Complete National Overview
Legal system
Levels of public education in Hungary
Public education in Hungary has three levels. (i) Pre-school education is carried out in pre-school institutions (ISCED 0). Pre-school education is optional from the age of three and compulsory from the age of five. (ii) Primary education is carried out in general schools and divided into four phases: introductory phase – Years 1-2 and beginning phase – Years 3-4 (ISCED 1); and founding phase – Years 5-6 and developing phase (Years 7-8). The phase called lower secondary in several European countries corresponds to Years 5-8 in Hungary (ISCED 2). (iii) Secondary education starts in Year 9 and finishes in Year 10 (in vocational schools) or in Years 12 or 13 of general secondary schools and vocational secondary schools (ISCED 3). There is a wide range of secondary programmes: vocational schools offer vocational training, general secondary schools provide general education leading to school-leaving exams and vocational secondary schools offer general education and vocational training leading to school-leaving exams (types A, B, C).
Legislation does not make any distinction between segregated or inclusive education but there are specific as opposed to general regulations relating to pupils with special education needs. Act on Public Education (LXXIX. 1993) stipulates inclusive education of pupils with special educational needs. Other laws related to the Act on Public Education also comprise regulations concerning pupils with special educational needs. According to the Act on Public Education pupils with special educational needs have the right to receive special provision from the time their special educational needs or disabilities are diagnosed. Any public education institution possessing the necessary personal and material conditions may offer provision for children with special educational needs.
The ongoing reforms and objectives of development emphasise that the conditions for inclusive education be ensured in as many institutions as possible.
The system of special institutions
Hungary has a well established system of special institutions ensuring choice for parents. According to the law the educational institution is chosen by the parent based on the expert opinion given by the National Committees for Assessing Learning Abilities and Rehabilitation or that of the Committees carrying out expert and rehabilitation activities.
Based on the diagnosis made by doctors, neurologists or audiologists the development of the abilities of the child starts at the earliest possible age and medical aids (hearing aid, glasses, crutches, stick) are also provided for them. Early development consists of counselling that focuses on the problems of the immediate environment of the given child, and of guiding the disability-specific development.
Special institutions providing education for pupils with special education needs aged 3-16 are: pre-school institutions, general schools, special vocational schools, and special vocational schools developing abilities. Special schools are controlled and supervised by local governments of different level. Depending on the frequency of a given disability and the number of children, these institutions may be town, district, metropolitan, metropolitan-district, county, cross-county and national ones.
Content regulation
The content of education is regulated by the National Core Curriculum and institutional local curricula. When preparing their own educational programmes and local curriculum the schools take into account the regulations of the Act on Public Education and of the National Core Curriculum, the Basic Programme of Education for Dormitories, the local objectives and possibilities of education.
The National Core Curriculum is the core document for the education of pupils with special education needs as well. When preparing their own pedagogical programmes the schools may adapt the National Core Curriculum according to the guidelines for the education of pupils with special educational needs. The differences among pupils are taken into account when preparing the local educational programmes. The objectives, tasks, contents, activities, requirements should be present in the pedagogical programme, in the quality assurance programme of the institution, in the local curriculum, in the teaching-learning programme linked to thematic units, plans and in the individual educational programme.
Habilitation and rehabilitation
The educational system of public education institutions participating in the education of pupils with special educational needs is determined by comprehensive, long-term habilitation and rehabilitation objectives and tasks defined in the documents of the institutions. The habilitation-rehabilitation activity is carried out in an open teaching-learning process organised in team work, which makes it necessary to use different procedures, timeframes, instruments, methods, and therapies depending on the demand of a given child or a group of children.
The factors influencing the content of the habilitation-rehabilitation activity are: type and degree of disability, time of diagnosing the disability, the age, health, psychic and medical state of the child with special educational needs, their abilities, developed skills, cognitive functions and previously acquired knowledge.
Where mainstream and special education meets
The curriculum that is basically the same for mainstream and special education makes it possible for pupils with special educational needs to achieve general school qualifications and to study in secondary and higher education. Schools and other special education institutions may decide which methods they find the most appropriate and use in providing education or care. These methods are different according to disabilities but are adapted to the content requirements of the National Core Curriculum. In school education the subject approach is dominant. Pupils with special education needs receive the same certificate when they have completed their studies as their peers without special educational needs.
Financing
The operation of the system of public education is financed mainly by the state budget and the contribution of the maintainers (municipalities, foundations, churches, private companies, individuals, etc.) from their own sources, which can be completed by fees paid by the pupils for certain services and by other incomes of the institution. The amount of the state budget contribution serving the provision of public education is defined by the annual Finances Act.
State support for public education has two forms: normative per pupil grant and earmarked grant. Municipalities providing public education are entitled to normative per pupil grants, while earmarked grants can be won through tenders. Normative per capita grants usually depend on the number of pupils. In addition to these grants the municipalities can use other resources for financing public education, e.g. state support calculated on the basis of other tasks or the proportion of the personal income tax returned to them. A major part of normative per pupil grants can be used by the municipalities without any restrictions. There is no direct financial link between the institutions and the state budget.
The maintainers define the budget of their institutions, with the only constraint that the budget has to ensure the completion of the tasks defined by the law. A task can be regarded as completed if the institution has the finances necessary for the minimum number of classes and can ensure all the services for the pupils that they are entitled to.
The level of institutional expenditures is regulated in the annual budget of the municipalities.
The normative per pupil grant for non-state, non-municipality institutions cannot be lower than the grant allocated to the municipalities with the same title. Church school maintainers are entitled to additional support based on an agreement with the state. Other, non-municipal maintainers are entitled to additional grants as well if they enter into a contract with the municipality for fulfilling a public task.
In the field of vocational training a significant source of funding is the Vocational Education and Training Contribution paid by enterprises, a part of which is used by the same enterprises for funding vocational training organised by themselves, while the other part of it is paid into the Training Sub-fund of the Labour Market Fund. Training institutions can win support from the Training Sub-fund of the Labour Market Fund through tenders.
The Act on Public Education and the related ministerial decrees stipulate not only compulsory education but also give – a new – right for special care and rehabilitation activities to children that due to special development impediments have difficulties in completing compulsory education. The right for special care requires the introduction of various forms of additional support in the system of public education. In the Act on Public Education Children entitled to additional grants are classified in two groups:
(1)Pupils with special educational needs: Pupils with physical disabilities, sensorial disabilities, mental retardation (those with mental impediments included), pupils with speech disabilities, autistic, dyslexic, hyperactive, etc. children and students. The additional grant is entitled on the basis the expert opinions of National Committees for Assessing Learning Abilities and Rehabilitation.
(2)Children and students struggling with adaptation, learning and behavioural difficulties. (The additional grant is entitled on the basis of expert opinion given by Educational Counselling Services.)
The additional grant is allocated irrespective of the institution that the child attends, i.e. they are entitled to this in inclusive conditions as well. As the amount need not necessarily be spent on the child concerned, the maintainer adds it to the budget of the pre-school institution or school. The institution is only obliged to provide habilitation-rehabilitation activities for the children concerned.
Identification of Special Needs
Diagnosing special educational needs
Physical, sensorial, mental and speech disabilities are diagnosed by national and county expert committees. The activities of the committees cover three areas: (i) screening and assessing disabilities (expert activity); (ii) recommendation for special care provision of the pupils, for the way, form and place of provision as well as for special pedagogical services linked to provision (rehabilitation activities); and (iii) checking the existence of conditions required for special care (system development). Expert activities aiming at assessing entitlement to special provision are: early childhood development, pre-school education, school education, formative preparation, additional pedagogical services (logopaedia, conductive pedagogy and special physical education). The tasks of these committees have considerably increased in these areas in the last ten years. Early childhood development for children of 0-3 years of age has been regulated by legislation since 1993 (it had existed without legal regulation for decades), as well as formative preparation for children and young of 5-18/20 years of age with sever or multiple disabilities.
These committees carry out assessments of particular conditions for inclusive pre-school and school education, in debated cases they carry out control checks and participate in examinations launched in the framework of official or state administration procedures (e.g. objections concerning placing those with disabilities in caring/nursing institutions or parents’ objections related to expert opinions).
Expert opinion is formed on the child examined, on the basis of which recommendations are given for placing the child in pre-school or school education and for special requirements related to educating the given child.
The committees decide on placing the child in special classes or on transferring the child from a special class to the mainstream classes of the inclusive school. According to the act on equal opportunities the parents of children with special educational needs have a say in which institution their child will attend.
The National Committees for Assessing Learning Abilities and Rehabilitation are committees assessing sight impediment, hearing impediment, speech and learning abilities. They operate at metropolitan and county levels and consist of managers with special education qualifications, special education teachers, psychologists and specialists.
Categories
Special schools and special classes are still dominating, but the number of integrated students increases from year to year.
The categories are as follows:
1. Pupils with special educational needs (according to the last amendment of the Act on Education of 2003) are:
pupils with physical disability, sensorial disabilities, mild and moderate mental retardation, speech disability, autism, permanent and severe difficulties in the learning process because of disturbances of their individual development (dyslexia, dysgraphia, hyperactivity etc.), multiple disabilities.
2. Pupils with learning and behavioural difficulties.
3. Pupils with disadvantages.
Teacher Training
Initial Teacher training
The pedagogy of inclusive education is not an organic part of initial teacher training in Hungary. Training courses on the education of pupils with special educational needs are organised within special education studies – occasionally as part of a training programme on inclusive education or a training programme leading to additional qualifications. Certain teacher training institutions are open, and there are initiatives for familiarising pupils with the pedagogy of inclusion. However, there is no uniform training module, incorporated in teacher training, which would acquaint teacher trainees with the competencies that can facilitate successful inclusion.
The programme package being developed for initial teacher training includes fundamental professional, theoretical information and methods, procedures, techniques, therapeutic activities, educational and legal background, all this viewed from the aspect of special educational needs and presenting characteristic specialities.
In-service teacher training
All teachers participating in realising inclusive education find themselves in new situations, where their competencies and good practices cannot fully meet the special requirements of development. Mainstream teachers and special education teachers constitute the target group of in-service training programmes. The special education teachers have to use their competences in situations in which they have no experience, and that is why the exchange of information and experiences in professional co-operation is of utmost importance for them.
Development of Integration/Inclusion
During the past decade in Hungry, there has been an unprecedented interdependence of mainstream and special pedagogies in the field of organising education. Changes were initiated and moved by integration, by the fact that along with the traditionally strong system of special education institutions the inclusive development and education of pupils with special educational needs appeared as well.
In Hungary inclusion is considered to be the key issue of the approach to special educational needs in the field of active integration of people with disabilities into the society. Today the question is not whether pupils with disabilities should be educated together with their mainstream peers or in special institution but how they should be educated together.
The Ministry of Education has developed comprehensive plans for integrative development. The amendment to the Act on Public Education will have the effect that in the process of education and in the operation of related organisations anti-discrimination efforts will appear more strongly, the exclusion of weaker stakeholder groups will be reduced and these groups will be more involved in realising the objectives of public education. The medium-term measures of the public education strategy aim at reducing inequalities of chances with the interests of pupils both with special educational needs and/or disadvantaged background in view.
Social integration and enhancing equal chances are articulated in the programme of the government as well. The main objective of the development process is to develop a school system where schools adapt to the diversity of cultural experiences, abilities and learning needs of pupils.
In the last two years the process of transforming the best (previously segregated) special schools into institutions providing professional and support services, in which the support systems can be developed and the practice of inclusion can be supported. With the expansion of inclusive education the inclusive institutions need the expertise of special education teachers e.g. in programmes of development, using various therapies, counselling. The active involvement of segregating schools in the process of inclusion provide opportunities for in-service training of teachers, improving the quality and content of communication with parents, fulfilling professional duties.
Ensuring the conditions for inclusive education of pupils with special educational needs requires the application of many instruments besides regulation. The most important ones are to create a material, technical, environmental and personal conditions of integration, to develop the pedagogical methodology of inclusive education, to introduce in-service training for integrating teachers, developing in-service training courses with the aim of increasing the social sensitivity and changing the attitudes of teachers, and to create a degree of interestedness higher than at present.
Ongoing reforms, development objectives emphasise that conditions for inclusive education should be created in as many institutions as possible. To enhance this, a comprehensive action and development plan has been developed – the Operational Programme of Human Resource Development of the National Development Plan. Developing instruments and programmes supporting integration for initial and in-service teacher training, strengthening the professional services and counselling and creating and enriching opportunities have a favourable impact on the inclusive education of pupils with special educational needs.
The main objective of educational policy developments is to provide an optimum choice of training and education for pupils with special educational needs that is adapted in the best possible way to the individual needs, abilities and preconditions of learning of pupils with special educational needs, makes the whole range of mainstream education accessible for them and provides opportunity for establishing Uniform Special Education Methodological Institutions.
Important tasks are to improve the co-operation of partners (pupils, teachers, other professionals, parents, maintainers) participating in the pedagogical development work, to organise intra-professional co-operation with a shared concept of various counselling services, to create the co-operation of institutions of provision, to create co-operation among pre-school institutions, general schools, educational counselling services, special schools and mainstream general schools. The work of public education institutions, maintainers and teachers as well as activities related to protecting pupil interests are supported by pedagogical-professional services. These services include pedagogical evaluation, whose task is to measure and assess the effectiveness of education in the educational institution; to facilitate the organisation of local, regional and regional public education provision; and counselling, whose task is disseminate teaching and pedagogical methods.
Supportive Education Policy
Today education policy in Hungary identifies inclusion as a political, social and pedagogical aim. It pays special attention to the financing of special needs education. The regulatory framework favours the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs.
The Hungarian Ministry of Education has developed comprehensive integration projects. The amendment of the Act on Public Education of 1993 intends to enforce the anti-discrimination efforts in the process of education and training and in the activities of all institutions involved.
The education of pupils with special needs is supported by the government’s intentions: according to the above-mentioned law pupils with special needs may attend mainstream schools. Parents are also asked to participate actively in their children’s education.
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