Education in Hungary 2000

Chapter 6 - The Inner World of Schools

The inner world of schools cannot stay independent of the influences of the external world and it is often the tensions generated outside which are felt inside. Peculiar conflicts are generated by the fact that the subculture of the new generation is radically different from that of the teachers and the requirements towards the schools (on the behalf of parents, students, the labour market, the general public etc.) are of a rather complex nature.

6.1 Changes in Education

The appearance of new teaching content does have certain influence on the inner world of schools, on the practice of teaching and learning, in particular. The implementation of the National Core Curriculum has not yet resulted in a real breakthrough in the subject structure and the processes of learning-management. Traditional subjects have generally retained their supremacy. In the pedagogical work of many institutions, the traditionally hierarchical and rigid teacher-student relations remained dominant.

New Content in the Professional Work of Schools

New content reflecting efforts for modernisation will take the shape of individual subjects in most cases, therefore, their effects on traditional subjects are somewhat limited. Most problematic, from this point of view, is Media Studies and Informatics, which have radically changed the acquisition and structure of knowledge, and teachers will also have to take another approach to ’teach’ Knowledge of Mankind and Self Knowledge included in the Man and Society cultural domain.

Concerning content, Environmental Education is in the best position. A programme called Round Chain (Körlánc) is based on the cooperation of schools and their social environment. The programme aims to develop programmes and curricula focusing on the preservation of local environmental values via cooperation of local communities. There is an increasing nation-wide interest in the Bio-School Movement.

The Methodological Awareness of Teachers

It is generally observed that few teachers tend to pay enough attention to the knowledge being constructed in students’ minds. Most teachers in fact prefer the traditional (frontal) teaching methods, hierarchy and learning-management processes. Other methods and structural forms are also to be found in schools; but the aim of handling children individually is given a rather narrow interpretation and most teachers think it is essentially nothing but paying attention to the two extreme strata of students, the best and the worst ones. This approach might result in the majority of students being considered as ’middle-rate’. Differentiation including the whole range of students is currently relatively rare in schools. The moderate pace in the permeation of a cooperative approach is indicated by the fact that the project method does not seem to gain ground in Hungary.

Out-of-Class Responsibilities

Teachers, aside from their in-class service, perform several other duties only indirectly related to education. The traditional role of schools expand into such fields as social care, transition into the world of work, the struggle against different forms of deviation, and other social problems. A dominant trend in the 1990s was to push these functions to the background, a trend explained, first of all, by the worsening financial situation of schools and their maintainers. In most places they were the very functions that have fallen victim to financial restrictions at the local and institutional level. The 1999 Amendment of the Public Education Act introduced several new changes in this respect which created more favourable conditions in regulation and financing to perform these duties and are expected to result in an increased awareness of these fields. Institutions with 300 students or more, for example, must employ spare-time managers from the year 2000. Other changes affect the employment of school librarians. The increasing governmental attention to the social functions of schools is reflected by the changes in subsidies. The most significant alteration in the budget of 2000 was a major enhancement of day-care and college normative support, and a new or increased contribution to help underprivileged students catch up.

Although one would expect extra payment for work done beyond one’s duty, regulations concerning teachers’ work support the recognition of out-of-class activities as pedagogical duties to only a limited extent. Teachers are expected to do certain organisational and social activities - organising the supervision of students, cultural and sport life in school, child and youth protection. In addition, teachers’ weekly hours might include the performance of such duties as the participation in the creation of the school’s educational programme or tasks related to student councils, cultural programmes and supervision over students.

Within the educational responsibilities reaching beyond in-class occupations, both the public opinion and teachers consider moral education to be of a high priority. Since 1998 the government policy also devotes distinguished attention to this priority. At the end of the past decade the professional debates on this topic occurred more and more frequently, partially due to government initiatives in this field. A number of various previously launched initiatives, started to gain ground at schools upon the implementation of the National Core Curriculum. Such initiatives include the school subject Knowledge of Mankind, child philosophy, discussion groups on case studies promoting ethical reflection, publications of teaching materials dealing with the relation of law and ethics (translations of modern western pedagogical works), and last but not least, initiatives to update religious studies at schools run by churches.

Responsibilities related to career orientation gain more and more significance. Today, career orientation and other activities aiding the students’ choice of profession are not yet presented with due emphasis in Hungarian schools. The fact that the significance of career orientation is underestimated is probably reinforced by the puzzling nature of the labour market, with changes being unpredictable in the long run. This responsibility is presented in the National Core Curriculum both as a general requirement and as part of one of the cultural domains (Life-Management and Practical Studies), its realisation at schools, however, still remains partial. Career orientation in the broader sense should begin at the primary school level, but this responsibility is often refused there. According to surveys carried out on a representative sample, 6% of teachers perform extracurricular duties related to career orientation. Career orientation is supposed to include the promotion of self-awareness as need be, but it is difficult to integrate it in today’s school practices.

From the aspect of both education and welfare, day-care for pupils, successfully functioning in Hungary for decades, plays a distinguished role. They offer meals, help with the homework and take care of children after school classes. Pupils are supervised by teachers in the afternoon hours as well. Participation in the day-care is not obligatory, and though the daily one to three meals and/or the attendance are subject to a fee, for those in need, the services are, of course, free of charge. Day care also promotes learning, since the teacher has more time to convey the basic skills and thus might reduce the risk of drop-outs as well. This is especially important if the student arrives from a background which is not entirely cooperative towards the school.

Day-care for pupils is popular between the 1st and the 4th year of primary schools, in particular; and despite the radically diminishing number of school-age children the proportion of those pupils who take advantage of this service has been reduced only to a small extent. Simultaneously, the number of those taking meals in the school has radically increased. In certain counties over 20% more pupils take meals instead of requesting for day-care (Table 6.1).

 

Table 6.1    Students taking meals and day-care in percentage of the total number of students per county, between 1980/81 and 1990/2000

County	1980/81		1990/91		1997/98		1998/99
	Day-care	Meals	Day-care	Meals	Day-care	Meals	Day-care	Meals
Bács-Kiskun	32.4	39.8	30.8	50.6	28.2	50.9	28.1	53.0
Baranya	40.7	49.5	38.5	55.5	31.9	54.1	32.1	55.7
Békés	41.5	44.8	44.4	58.4	40.9	59.1	40.4	58.9
Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén	30.4	37.0	30.6	48.0	26.5	48.0	26.7	49.2
Budapest	46.2	49.9	42.5	54.7	40.8	61.5	42.0	64.2
Csongrád	45.1	48.0	44.8	63.1	43.0	63.0	43.4	63.7
Fejér	32.4	42.3	27.5	51.7	27.5	48.9	28.4	50.3
Gyôr-Moson-Sopron	29.9	39.0	28.0	49.0	27.3	50.0	27.9	51.2
Hajdú-Bihar	36.3	40.7	44.8	62.3	44.3	66.4	45.4	68.2
Heves	36.2	41.2	38.0	50.4	34.5	50.7	34.6	51.3
Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok	42.3	45.9	41.7	54.4	32.3	48.7	32.6	48.5
Komárom-Esztergom	26.3	34.6	27.9	44.3	28.2	44.5	28.2	45.4
Nógrád	44.4	46.8	34.3	47.8	33.1	53.0	33.9	54.0
Pest	31.6	35.1	29.6	44.7	27.6	49.2	27.9	49.6
Somogy	42.5	54.0	43.3	66.1	42.6	67.1	43.9	69.7
Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg	37.6	43.4	39.1	58.2	37.9	60.4	38.9	63.3
Tolna	51.6	59.7	45.2	67.1	43.5	66.5	45.7	70.4
Vas	40.4	42.9	37.2	54.2	35.5	55.3	37.3	57.0
Veszprém	38.4	47.2	33.9	56.3	30.2	54.9	31.2	55.8
Zala	44.7	60.0	44.1	71.8	41.5	71.6	42.5	73.3
Average	38.2	46.3	37.2	54.5	34.7	56.0	35.3	57.5

Source: Statistics by the Ministry of Education; 1999/2000: calculations by Erika Garami

Changes in the Function of Class-masters

From the point of view of social education class-masters play a traditionally distinguished role in Hungary. The functions of the class-master are undertaken in every class by a teacher otherwise teaching the class. These functions include giving independent Class-master’s Classes (career orientation, reinforcement of community cohesion, life management, etc.), keeping contact with the parents, organising holiday camps and many other, therefore, they are regarded as being the utility men of education. The implementation of the National Core Curriculum created a new situation in this respect as well, since it is the fist time in over 150 years that there is no central document prescribing the presence of class-master functions in schools. Though, partially owing to the cease of governmental orders, the emphasis on the traditional role of class-masters has been reduced, 90% of the schools still have Class-master’s Classes.

6.2 Internal Relations in the Schools

Relations within the teaching staff and the attitudes typical of each teacher play a key role with respect to the inner world of schools. From this respect, undoubtedly the implementation of the National Core Curriculum proved to be the most significant element. During the pedagogical programme designing process not only were innovative energies set free but the relations within the staff were altered in many senses as well. Teachers have participated in great numbers in work related to the preparation of the new documents.

The Effects of Local Planning

In the preparation of their programmes, schools generally took two aspects. The starting-point of the first one was the total number of classes determined by the maintainer. The creation of the pedagogical programme, including the local curriculum, did not begin by determining the schedules and planned number of classes of each subject, but by the determination of the educational principles of the school, and a decision was reached on the basis of the defined emphasis and viewpoints of time-utilisation. The second approach considered the last valid curriculum, previous to the National Core Curriculum, as its starting point. The teaching staff - having compared it with the NAT - decided on fields needing certain alternations in content or structure according to the requirements defined in the document. In this case the changes considered to be necessary started from below and the teachers arrived at the demand for total class numbers by summarising the demands of each year and each domain. Thus the harmonisation with the maintainer could begin.

In the first case - usually at the beginning of the process - conflicts were likely to occur between directors and maintainers. While, in the case of the second approach, tensions could rise within the teachers’ community by the time they agreed on a total number of classes per week. The fact that, along with the number of classes, the number of teaching positions decreased as well enhanced the teachers’ worries for their job. Most school directors tended to take on conflicts with the maintainers rather than those within the school. In schools where the pedagogical programme was prepared on the grounds of a real cooperation the major positive experiences were signified by the improvement of professional communication, and the conscious examination of institutional procedures.

A widely observed phenomenon was that the significance of decisions of bodies have increased as opposed to the teachers’ individual decisions. With respect to human relations the directors perceived conflicts in a greater proportion, however, those sensing positive effects outnumbered those perceiving negative ones from this aspect as well (Table 6.2).

 

Table 6.2    The effects of the preparation of pedagogical programmes on the teaching staff according to the directors in different school types, 1998 (%)

	Primary schools	Other schools	Total
Effects on the professional development of the staff
No change detected	17.9	21.6	18.8
Mostly favourable effects	73.0	68.5	71.9
Mostly unfavourable effects	5.3	5.2	5.3
Hesitant	3.8	4.7	4.0
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0
Effects on human relations within the staff
No change detected	49.9	52.0	50.4
Mostly favourable effects	30.0	31.4	30.3
Mostly unfavourable effects	15.3	12.7	14.7
Hesitant	4.8	3.9	4.6
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0

Question asked: ‘In your opinion, how did the debates effect the professional development/human relations of the teaching staff?’
 
Source: Local Curriculum Survey, 1999

The preparations of the pedagogical programmes also tended to have a unique influence on cross-school cooperation, although the creation of the programmes usually remained a domestic affair within each school. Exceptions to this rule include the 92 schools that participated in the school project of individual self-improvement launched by the Soros Foundation. These institutions not only cooperated in the creation of the pedagogical programmes but the majority of them assumed to propagate the acquired knowledge in school analysis, evaluation and curriculum design within their own regions. The project reinforced the increasing significance of horizontal communication.

Internal Evaluation and Quality Assurance

The creation of the pedagogical programmes presented a special challenge in respect to the institutions’ internal evaluation and quality assurance. The documentation of the particular aims of the institutions further highlighted this question. The vast majority of schools do not have an internal evaluation system. On the other hand, however, a number of successful initiatives were launched in this field in the late 1990s. The key to the mystery lied in the fact, without exception, that quality assurance was built on year-long self-instructive activities and the selected model was to be adopted to the local conditions within the framework of a well planned organisation-development. In many cases, however, quality assurance is not an organic process built on the basis of local planning, rather it is motivated by the fulfilment of external requirements.

Creating a system of quality assurance poses a noteworthy challenge to schools and is likely to evoke new changes or even new conflicts among teachers. In many institutions, teachers will probably consider the increased discipline in documentation as a bureaucratic pressure. Quality assurance, however, entails the evaluation of the institutional functions, the achievement of the teachers and other employees is accompanied by their moral and financial recognition, as is proven by company quality assurance systems functioning all over Europe. The extensive introduction of quality assurance requires the employment of highly qualified experts who will assist in promoting the new approach in order to establish the schools’ work and in the acquisition of the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge.

Relations between Schools and Parents

The relation of parents and schools has radically changed since the change of regime - at least, on the level of legislation. In theory, families have regained their full rights to educate their children, as they have been given an opportunity to become partners with individual rights and competencies. The enforcement of parental rights tends to evoke significant tensions and conflicts. A partner relation based on the grounds of mutual respect and trust is quite rare to be formed between parents and teachers. As it has been highlighted by the debates over the establishment of school boards: a number of teachers have sore feelings about the ways ’outsiders’ may interfere with school life. On the other hand, parents with the ambition to frequently use their rights feel they are treated with strong reservations and aversion on behalf of the teachers, as if they had ventured into forbidden territory. In spite of these circumstances, school boards have been established and parents have a chance to participate in school life in all details through their representatives.

6.3 Students, Student Communities

New Trends in Youth Culture

The role played by the school is being held in higher and higher esteem by the young, since they spend more and more time there which will practically determine their future careers. The youth are less and less controlled by their family, neighbourhood community and more and more by the consumer industry and the media. The value-system, role models and emerging standards of the youth is determined by this increased independence.

More expectations from the youth means longer school training. In the 1990s a new trend gained ground: the burdens on the young grew generally both inside and outside the school. According to a 1998 survey carried out in three major towns of different counties, among a full scope sample of 17-year old secondary school students, 37% were engaged in sport activities, 26% studied a foreign language and 22% had private tutors. The majority of these activities took place outside of school. From the aspect of out-of-class activities the students of vocational training schools are particularly passive. Apart from sports, their participation rate in other activities is generally below 10%. One major reason is probably that these occupations, having largely left the schools, have become subjects to fees.

The spare-time activities of students tend to leave the institutional frames reserved for the young by the family, school and adult society (cultural and youth community centres, local sport clubs) and is transferred into the businesslike leisure centres (aerobic, body building), places of entertainment (discos) and tertiary industries offering extreme sports.

The School Class

School classes continue to play a key role in the socialisation of students and have a great influence on their general condition and state of mental hygiene. Surprisingly enough, the joy of togetherness and the amiability and helpfulness of the classmates are diminishing as time passes, and students of vocational training schools tend to feel more uneasy in their school than students of other secondary schools. Out of the 5 757 students participating in the Health-Behaviour Survey, 5% have complained about the great noise and mess in their school, 5% have been bullied by their classmates regularly and another 3% occasionally.

Student Rights

In the 1990s the range of student rights greatly expanded which has also been reinforced on a legal level; it is a general observation, however, that the affected hardly know their individual or collective rights listed in the Public Education Act. A significant proportion of students do not possess the skills necessary to enforce their rights. At the same time, the majority of schools lack the relevant sufficient institutional conditions, and a new approach is still to be formed in order for students to become full-right participants of school democracies. In many cases student rights are only asserted in negligible questions.

By all means, one important measure of the values in a school-level democracy is the extent to which the students are included in the development of school regulations, and to which their opinions are asked for. Domestic rules, for instance, usually do not result from consent, rather they include a mixture of rules of legal and ethical nature.

The Mental Hygiene of Students

The burdens weighing on students’ shoulders keep growing despite the fact that the National Core Curriculum has made efforts to limit the weekly number of classes. Research results indicate that the number of those students who consider school tasks oppressive and feel that teachers and parents demand too much has increased since 1993. Nearly one third (31.1%) of the participants have held this opinion. Poor achievement at school and the appearance of learning difficulties denote early signs of menaces for mental health. Partial weaknesses of skills (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia) are not uncommon to remain hidden at school. The lack or delay of assistance might develop secondary personality disorders. According to the statistics, every sixth student has developed some sort of personality disorder in need of correction or therapy. Approximately 20% of children attending schools in Hungary are in one way or another in danger. This fact denotes that one fifth of the child and adolescent population, above all the most vulnerable - under the aegis of primary prevention - should be worthy of distinguished attention.

Data collected from nation-wide representative samples have been available since 1986 on the health-related habits of 11-17-year old adolescents. Survey results (1986, 1990, 1993, 1997) demonstrate that, among the health threatening habits of the young, the attempts at smoking and drinking alcohol have been made at an increasingly younger age. The number of those students who devote much of their spare-time (minimum four hours a day) to watching television shows an constantly increasing rate. Only one third of the young practice a physically active life-style in their free time (on 3-4 occasions and over 6-7 hours per week for sports), the physical activities of another third barely reaches an acceptable level, however, the physical activities of the remaining third is unsatisfactory (the students belonging here do not practice sports more than once a week, if at all). The majority of physically inactive students consist of girls and vocational training school students. 28-30% of students of 15 years of age (boys in a slightly higher proportion) and half of 17-year old students (vocational training school students in a somewhat higher proportion) declared to have or have had sexual relationships, and only 40% of the sexually active adolescents gave an account of using condoms.

A 1995 research involving 17 085 Hungarian secondary school students revealed that 5.2% of them have tried a variety of drugs; 7.2% have used alcohol and medication together; and 4.2% have used marihuana and hashish. Experts, however, give a much higher estimate of those who have tried at one point of time some kind of narcotics. Vocational training school students tend to fall into the threatened group due to their habits of smoking, consuming alcohol and drugs; also, due to their early sexual activity, and to their negative concept on life (claimed worse health conditions, general conditions and more frequent psychosomatic symptoms).

Child and Youth Protection

The Child Protection Act issued in November, 1997 precisely outlines the tasks of the official responsible for child protection, and declares that all teachers and class-masters have to be active participants in the protection of children. Schools, as scenes of prevention, should hold responsibility for the detection of the reasons which place the children’s development at risk and the application of pedagogical means to prevent and counteract harmful effects; and, if necessary, to take steps to prevent or solve the problems.

The situation has been changing at a slower pace than expected and needed since the implementation of the Act. Observations generally show that the necessary conditions are not provided for in the majority of schools. The task of child protection is interpreted as paperwork and it is usually assigned to a staff member of the school. The fulfilment of legal, pedagogical, psychological and sociological requirements, necessary for child and youth protection, is not demanded for in reality.

For the present, schools appear unable to handle crisis. According to common observations, the majority of schools endeavour to rid themselves of the problematic child or family as soon as possible, finding excuses in lack of experts, capacity and competence; or actually referring to the interests of the community of children and the school. The freedom in school selection, the demographic ebb, the direct interest of the schools to ensure the highest possible number of students are certainly all factors which increase the interest for the majority of institutions not to assume responsibility for child and youth protection. A relevant study claims that the increasingly frustrated schools - due to the pressure for achievement - instead of attempting to bridge the gap between this underprivileged, unfortunately ever increasing mass of children, first send them to the back row, both in a practical and abstract sense, than let them leave the school.

The network of school psychologists, whose establishment was launched only in the mid-1980s, is struggling with a number of problems in approach and in everyday practice. At the end of the 1990s merely 120 psychologists practised their service as listed employees in schools.

Educational Counselling Services - as independent professional organisations - function effectively. This kind of service is usually consulted for ability and talent testing or in case of learning difficulties. Educational counselling has become more intensive in the past 10 years, with the number of clients in Budapest having doubled, from 11 784 to 22 455. Consulting a family pedagogue has not gained ground yet, neither has the recognition of other social experts. The Child Protection Act attempts to solve the problem with the establishment of Child Welfare Services to be organised in every community. These services are in charge of finding and summoning all the competent experts in the interest of each child in need of help. Today, child welfare services can only partially live up to these expectations. The effective operation is hindered by the insufficient number of experts and by the lack of time and money. In most communities local GPs, paediatricians, visiting nurses, teachers and local government officials are available for the service. On the other hand, unfortunately, only a few communities have readily available psychologists, teachers for the handicapped, developing teachers or child protection organisations.