Brief Report of Multigraded Education
and Schools in Hungary
Péter Fehér
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Introduction
In this paper we briefly summarize recent information of multigraded education in Hungary. After describing some statistical background, we introduce our schools in sample from Baranya County.
1. The Hungarian Educational System
1.1 Some basic facts about Hungary and its educational system
Our contry is located in East Central Europe. It is a relatively small country, (population and the size of the country are very similar to Portugal or Austria). 10.1 million Hungarians live on 93 030 km2 (0.9% of the territory of Europe). The population of Hungary has been decreasing since the 1985. The density of population is on average110 people per square kilometre. The current major and long-term demographic decrease will have an effect on potential future trends in public education in the next 10-20 years.
Urbanisation is accelerating: 62.2% of the population live in 196 towns and almost one-third of them, 2.1million people live in Budapest. Ninety-six per cent of the population are native Hungarians, the largest minoritiesare Gypsies, Germans, Croats, Slovaks and Romanians.
The system of public administration is fairly decentralised. The elected bodies of local municipalities of villages and towns enjoy considerable political and financial independence. The country is divided into 19 counties and Budapest, the capital. There are locally and directly elected governing bodies at county level, but they hardly have any disposition over major resources, their importance and responsibilities being reduced since the change of regime in 1990. Education is financed partly by government (central budget for schools based on a head quote, it is between 70-80% of full budget) partly by local educational authorities. Privately owned schools also receive the head quote.
The change of social system (Hungary’s adoption of the capitalist type of economy, 1) resulted in profoundchanges in the Hungarian public education in 1995. The economic transformation was paralleled by social changeson a similar scale; an increased financial polarisation of society, resulting in sharp cultural diversity, which resulted ina change of prestige of education: knowledge and high qualifications are valued more highly by the labour market.
Direct challenges for education are long-term unemployment, conflicts between youth and adult subcultures (’digital-gap’ and ’generation-gap’) andthe growing influence of international media and electronic communication. Reconstruction of economy enquires aflexible labour force - as a result, the major focus of education has changed. The new key element being lifelonglearning, an objective that represents a major shift in educational policy.
2. Multigraded schools in Hungary
The number of general school students is continuously decreasing in Hungary. Since 1998, the number of students per school and per teacher has decreased, which has lead to the intensification of efficiency problems in the system. Between the academic years of 1999/2000 and 2001/2002 the number of institutions offering basic education programmes fell by 7%. The ratio of schools with fewer than 100 pupils decreased, while that of larger schools slightly increased. At the same time, the average class size decreased in all sizes of schools in the period under review
Years / No. Schools / Pupils<20 / Pupils betwen 21-1001999/2000 / 3696 / 175 / 738
2001/2002 / 3423 / 116 / 579
Since the end of 1990s the financial difficulties of local authorities are dramatically increased, so a lot of small authorities are not able to support their schools. (There are 6 small schools have been closed last two years just in Baranya County…)
Regarding information of most recent survey (2004), there are 3115 primary schools (Grade 1-4) in Hungary. 451 of them are part- or full-multigraded educational institutions, and 177 of them are full-multigraded schools.
No. Schools: / Part Multigrade / Full multigrade3115 / 451 (14,5%) / 177 (5,6%)
3. Hungarian NEMED Schools
In Baranya county (southern-west in Hungary), there are about 110 small settlements where the primary school constitutes the major source of cultural impetus and information about the surrounding world.
For these village schools, the use of Internet is much more than an enrichment of everyday life - it is a unique chance to overcome cultural handicaps caused by the lack of a reference library, museum, cultural centre or legal consultancy. For teachers, the Internet may provide teaching tools as well as partners for virtual projects and in-service training. For the children, it opens doors to regional, national and international student and expert communities that may offer both intellectual and spiritual support for the isolated.
Some of this villages are so small, that there is no school, and less than 20 of them has a multigraded educational institution, sometimes with kindergarten.
We tried to find 10 schools from Baranya for NEMED sample, but as we mentioned earlier, some of our mulitgraded schools were closed last summer. So there are only 7 schools will be representative from Hungary.
Name of School / Teaching Staff / Pupils / Net / Classrooms / GroupsPrimary School, Bár / 3+1 / 20 / n/a / 2 / 1-3, 2-4
Primary School, Liget / 3 / 18 / no / 2 / 1-3, 2-4
Primary School, Magyarmecske / 3 / 19 / ADSL / 2+1 / 1-2, 3-4
Primary School, Nagypall / 3 / 18 / no / 2 / 1-2, 3-4
Primary School and
Kindergarten, Pogány / 4 / 22 / no / 2 / 1-2, 3-4
Primary School, Szebény / 4+1 / 27 / Modem / 3 / 1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Primary School, Szajk / 3 / 17 / ADSL / 3 / 1-2, 3
Here we find some pictures from the life of our schools.
Primary School, Nagypall
Using ICT in Multigraded Schools
The history of ICT education in Hungarian public education dates back to the 1980s. In Hungary, as well as in most countries that introduced computing as a compulsory school discipline, a shift is observable from a technology-centred towards a teaching-learning centred approach. In the early 1980s, teacher training programmes and in-service training courses were introduced in large numbers to satisfy the accelerating need for ICT educators. In 1982, a design contest for school computers was launched by the Hungarian Ministry of Education to equip a large number of (mostly secondary) schools with affordable and easy to use computers, complete with pedagogically valid educational programmes. However, the „home-computer” category was not really able to build into curriculum of other subject (because of teh lack of multimedia capabilities, and user-friendly interface). A third objective was also formulated but, unfortunately, not realized: to train teachers of different disciplines to use computers in their preparation and daily teaching practice.
Today, the main problem for the dissemination of ICT-based educational methods is the inefficientlevel of teacher ICT competency, and a lack of equipments in small schools yet.
The computerisation of Hungarian schools, a major national investment co-ordinated by the SchoolnetOffice of the Hungarian Ministry of Education, was backed also by international grants.
Multi-graded schools are usually handicapped in Hungary regarding ICT-equipment and Internet-access. It is a rare situation today, that a small school are able to provide their students (or teachers) a broadband Internet connection. They usually have 1-3 PCs, sometimes a few educational CD-ROMs.
None of the schools were able to employ a system-administrator of course, so teachers are expected to maintain the machines. Almost every teacher had taken part in one or more in-service training courses about different ICT topics, but only a few of them were aware of the methods of use in the classroom. In our sample is the best example the staff of Szebeny, where every teacher have taken an ECDL-exams (European Computer Driving Licenc).
The teachers of selected schools have no experience regarding Internet-based collaboration projects, only one of them refer to this type of common work. This field offers quite a lot of opportunities for Hungarian schools, however lack of time and technical background are very strict barriers of the effective use of new technology in their everyday practice inthe classrooms.
During the project, we intended to identify the barriers of ICT usage and see how they were overcome by the individual schools and teachers. We presume that, from among the two major types of obstacles: personal and institutional, personal ones will play the key role. It has been repeatedly emphasised that it is the dedication and professional skill of the educator that influences efficient computer use and not the level of equipment. Results of the SITES I survey(Pelgrum and Andreson, 1999) also emphasise curricula and methodological culture as important background variables for student performance.) Our recent research project („Providing Equity through ICT in Education) showed, what role infrastructure and technical/ educational assistance play in efficient educational computing, how can we support school teachers for more effective usage of ICT.
Our plans about NEMED
In this project we try to find new ways and methods to support teachers of multigraded schools, providing them best practice examples, new softwares and teaching materials, and a forum for conversations each other. We hope that the involved schools and teachers will be able to build new connections and getting to know the life of multigraded schools around the Europe.
A more detailed information about NEMED Schools will be accessible by Hungarian NEMED Website ( from January 2006.
References:
Fehér, Péter (2001):The Road Less Travelled – ICT Culture of Hungarian Village Schools,
Paper on EARLI 9th Conference, Freiburg, 2001
Online:
Lannert, Judit and Halász, Gábor (Eds.): Education in Hungary, 2003, National Institute of Public Education (OKI)Budapest, 2004
Online:
Kárpáti, Andrea (2004): ICT in Hungarian Education - A Brief Overview
Educational Media International, Volume 41, Number 1, 2004, pp. 19-25(7)
Kárpáti, Andrea – Fehér, Péter (2001): Report On The Hungarian Case Studies of the EMILE Project,
Online:
Some other Information sources about Hungary and its educational system (collection of URLs)
Official home page for Hungary:
Central Statistics Office:
Hungarian Ministry for Education:
Hungarian Schoolnet (in English and Hungarian):
National Institute of Public Education:
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