Foreword

This book is an abridged version of a report on school education titled Education in Hungary (Jelentés a magyar közoktatásról 2006.) that appeared in a book format. Education in Hungary was first published in 1996 following the recommendation of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to which Hungary submitted application for membership in the early 1990s. The OECD recommended that Hungary should produce and publish a comprehensive analysis of the development of education at regular intervals. The first report on Education in Hungary was followed by the second one in 1998, then the third and fourth reports in 2000 and 2003 respectively.

Education in Hungary is aimed at offering a comprehensive picture of the challenges that Hungarian education has been faced with over the past few years, and the response of Hungarian educational policy and education development to these challenges and processes.

The reports are prepared by the National Institute of Public Education (Országos Köz­­oktatási Intézet, OKI by its Hungarian acronym¹) upon the request and with the support of the Ministry of Education. The authors² are specialists in particular areas of education and are assisted by editorial committees consisting of renowned public education experts. Analyses by the authors of Education in Hungary rely on a multitude of background studies and make active use of inputs from a series of professional debates on the themes of the specific fields.

Education in Hungary 2006 is focused on the period that has elapsed since the previous report, primarily the period between 2002 and 2006. However, some of the time frames differ as in some areas longer timelines are needed for a meaningful analysis. In this respect, it is to be emphasized that most chapters of the full Hungarian version were prepared by the first half of 2006; consequently the processes that occurred in the second half of 2006, including the measures taken by the government taking office after the parliamentary elections in April, were inevitably excluded from the report.

Education in Hungary focuses on schools, that is, on what is often referred to as K12 education. Tertiary and vocational training are cited insofar as they are relevant to primary and secondary education. The original Hungarian version consists of nine chapters addressing the most important areas of public education. The delineation of the specific areas analysed in each chapter reflect the special systematization of public education issues. Obviously, problems can be structured in a different way – what follows is the result of the joint thought process of the editors, the editorial board and the teams of authors in charge of each chapter that stemmed from the preparatory debates and discussions. Accordingly, the first chapter offers an overview of the socio-economic context of education followed by separate chapters on administration, financing, structural problems, content issues, the inner world of schools, and teachers. Chapter 8 on the quality and effectiveness of education and Chapter 9 on inequalities and special needs address horizontal topics, i.e. topics that occur across the board within the system of education. Whereas the full Hungarian report integrated public opinion related to certain educational issues into the relevant chapters, the abridged English version highlights this topic in a last short chapter.

Both the Hungarian original and the English version can be downloaded from the web site of the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research and Development. The Hungarian references included in the English version of the publication can be found in more detail in the original Hungarian report on the website of the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research and Development.

The editors