following the 1995 Amendment to the Vocational Training Act the role of the OKT was taken over by the National Council for Vocational Training (OSZT). This body has five sides, the classic trilateral arrangement augmented by representatives of school maintainers and chambers. The OSZT is a body providing opinions, recommendations and supporting decisions and has no right to pass decisions or allocate funds. It performs no reconciliation of interests and its function is mainly to serve as a discussion forum in educational matters that may lead to more balanced decisions that respect various interests.

There are also county-level forums that reconcile interests in vocational training. The so-called county employment councils were established by the 1991 Employment Act. Their most important function is to allocate the increasing proportion of Vocational Training Funds that support decentralised institutions, as well as to invite and support project proposals. According to the 1998 Amendment to the Act on Contributions to Vocational Training, Hungarian counties and Budapest are under obligation to set up their individual committee for vocational training. Their members are appointed by the Minister based on the recommendations of employers, employees, local governments maintaining vocational schools, regional chambers of commerce and public education funds. Due to their composition, these committees aid the harmonisation of resources in the field of human resource development (regional development funds, Labour Market Funds, public foundations). Negotiations with social partners take place on the local, regional and school level, as well.

Various non-governmental organisations have an ever increasing role in the field of public education: the Ministry of Education knew of more than 110 registered national organisations in 1999.