Éva Balázs:

National strategy and some elements of practice for the implementation of the Lisbon process in Hungary¹

Introduction

At the time when the Maastrich Treaty, which established the EU, for the first time stated the goal of political union for the European Community and – referring to education – declared union-level competencies for this field, deep political and social changes were taking place in Hungary. Since the transition process was quick, peaceful and democratic, the hope that the country could join the Union soon, seemed to be realistic. Political changes in other Eastern-Central-European countries that followed the Hungarian processes broadened up a vision for the whole region to be an integral part of “Europe” again. On the other hand, the growing number of candidate countries with poor economic achievement and suffering from different social and political deficits, raised new problems in union-building (and led to the dilemma of widening or deepening the union), which overshadowed the promise of a near accession. Though the euphoria in the transition countries ended relatively soon after the political changes, the will of re-union has remained till now.²

The decade of the 90s was a very long and dubious period for the Hungarian society but this period was also one, in which the involvement of the country in European education cooperation became much stronger than before. It coincided with – and was partly raised by – a new stage of the approximately two-decade process of "Europeanisation” of education, characterised these years by the first White Paper on education³, by the first European educational policy-analysis⁴, by the European Year of Life-Long Learning in Education (1996) and by the enlargement of community programmes with issues of public education.⁵ For the accession countries 1997 was also an outstanding year because since that they could take part in community programmes.⁶ In a broader context this stage revealed the growing importance of education for the whole society.⁷

By the time of the Berlin summit, which made the decision on the enlargement of the Union, a Europe different from what had been expected was being shaped. Economic difficulties were piling up, widening social differences were threatening social cohesion. In some respects the EU could answer the challenges (e.g. the introduction of the common money, agreeing in common employment policy) but in other fields it could not or could do so to less extent (e.g. the reform of CAP and that of the structural funds). The approach towards a new European common educational policy is a logic consequence of the above outlined challenges – but not in the short run. The decisive role of education in knowledge economy is expressed by two terms: economic competitiveness and social cohesion. They represent a specific characteristic of European economy and society, which is very different from other competitive regions, e.g. the US and Asia.⁸

The Lisbon summit declared the new complex role of education for Europe⁹ and member states and also introduced a new approach to governing processes.¹⁰ When the so-called Lisbon process started, Hungary (among nine other countries) was a candidate country of the Union. It is likely that the implementation process (described in the Detailed Work Programme, DWP) will be achieved by Hungary as a member state of the EU.

The “state of matters” in Hungary in the context of the Lisbon process

How can Hungary – or, concentrating on the theme of this paper, Hungarian public education – join to the Lisbon goals? Outlining the main capacities and deficiencies of public education (both policy and practice) in a country is important not (or not only) for judging the scale and perspectives of its contribution to the Lisbon goals. The key issue is the way of process, outstandingly the capacity to apply the open method of co-ordination (OMC). What is firstly relevant – or can be said, a pre-requisite – to that is the self-reflection potential on education, the importance of which is to produce a common “language” and knowledge on educational matters for professionals and stakeholders of education and of other sectors, both in domestic and international dimensions. This potential can serve to establish involvement, reconciling possibilities how to contribute to achieving the goals. Hungary has a fair range of ways in building this kind of potential. Besides experiences acquired by different international collaborations in the 90s¹¹ (the importance of which is indisputable mainly concerning the process of mutual learning), since 1995 a biannual¹² analytical report on public education has been published, prepared by the National Institute of Public Education.¹³ The Report – which puts education processes into their broader national and international contexts, uses indicators and research outcomes, databases in its analyses – is commonly used by professionals of macro, mezzo and school level administration, by R+D fellows, in higher education and school management training as well as by the wider public, so it gives a common reference for agents, stakeholders and partners of education having different interests and responsibilities.¹⁴ Since the report is regularly published also in English¹⁵ it is suitable also for international discussion and cooperation.¹⁶

The “immanent position” of the educational sector in Hungary can be described by some basic characteristics that display both the advantages and shortcomings of OMC capacities. First, the general features of administration – decentralisation, deregulation, appearance of market elements – are very similar to the European mainstream and these basically can contribute to applying the method of OMC.¹⁷ Local and other maintainers, schools and teachers themselves have a wide range of autonomy, some of which could be experienced even before the political changes in the country, giving more continuity in this field than in other social sectors.¹⁸ The nature of regulation not only respects but – mostly in an indirect way – prescribes autonomy, pre-activity and involvement of other stakeholders in many areas of education. Just a few examples to illustrate this, the implementation of the content reform of curricula requires the preparation of a so-called local, in reality a school-level pedagogical programme (LPP), including syllabus.¹⁹ Choosing textbooks and teaching methods are teachers’ responsibilities but in accepting them, parents also have their rights. Offering and modifying training programmes in secondary vocational schools depend on the choice of the schools but local social and economic needs can actively influence it. Concerning the financial system, more areas of education are supported not by direct allocation but by other ways, for example by an application system, which needs to fit in the requirements. Involving partners in a broader context of education, a territorial education planning system has been working in Hungary since 1996 and local planning requirements were added to this tool in 1999.

Looking at the short list of the previous examples, it can be added that the work of many elements does not fill the space given for operation or sometimes causes contradictions. Showing only some examples, raising participation of families in education is less successful with parents suffering social deprivation whilst activities of families of high cultural capital in choosing education supply (within and outside the school) contribute to growing inequalities of schools. There are cases when a wider and common commitment of families and of the public can impede necessary changes.²⁰ Keeping the involvement and innovation capacity of the teaching staff in preparation of LPP is hard because the modifications of content regulation require them to prepare the school-level programme in Hungary for the third time since 1995. It is not easy to adapt to additional financial mechanisms when their preferences change within a short period, which can hinder long-term building. The mid-term educational plans do not fit the – similarly new but existing – territorial development planning system, which is to receive the financial support of EU Structural Funds and there is lack of information flow among the planning professionals of education and other sectors.²¹

Meantime, decentralisation not only allows but supports building learning capacity and developing potential of adaptability, other important conditions for implementing the Lisbon process. One of such fields that can be emphasized in this respect is school management training system, the modernisation of which can be considered as strong potential that can widen the range of influence in managing OMC. Another one is secondary vocational education sub-sector where a comprehensive modernisation was taking place in the 90s.²² While the former can initiate new kinds of partnerships mainly with different agents of local society, the latter can fulfil a new mediating role between education and economy, appropriate for the expectations of the knowledge society. Adaptation and openness capacity of the country for OMC can also be illustrated by participation in European collaborations in Hungary. Between 1998 and 2001 713 public education institutions participated in EU COMENIUS programmes, two thirds of the secondary schools.²³

Openness is another characteristics that OMC cannot fulfil its function without. There are other sectors partly within and partly outside education, capable for contributing to a new kind of coordination in developing education. The growing number of non-governmental organizations is a resource of education for being able to mediate between professional and civic approaches on the one hand, and between social and market interests on the other.²⁴ Market elements in education also colour the picture. Some of them are operated by the control of central education policy (e.g. market of school textbooks, quality assurance, professional services) but they can also be competitors of education supply offered by the state (foundation schools, adult education agencies). In some cases the state invites the market sector to participate in achieving important education policy-goals (quality management of schools and local maintainers).

Supporting the potential of adaptability and openness, growing networking activities can also be emphasized. Networks in education have been growing in Hungary since the 90s. Besides those that are supported by the state (TEMPUS Office, COMENIUS Quality Development Programme), there is a fairly wide range of professional networks in the field (Self-Developing Schools²⁵, professional and civic associations). Their involvement in the Lisbon process is perceptible.

Concerning such concrete fields of OMC as transparency and measurability, preparing and using indicators in education, Hungary takes part in these tasks by different ways. Besides the international cooperation of Hungarian Central Statistical Office (abbreviated in Hungarian as KSH), MoE and professional institutions, maintained by the ministry, take part in different international indicator programmes.²⁶ The country has provided data for EURYDICE since 1998. MoE regularly delegates representatives for the EU Indicator Programme.²⁷ Hungary takes part also in OECD indicator activities. Under the political responsibility of MoE, the Kiss Árpád Public Education Service Institution is responsible professionally for INES network A, The National Institute of Education Research for Network B and the National Institute of Public Education for Network C.

Summarizing the above outlined dimensions and examples, the relation of Hungarian education system to OMC cannot be characterized by only the fact that the method is acceptable but also by the statement that national processes show some potential for applying this method.

The national strategy for the implementation of the Lisbon process

In describing the grounds of the implementation strategy, the main question is whether the country’s immanent goals are in harmony with the desirable goals of EU and to what extent. It can be said that the fundaments of the development strategy in Hungarian public education are fully identical with the Lisbon goals. What is more, the Lisbon objectives themselves strengthen the main national policy efforts in education. The twin-goals of economic competitiveness and social cohesion are broadly agreed with the society and these goals are in the centre of the Human Resources Development Chapter of the National Strategic Plan.²⁸ Legal changes in education prepared recently and being prepared nowadays are in great part to contribute also to these goals.²⁹ Among them there are – a few that – after several years of forced restriction – have huge financial resources. Such is the reform in technical school³⁰ sector, which aims at the modernisation of this area regarding new demands of economy, and at the same time deals with social inclusion problems.³¹ Others are the new national foreign language strategy and the development of physical infrastructure of schools, including ICT-infrastructure, with the contribution of the new PHARE programme. Both of them serve competitiveness regarding also social inequalities. The present EU activities (eLearning, LLL and quality assurance programmes for example) in Hungary are coordinated with the activities connected directly to the Lisbon process.

 

The Hungarian strategy prepared for the fulfilment of the Detailed Working Programme (DWP), is in harmony with the commission paper and DWP calendar. As the Lisbon goals are not only relevant but accepted by different agents of education and also by the society, the core of the strategy for Hungary was not how to convince people in achieving these goals but how to make synergy in the – sometimes separating – processes striving after the same or similar goals.³²

Since governmental level should take responsibility for the Lisbon process in the member states, the tasks of strategic planning, coordination among national and international activities and participating in the process fell on the Ministry of Education in Hungary. The governmental involvement in the implementation of the Lisbon strategy was supported by the sixth conference of education ministers in Bratislava, July 2002, where – with Hungarian participation – DWP was discussed and many details were provided for the national strategies.

Because the implementation needs cooperation with most other sectors, an important dimension of strategic activity for MoE was to improve connections and to build cross-sectoral cooperation with other ministries, playing part in the areas affected in the process.³³ It was partly based on previously developed contacts with the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for territorial development and with others through this contact.³⁴ Connected directly to the Working Plan, cooperation was initiated by MoE with ministries that had responsibilities and competencies in different fields of the main objectives. In the first phase of DWP³⁵ effective partnership is operated with the Ministry of Employment and Labour regarding employment policy, with the Ministry of the Interior and with the Ministry of Children, Youth and Sport Affairs regarding mobility issues.³⁶ Concerning relations between public education and vocational training, in Hungary it is possible because these sub-sectors have been administered by the same ministry since 1996.

A minor but not subsidiary circumstance of the implementation strategy that influenced the strategy itself was time pressure, caused partly by the late approval of the accession of the country to the EU and partly by the tight agenda of DWP. So it was inevitable to find those inner partners who could expand the scale of influence of the implementation on involving all possible actors that can play parts in the process. To have outer support for solving strategic planning, previous experiences of other countries (Austria, Poland, Germany) were also taken into consideration by MoE visits.

An urgent task, therefore an outstanding part of the strategic plan was the establishment of eight expert groups for representing Hungary in the international thematic working committees, dealing with the professional preparation of the implementation process and preparing outcomes for the end of the first phase of it.³⁷ The groups (that were organized by EU initiatives around the objectives of DWP in a combined way) are as follows: (A) Improving education and training for teachers and trainers (Objective 1.1); (B) Basic skills, foreign language teaching and learning, spirit of enterprise (Obj. 1,2, 3.3. and 3.2); (C): ICT in teaching and training (Obj. 1.3); (D): Increasing recruitment to scientific and technical studies (Obj. 1.4); (E): Making the best use of resources (Obj. 1.5); (F): Mobility and exchanges, European cooperation (Obj. 3.4 and 3.5)³⁸; (G): Open learning environment, active citizenship, equal opportunities and social cohesion (Obj. 2.1 and 2.3); (H): Making learning attractive, strengthening links with working life and research and society at large (Obj. 2.2 and 3.1). A ninth group was established to take part in the work of the European group dealing with a horizontal theme, preparing indicators for all the affected areas.

The groups were formed in late 2002 and started their work on the agenda of the EU coordinators of working committees, representing the Directorate Education and Youth. For organizing and coordinating the work of expert groups, different officials of the MoE were designated.³⁹ The coordination of the work is done by the Department for International Co-operation and Strategic Planning; the chief officer of the department reports on the work to the meeting of the minister regularly.⁴⁰

The members of the expert groups are distinguished professionals, representing higher education, research, policy-making and practice fields. So that OMC can fulfil its function, other stakeholders were also initiated by MoE to take part in the work. NGOs, civic associations were also invited to delegate experts in several working groups (e.g. teacher quality, mobility and exchange), in some others they were requested to form their opinion on professional analyses, working materials. All groups have a representative of the MoE for the European working committee (they are partly researchers, partly officers of MoE) and a secretary (MoE officer) to support the representatives’ work and to organize national activities. The tasks of the expert groups are twofold. The EU level activities are described by the European Committee⁴¹ and the fulfilment of them considerably depends on the EU coordinators of the working committees who initiate the detailed working schedule. The national tasks generally follow the ones of EU but there are specific national level tasks, general for all the groups. These are the following: (a) establishing and operating the group; (b) preparing and updating a national working plan, connected to the schedule of the committees coordinated in Brussels; (c) identifying different types of tasks in the given group (data analysis, adopting and representing national points of view in strategic issues, giving feedback on international contributions to national processes, participation in preparing indicators of the fields affected by the work of the group, gathering “best practices” and presenting them); (d) organizing study trips and peer reviews; (e) keeping contacts with target- and participating institutions; (f) translating and disseminating professional materials; (g) preparing and disseminating information materials and professional papers; (h) electronic communication.

To get information and improve the process of implementation, the department of MoE responsible for coordinating, has prepared a common framework for the expert groups. The elements of this framework consist of a list of terminology, disseminated to all experts, a common structure and form of travel reports, including a detailed report on the following tasks and agreements, similarly another one for reports on best practices and best policies. Progress reports also have a common structure.

To support information flow both among professionals and among the wider public, TEMPUS Hungary, a Public Foundation – the national administrative centre of community programmes in education, responsible for organization, following and evaluating these activities, established by the ministry – was asked.⁴² Also TEMPUS and OKI (National Institute of Public Education) are responsible for publicizing the issue.

The first steps of implementation

For the first time the implementation of the Lisbon strategy was publicized for a wide audience in Hungary in February 2003 by a national conference with the title of the DWP document. Possible agents of the process were invited by the organizers, TEMPUS and OKI; more than 50% of the approximately 300 participants came from the practice of education (2/3 of them form public education and training, 1/3 from higher education), 10% were representatives of research and development institutes, 20% school maintainers and educational supporting institutions, 15% MoE fellows). Experts of the eight groups also participated, mostly contributed to the conference.

The aims of the conference were threefold: distributing information, discussing tasks and ideas as well as preparing implementation by involving partners for the process. The introductory speeches of the conference were given by top administrators of Hungarian and EU education policy: by Mr. Medgyes, a secretary of state of MoE, Hungary and Mr. Haug, DG Education and Youth, European Commission. The structure of the conference followed the main strategic objectives of DWP, organized in forms of plenary lectures, parallel sessions and discussion forums on key issues. The reports of sessions and discussion groups were summarized in a plenary form. Experiences of foreign countries were also shared with the audience by lectures of two experts from Austria and Poland.

The main outcome of the conference was that DWP could be accepted for the professional public as a possible set of tools for Hungarian educational development and was not perceived as a pressure by EU for a “strange” goal. The conference started to operationalise the implementation in a broader context than the activity fields of ministry and expert groups. Some present and future tasks were concretised behind the strategic objectives and there were discussions on the way of work. Some programmes of the conference – especially the open discussions on key-themes like quality, effectiveness and efficiency in education⁴³ – could identify future participants that can be active agents of future processes of implementation. The conference gathered ideas on contributions to the international evaluation process and on special needs expressed by different agents. Among the possible fields of contribution to cross-national analyses, considering the affected agents’ will, teacher training and in-service training in Hungary was put on to the agenda as a theme for “peer review” or a possible example of “best practice”. On the other hand, national needs to get experiences with the help of other nations to deal with national problems also arose. As it was mentioned before, the PISA results caused a professional and social shock in Hungary, therefore it was natural that a deep need emerged towards a mutual – international – analysis on social and pedagogical backgrounds behind the poor achievement of the country in PISA (e.g. by exchanging experiences of teaching- learning methodologies with countries that performed outstandingly in PISA). Investigating different sectoral policies and practices of countries having low standard deviation among student achievements – a phenomenon the opposite of which is peculiar in Hungary – was also a field of need for international mutual learning.

Some concerns on the implementation also appeared in the conference, expressed by people of practice and local administration. Among them the following can be emphasized: the lack of – even a loose – connection between distinct activities on different levels can weaken the results; some debates are perceptible on how to involve cross-sectoral partners in implementation on the basis of a poor previous common activity among different sectors; some doubts can arise on how to make a compromise between accountability and transparency, namely between building tools for taking a EU-wide responsibility and at the same time giving freedom for local proceedings. A round-table discussion, which focussed on the main challenges of the Lisbon strategy towards Hungary, agreed that the hardest task to fulfil the Lisbon goals probably is to increase the access of all to education and training (the second objective). The measurable weaknesses like foreign language competencies or ICT- culture can be handled by conscious policy-making and focussed implementation but supporting equal opportunities is much more difficult to deal with in a pointed action. Gaps in social cohesion need to be handled by joint forces in the long run and it is likely that many losers of the transformation period of the society cannot be winners of the process by 2010. Polarization of education – mainly in higher and secondary sectors – can temporarily increase after joining the EU due to Bologna process and accreditation systems.

 

Another set of the first activities was to organize the ways of communication in the implementation process. As it was said, coordinating information flow among expert groups and other professionals is carried out by MoE, supported by the TEMPUS Foundation Office.⁴⁴ The wider audience can get regular information on the matters from a national professional periodical, Új Pedagógiai Szemle (New Pedagogical Review). In the first phase of the implementation the translated working plan and the main lectures of the above-mentioned conference were published in the spring of 2003.⁴⁵ The audience that can be reached this way is fairly broad since this periodical is issued in 3700 copies, has approximately 10 000 readers at all levels of education and a wider audience due to the fact that it has also a website⁴⁶ having 45 000 visitors per month. The periodical undertook to publish regularly all the relevant professional materials of the working groups, to issue interim reports on the progress, to give information on current events, and intends to follow the processes also from the point of view of everyday life.⁴⁷

The first half year of the Hungarian expert groups’ work shows a rather mixed picture.⁴⁸ In four groups: (A) Improving education and training for teachers and trainers; (B) Basic skills, foreign language teaching and learning, spirit of enterprise; (C): ICT issues and (F): Mobility and exchanges, European cooperation, there were clear initiatives by the EU, on the base of which a detailed schedule could be prepared on national level, which paved the way for Hungarian participants to contribute to the processes. On the other hand, theoretical and research background of the groups is strong in working groups A, B and C, which apparently played some role in establishing the conceptual base for the work that could be achieved. On the other hand, the tasks of the groups include different concrete activities, in accordance with what was addressed to them internationally, therefore the intensity and depth of both activities and present achievements of the group work are also rather divergent. In the theme of Hungarian teacher training and in-service training system (organized in group (A)) a comprehensive analysis was made by the international expert committee, which intensified national activities. The analysis was based on a national background report.⁴⁹ Several institutions of three levels (policy-making, research and praxis) were surveyed by field visits, organized by the MoE representative and other members of the group. The EU report⁵⁰, including a SWOT analysis on the Hungarian system – together with the Hungarian background report and materials of the altogether eight “best practices” – is one of the newest professional analyses in the field, appropriate for also national development in the close future in the view of MoE experts. Hungary also contributed to the (altogether eight) “best practice” examples of teacher training and re-training. The achievements of group (F) are also more than promising. In the theme of mobility and European exchange the European Commission asked Hungary to gather “best practices” and present a national analytical report. The nine documents on the former themes and the report were also prepared by a fruitful cooperation of a wide range of social sectors and interest groups. The third expert group, the work of which can be considered to be successful in Hungary, is group (B). This group takes responsibility for Hungarian activities of two important objectives of this phase of the DWP: surveying and analysing the teaching of skills for the knowledge society (objective 1.2) and foreign language skills (objective 3.3). Besides expertise, available in this group, the work is strengthened by the fact that the themes are challenging for Hungarian education policy as well. This group was not asked to prepare a national report; gathering, exchanging best practices and initiating indicators should be done in the international expert committee with Hungarian contribution. Experts take part in the preparation of the action plan of the EU for teaching foreign languages, based on the discussion paper of the European Committee “Supporting foreign language learning and language diversity”, so in this phase of the implementation the experiences can be taken into consideration in Hungarian developments. Fairly elaborated “good policy practices” are being produced by Hungary in three other themes: one in “Integrating ICT in education and initial vocational training”, two in the theme of “Developing skills for the knowledge society and for LLL”.⁵¹ Disseminating these experiences for the wider audience is inevitable also in Hungary.

In some groups the implementation is in the phase of making arrangements on the matters. Some delay probably does not cause serious problems in the perspectives of the Lisbon process but there are areas the lack of development of which can hinder Hungarian processes, which would need international support. Such is the working area of group (E) “Making the best use of resources” and (H) “Making learning attractive, strengthening links with working life and research and society at large”.

Evaluation on OMC in the first phase of implementation

In the first phase of the implementation workability of Open Method of Coordination is especially important. Workability means the effective use of tools, offered by OMC and practised in this phase but besides this, means a special way of working among professionals of different areas (among different working groups) and among representatives of professional-, administrative- and policy-sides (including education and other sectors) both within a country and between national and EU level.

As to the work of OMC tools, the former examples show that it could be “tested” in expert groups that had many tasks concerning national contributions to the objectives of the DWP. These groups could try a broad set of tools, and their workability in this phase of the implementation process was proved by the contribution of different stakeholders and many agents of the issue that the groups dealt with.

OMC in a “monothematic” group like “Improving education and training for teachers and trainers” (group A), involved mainly a defined professional background but the involvement included a wide range of levels affected in the matter. Various activities and the need to prepare an overall report on the theme with active Hungarian contribution rendered to get a good example of mutual learning and had resulted in a usable output for self-reflection of the country and for making recommendations for future actions to the EU. Much depended in the success on both sides. In Hungary the self-reflection potential of the field is fairly strong. The composition of experts in the national working group was balanced regarding the representatives of professionals (research and higher education) and policy-administrators. There was good cooperation with different institutions of practice, visited the representatives of which got information and feedback on their contribution and work. The EU-side was characterized by a well-prepared working agenda, by clear expectations and by a coordinator of the working committee who was conscious in professional and effective in managerial ways. Another good example of workability of OMC could be perceived in the group (F) “Mobility and exchanges, European cooperation”. Professional and organizational antecedents of this theme are not historical but indicate deep involvement in the matter, growing expertise and recent institution-building made it possible to contribute effectively to the work of this group. Besides gathering best practices preparing a national report was also expected here; it was made by wide cross-sectoral cooperation including representatives of education, training and other sectors as well as many agents of the state and civil sphere.

Groups, the working committees of which did not have clear aims or the deadline of which did not prescribe intensive working at that stage, could not try these tools; some members of these groups, trying to be pro-active could not ’channel’ these efforts into a common stream. So the workability of OMC in these cases can be judged in a longer term.

More debates arose on applying OMC as a way of working among different professional fields and among professional, political and administrative ’sides’ of implementation. In the former, lack of horizontal communication among different working groups was caused by their separated coordinative framework, managerial support and by time-pressure. Informal communication could sometimes solve this problem but could not support getting synergy in attached issues. In the latter, debates came less from communication among the three sides but rather from some uncertainty on the share of different responsibilities.

 

According to the working plan, the first phase of the implementation aimed at getting experiences on the practices of national education policies and – on the base of it – making proposals for future developments. This branch of work was grounded by professional experts. Officers of policy-administration partly managed (coordinated, supported and organized) this work and partly took part in that. Internationally this time of implementation was coordinated by the DG Education and Youth of the European Commission. The outcomes of this phase are to support preparing recommendations for the European Council by the Commission, which gives them political legitimacy, on the base of which future actions can be initiated to get the Lisbon goals. After accepting political recommendations, administrative bodies are to have a key role in this third phase.

Though theoretically there are three phases that can be characterised by taking key-responsibilities of three sides, it is clear that without a continuous cooperation among professionals, politicians and administrators – what is a specific feature of OMC – the success of the whole process is dubious. The perspectives to accept the professional recommendations depend on the successful involvement of national policy-making sphere even in the first phase. On the other hand the lack of professional preparation could hinder forming political opinion on pointed issues. Considering the DWP, the national representatives of the EU working committees should fulfil a mediating role between professionals and political bodies. Fulfilling this role is important in the first phase of implementation because expressing national standpoints in the (international) working committees were expected by the EU.

In half of the Hungarian national expert groups MoE officials were designated to be the representatives of the international working committees. They could generally mediate better between professional experts and political bodies but representatives with an academic background faced more doubts on the legitimacy of their work. Administrative and managerial support was and is being given for their work but harmonising different interests depended mainly on the urge of the tasks for politicians. Where the EU committee did not have clear criteria on work and/or there was not a detailed task for Hungary, there was no point in initiating discussions with politicians for expressing a national standpoint. In many cases – as it was described in this paper – it is not a serious problem in Hungary because national public education policy efforts are harmonious with Lisbon goals. But Hungarian experiences can point it out that the perspectives of the following phases of implementing the Lisbon goals depends more on working OMC among different interest groups than on the tools of the process.

References