Students, teachers and parents demand better education in Hungary

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Teachers in Hungary are increasingly in disagreement with the education policy of the Hungarian government. Teachers of two different secondary schools sent their separate open letters to the government in January and teachers of other 466 schools, including kindergartens, primary and secondary schools and vocational education and training schools, joined their petition entitled “I would love to teach”. The teachers of the 2 secondary schools underlined the following problems of the Hungarian education system that they esteem are obstacles of provision of quality education:

  • Immoderate centralisation of the education system (as a new state-central organisation – ‘KLIK’ - is responsible for all financial issues and maintenance of the schools);
  • Too many reforms and changes were made in a too short period of time that are not consistent with each other;
  • Teachers are not an administrators: administration should not decrease teaching time;
  • The tasks of support personnel, such as programme-organisers, financial managers, and child- and youth protection officers, should be restored.
  • More flexible, personalised education is necessary as competence development and deepening learners’ knowledge is almost impossible now.
  • Curriculum frameworks should allow to teach more practical knowledge.
  • Rise of teachers' salaries and salaries of education support personnel;
  • Restoration of the previous system of bachaloriat / secondary school graduation exams;
  • Improvement of teacher training in higher education institutions and of continuous professional development for teachers.

In addition, the teachers demand an effective social dialogue between the teacher trade unions, professional organisations, teachers and policy makers. The roundtable discussion of social partners should consider grassroots initiatives of teachers in reform-making.

The teachers’ demands are supported by trade unions from other sectors, including trade unions of the police, workers of the meat and metal industry and public sector workers.

Following these petitions, the government started a consultation with teachers. Teachers, students, parents and teacher unions held a nationwide demonstration on 3 February 2016 in different cities. The teacher unions announced a central demonstration by 13 February in Budapest.

Among others, the teacher unions also demand to return the legal status of the schools from the state-centralised institution (‘KLIK’) and that this institution should not be responsible for  the maintenance of the schools and at the same time the teachers’ employer. The centralization of the maintenance of the schools led to an unacceptable situation – say the teachers-  where the schools need to demand all equipment, eg. toner refill,  chalk, or paper, from KLIK, via public procurement.

“This wave of protests of teachers have been expected. The demands of the teachers are in line with our continuous demands from the government” - said Mrs Piroska Gallo, president of PSZ-SEHUN, the biggest teacher union, in an interview – “We fully understand the protest of the students as they are the victims of this system”.

While the government has been asking teachers to seek the reason for decreasing students’ achievements since 2010 in their teaching, Mrs Gallo added that “it is impossible to put the responsibility to the teachers. The responsibility lies in the hand of the government which now maintains public schools as not only a teacher is needed for quality provision of education but also the conditions of teaching. Quality education cannot be expected under the  regulations currently in place in the education system, which created an overload burden for teachers and students, the school books of poor quality and hardly no provision of equipment, e.g. chalk, paper, etc.”

According to a press release of PDSZ, Mr Laszlo Mendrey, president of PDSZ expressed his concerns about the education system. He said that a structural adjustment of the education system is essential because the state-centralised maintenance institute, “KLIK”, has continuous financial problems thus the government should return the responsibility for the schools to the municipalities.

More information from English media: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/hungarian-teachers-to-protest-against-orban-education-overhaul