The System of Content Regulation¹ in Hungary

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1. Content regulation in education is a complicated process carried out on different levels, in the course of which different participants interpret certain educational targets into their own teaching practices with a great amount of autonomy. The way from curriculum leading to classroom practices is rather a fragmentary chain of different interpretations, which are affected by a complicated set of interests, than an implementation project. This is particularly true for the Hungarian education system, which is decentralised and which emphasises the participants’ autonomy and their sharing of responsibilities. Therefore, the analysis of the content regulation system requires the application of a model which supports the understanding of the process of setting and interpreting goals and which is capable of finding a direct and indirect system of instruments for the governance of education and educational policy-making. The model applied in the report includes the following levels of the Hungarian content regulation system: (1) setting of educational goals, (2) definition and operation of different instruments of content regulation, (3) developing and adopting local/institutional programs, (4) development and production of content carriers² and their selection in schools (5) putting content carriers in practice in the course of the teaching-learning process, (6) suitability verification. The most important systems connected to these levels are the following: (A) system regulation, (B) supervision and ensuring professional accountability, (C) professional services.

2. In the course of determining educational goals by content regulation during the last three decades, those having a stake in education were not included in the process, the social control over the proceedings was insufficient and there was no co-operation between different branches of education (general education, vocational education, higher education and adult education). In the waves of different curriculum modernisation (regulating) processes the role of national educational administration and science of education experts’ role and curriculum theories’ experts was emphasised. As a result, the problems of educational goals, the methods and instruments of curriculum regulation were mixed up, which made it impossible to initiate a public debate about the goals of education. Thus, the setting of targets has remained the issue of a closed group of administration staff and experts on the lower level of the education system (for example in the course of creating the educational institutions’ own curriculum).

3. The most important means of content regulation are input (curricular) regulation and output regulation (exams and testing). The novelties of the last centrally issued curriculum (1978) included the differentiation between core and supplementary materials, the division of the curriculum’s optimum and minimum and the application of optional subjects. The most important characteristics of the first National Core Curriculum (NCC, 1995) are the following: regulating regardless of school type; the definition of branches of knowledge; the setting of requirements adapted to pedagogical transition periods; the definition of cross-curricular areas; putting minimum and maximum number of lessons instead of regulating compulsory lesson numbers. Framework curricula (2000) were intended to constrain the freedom of the schools that thought to be too extensive and on the other hand they placed emphasis on integrity and making the system permeable. The new regulation moved back to the traditional definitions of school subjects and directed the (minimum) numbers of compulsory subjects. The modification of the General Education Law in 2002 ceased the compulsory existence of framework curricula; in other words, schools’ local curricula do not have to comply with the framework curriculum. The second National Core Curriculum (NCC, 2003) published in September, 2003, is a classic core curriculum, which defines the general educational targets of public education on a national level, the main fields of knowledge (the so-called branches of knowledge and the contents beyond certain spheres), the content based periods of public education (4+2+2+4) and the areas of skills development that have to be carried out within a certain period.

4. The implementation of the core curriculum serving as a central curriculum within a two-level content regulation system is doubted or at least incidental. In order to make the targets set on a governmental level appear in the local official documents of educational regulation, the application of transmission instruments are essential. One of these instruments, the orientating and supportive function of the framework curricula, do not operate, because no other framework curricula were developed besides the already existing ones for each different schools types (which curriculum directed the decrease of contents in 2003). Developing complex programs for different subjects or knowledge areas could fulfill a similar transmission/mediation function. However, this has not been achieved yet.

5. The weight of outcome regulation opposed to process regulation should have been increased in the entire period. However, this was not reflected by neither the debates of education policies focusing almost exclusively on curricula and school structures, nor by the development of outcome processing instruments. The Education Law of 1985 increased the importance of upper-secondary school-leaving exams by making it the condition of secondary qualification. The Public Education Law in 1993 regulated the creation of a content regulation system, which was based on the balance of input and output elements. The new, unified concept of a standard two-level upper-secondary school-leaving exam was published in 1995. The modification of the law in 1999 ceased the direct content regulating function of the exams. Alongside with initiating the two-level secondary school-leaving exam (maturata), a detailed supervision of the exam requirements is also being carried out. The clarification of the role and the preparation of initiating a basic examination³ at the age of 16 have not been completed. The currently existing system of measuring the achievement of students has no regulating function.

6. In 1993 the two-level system of content regulation was introduced by the law. One of the basic institutional backgrounds of this is the local curriculum⁴. It was compulsory for school maintainers⁵ to ask for public education experts’ opinions about local curricula and they had discussed the curricula in detail. However, research results show that the quality of local curricula varies to a huge extent. At the moment the most important aspect of school maintainers’ decision-making is the aspect of financing. However, there is no guarantee for the medium-term safety of financing. It is rare to see an experiment for including local educational priorities into the local curriculum. The regular compulsory revision of local curricula, enforced by central curriculum reforms, decreased the seriousness and quality of the process of revisiting and adoption. On the other hand, there’s no practice of adjusting revision to school development cycles.

7. Determination of the real content of Hungarian general education is overwhelmingly dominated by textbooks. After the political changes, the regulatory activities of the national education administration were aimed at the partial regulation and quality management of the already existent and exponentially growing textbook market. Although, textbooks and other content carriers are developed by teachers, group of teachers and institutions, the sales of these products are profit oriented. The real incorporation of this service of strategic importance into the system regulation, has not been completed yet. There is no local social control over institutional textbook selection. The choice of content instruments has been such an important part of teachers’ professional autonomy since the political changes, that all central initiatives aimed at the harmonisation of the content regulation system’s instruments on institutional level (local curriculum’s and educational content carriers) proved to be far too weak.

8. The most important medium intervening between educational aims established by different instruments and the real content and results of the learning process are the activities of teachers. The content regulation reforms carried out since 1990 forced teachers into the roles of content innovators and content developers. (According to experiences, these tasks can be almost entirely taken over by professional specialists.) On the contrary, teachers have a non-transferrable applying-adapting role. Thus, the expansion of pedagogical and methodological instruments available for teachers and the improvement of co-operation between teachers within the institution were underestimated during the entire reform period. The experiences of the last decades prove that the improvement of content regulation and the professional development of teachers are interdependent.

9. The measurement of aims set by the content regulation system and the suitability verification of the instruments, moreover, the feedback on information gained, would theoretically be the key element of the system. This function is almost entirely neglected in the Hungarian education system. The testing system could play a very important role in suitability verification. However, the reform of the upper secondary school-leaving exams have been initiated, the lack of standardisation and its dependency on the curriculum, the currently existing exam can not be used for suitability verification. Likewise, even if standardised testing in Hungary is rooted in the 1980s, the current testing system of learners’ achievement do not provide valuable information for suitability verification. The assessment system, not to mention small modifications, did not change after 2002. (Apart from very rare exceptions, the measurement and analysis of backwash effects are not built in the content development process.)

10. The regulatory instruments used by national educational administration fall short of the possible variety of instruments. The legal documents connected to content regulations are mainly useful for subsequent approval, they are fragmentary and asynchronous, the role of the important participants is underestimated. The instruments beyond legal regulations, which are used in reality, are overwhelmingly bureaucratic. The financial resources (incentives) that could be connected to system regulation and the indirect policy tools capable of influencing important participants (consultations, strategic communication, capacity development and enrichment of knowledge basis, etc.) are not employed. The aspects related to cost-effectiveness are almost entirely neglected in the content regulation system.

11. Those educational instruments, which are intended to ensure professional accountability and at the same time are adapted to the existing division of responsibilities, have not been worked out yet. The most important reason for that is the fact that maintainers’ supervision and external evaluation systems – the integration of which would be a key factor of building a sectoral quality assurance system – are weak and they are operating within unclassified frameworks without well-defined instruments.

12. The existing professional services, central and local organisations do not create a clear network, their actors and professional competences are incidental, their roles, obligations and financing are not clarified. The professional service supporting institutional content choice is mainly substituted by certain textbook publishers’ marketing activities.

13. Taking all these into consideration, the seven key problems calling for policy intervention identified by the analysis aimed at the “fine-tuning” of the content regulation system are the following:

• During the last few decades, the medium term strategic target setting of content regulation and development were carried out without involving social partners.
• The institutional background of professionals responsible for the development of the instruments of content regulation and development is vulnerable, their tasks and responsibilities are not clarified and the resources made available for them are insufficient. The profession operates on an ad hoc basis grouping around great implementation projects.
• Teachers and institutions of general education were and are incited to develop innovation (content development) in fields where professional specialist could have undertaken these responsibilities – of course without the exclusion of teachers. On the other hand, there’s no sufficient support in fields (methodology of teaching and learning) which can only be operated by teachers.
• During the last few decades, there were no initiatives to integrate the content development and testing of general education, vocational education, higher education and adult education.
• As a result of the closeness and weaknesses of the maintainer’s and institutional program approval, the legitimacy and real regulating force of programs approved locally by institutions are insufficient.
• The national evaluation system of public education institutions (and the connected financing) have not been created, the locally operating maintainer’s supervision systems are not integrated. Therefore, the principle of professional accountability does not prevail. The public education system’s stabilised and multifunctional evaluation and assessment system has not been worked out since 1990.

14. In harmony with all the above-mentioned shortcomings identified by the analysis, the most important recommendations are the following:

• Opening up the procedures of medium term strategic target setting of content regulation and development to all relevant stakeholders; the debate already started and the new forum to be established should gain a strong legal framework in the near future.
• Stabilisation of the institutional background of professionals operating the instruments of content regulation and development.
• A new policy of generating the development of supplies, which could direct general education institutions from curriculum development to the adaptation of ready-made alternative programs and the development of methodologies (teaching and learning). Connected to this, a new partnership with textbook publishers should be established and the development of content carriers should be made more professional.
• Working out a strategy that is based on lifelong learning principles, which could integrate the content development and assessment of general education, vocational education, higher education and adult education. Formation of different communication and co-operation forms of professional integration.
• The legal regulation of maintainer’s and institutional program approval in a way which (a) strengthens the control of local participants who are not teachers, (b) includes financial aspects into the process and (c) ceases the interpretation uncertainty caused by the modification of the law in 2003 (framework curriculum, program package, program).
• As opposed to practices between 1985 and 2003, the professional preparation of a strong development in the filed of external evaluation and assessment of public education institutions should be initiated.
• Creating a new concept for the national assessment system of the Hungarian education system. The concept should detach the discourse on educational structural policy from the field of assessment and it should focus on the suitability verification of general education regulatory instrument and pedagogical practices.