Hungarian Spectrum

Political opinion in Hungary--Medián and Tárki

Two respectable opinion polls came out today with slightly different results but confirming one critical fact--that people who voted for Jobbik in the EU parliamentary elections came largely from the Fidesz camp. Medián specifically asked Jobbik voters about their political preferences in 2006. It turned out that only 14% of them had voted for MSZP. The rest either came from the right or were new voters. Tárki indirectly supports this result. Among those who said they would definitely go to the polls only 58% said that they would vote for Fidesz this Sunday while in May that number was 70%. A twelve percent drop is considerable especially if, again according to Tárki, MSZP gained only six percentage points during the same period. In fact, Tárki specifically states that "today, in comparison to the times prior to the EP elections, the number of Fidesz supporters has shrunk by the same number of percentage points as the Jobbik camp has grown." So although Viktor Orbán tries to minimize the problems stemming from the spectacular growth of Jobbik, his grandiose goals may be in jeopardy.

Another way to look at the change is to compare the survey results from March with those from June. Here I'm reproducing Tárki's bar chart showing shifts in party preferences of those who would definitely vote and who know for whom they would vote. Today MSZP, SZDSZ, and MDF have the same level of support they had in March; Fidesz is down four points, Jobbik is up six points, and "others" are down two points. I should add that in the most recent survey these voters represent at best a slim majority of the total sample; those who at the moment are uncertain for whom they would vote is 40%.  Moreover participation would be very low if elections were held today. According to Medián fewer than 50% of the voters would actually go to the polls. So that is another variable in trying to forecast the outcome of the national elections. Normally participation in national elections is more than 60%. Yet Medián is bold enough to predict that "whenever the next elections are held it seems that Fidesz will get the most votes." One reason for this assumption is that 86% of the voters, including  65% of the MSZP supporters, predict a Fidesz victory.

Medián asked some penetrating questions about Jobbik. Although many people after the EP elections proudly claimed that they knew all along that Jobbik would surpass the 5% minimum, according to Medián "two months prior to the EP elections only every twentieth person predicted such a success." Of course, as usual people are quite forgetful. Now fewer than 30% say that they were surprised at the showing of Jobbik. However, one must keep in mind that only 64% of them could even list the names of the parties that were able to send representatives to Brussels.

The majority were either very happy or more or less happy with the results. Twenty-one percent were very happy and 40 percent more or less happy. I assume that the Jobbik voters (close to 15%) are ecstatic and it is hard to tell what "the more or less" category actually means. I wouldn't draw the conclusion that Medián reaches that "public opinion is more tolerant of Jobbik than earlier." It may simply mean that Fidesz voters might have been more enthusiastic if the party had received 17 seats and not 14. Therefore they are more or less satisfied. Public opinion is very divided as far as Jobbik is concerned. Fifty-four percent consider the party "dangerous"  and 45% think that Jobbik is actually a "fascist" party. At the same time 39% (up from 34%) think that "only Jobbik really cares about the common man." Or they expressed the opinion that "Jobbik at last tells how it is."

Medián probed the topic of the relationship between Fidesz and Jobbik. A huge majority of MSZP voters felt that Fidesz should make clear its refusal to cooperate with an outright Nazi party. Those who voted for Jobbik insist that Fidesz should look upon them as allies. Then Medián continues: "It doesn't matter which way Fidesz moves, the party would lose voters because Fidesz supporters are themselves split on the issue." About one-third of Fidesz voters agree with the majority of MSZP while a little over one-third of them would prefer cooperation with Jobbik.

Medián tried to find an answer for Jobbik's success. It seems that its anti-Gypsy rhetoric was an important factor. Jobbik, a party almost no one had heard of a few months ago, started to gain momentum when crimes committed by Gypsies received widespread publicity. Medián checked the voting results according to the size of the Gypsy population and came to the conclusion that in cities where their population was greater than 5% Jobbik received almost 20% of the votes. Gypsies are highly concentrated in places where MSZP is normally strong, so the common wisdom right after the elections was that most of the Jobbik votes came from the left. However, it was also in these places where participation was low. The Medián assumption is that it was mostly MSZP voters who stayed home. As for where the Jobbik votes came from here is an interesting chart. Medián asked Jobbik voters which party they had voted for in 2006. If one can believe the information they provided, 9% either don't remember or will not tell; 24% are so young that in 2006 they were not eligible to vote; 15% didn't vote but were now inspired by Jobbik; 13% voted for the MIÉP-Jobbik joint ticket; 25% voted for Fidesz-KDNP, and 14% came from the MSZP camp. The very high percentage of first-time voters reaffirms suspicions about the popularity of extreme right ideologies among the youth.

The most dramatic aspect of these two opinion polls is that they clearly delineate the problem Fidesz is facing. The problem is  genuine: it doesn't matter which direction Fidesz moves, the party will lose a sizable portion of its voters. Right now the strategy is to ignore the problem. I guess the Fidesz leadership is hoping that Jobbik will lose its appeal. It will make one big mistake or many smaller ones that will make it less attractive. And that is a possibility. It is enough to think of the "conference" held in Szeged of the various extreme right-wing organizations including Gábor Vona (Jobbik) and György Budaházy, who might be the mastermind behind the Arrows of Hungarians, a terrorist organization. Budaházy is already in jail together with five other bomb makers. Then there are rumors that the parliamentary caucus in Brussels that the three Jobbik members wanted to join would take only Krisztina Morvai because she is not a member of a neo-Nazi party. So Orbán's calculations might be well founded. As a fall back position, if Jobbik survives or actually gains ground then Fidesz will make a deal with them in the belief that they can handle them. After all, they made a deal with the Smallholders of József Torgyán and no harm came of it. In fact, Fidesz was so successful that today there are no more Smallholders and József Torgyán pretty well retired from politics. But that is a gamble. Jobbik might be much more resilient and ideologically committed.

Hungarian Gypsies (Roma): Past and present (Part I)

A lot of people have been saying for a very long time that something must be done about the "Gypsy question." I put the word "question" into quotation marks because in Hungary the word "question" when preceded by the adjectival form of the name of an ethnic or religious group has a very bad ring. It all started in the late nineteenth century when antisemitic circles started talking about the "Jewish question" in Hungary. For some the "Gypsy question" is analogous to the "Jewish question." But thoughtful people realize that Gypsies not only should have the educational and employment opportunities afforded the rest of the Hungarian population but that a special effort has to be made to make these opportunities both attractive and attainable.

But first, a digression into history, demographic and linguistic. The first time an attempt was made to gather information on Hungary's Gypsy population was in 1850 when demographers claimed that there were 140,000 Gypsies living in the Kingdom of Hungary. By 1893 their number doubled to 280,000. During the same period the country's population as a whole grew by only 30%. After Trianon many of the Gypsies ended up in Romania or Czechoslovakia, so Hungary's Gypsy population in absolute numbers decreased. However, by 1944 their estimated number was fairly high again: 200,000.

It was in 1971 that István Kemény began serious research on Hungary's Gypsies. In that year there were 320,000 people of Gypsy origin living in Hungary. Among these Gypsies 71% spoke only Hungarian; the rest were bilingual. In addition to Hungarian the bilingual Gypsies spoke Hungarian Romani (21%) or Romanian (8%). The bilingual Gypsies can be divided into three major groups: the Karpat, the Vlach (oláh), and the "beás" Gypsies. The Karpat Gypsies were the earliest immigrants in Hungary. They arrived in the fifteenth century and their language is the closest to various existing Indian languages or dialects. The Vlach (oláh) Gypsies came from Wallachia (today Romania), and during their wanderings they must have come in contact with Slavic people because they picked up a lot of Slavic words. Ninety percent of the Vlach Gypsies spoke the Lovari dialect; as far as I know this is the language they teach today to those who choose Romani as a foreign language. The third group within the bilingual Romas are the "beás" Gypsies. They spoke (and most continue to speak) the Romanian of the Bánát region (Voivodina, Serbia today) and they live in Transdanubia, especially in the county of Baranya. Originally they were woodworkers specializing in making wooden washtubs and wooden spoons that they sold at the weekly farmers' markets. The strictly Hungarian-speaking Gypsies are the descendants of the Karpat and Vlach Gypsies (though a small minority remain bilingual). By today 86.9% of the Gypsies speak only Hungarian.

In Europe there are 8.5-10 million Gypsies. In Hungary today their estimated number is between 600,000 and 700,000. In 1971 there were 320,000 Gypsies and by 1993 their numbers grew to 500,000. In 2006 they constituted 6% of the population; if the current demographic trends continue by 2030 Gypsies will constitute 10% and by 2050 15% of the population. In certain counties today, especially in the northeastern corner of the country (Szabolcs-Szatmár, Hajdú-Bihar, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Heves, Nógrád and Békés) the Gypsy population is already close to 10%.  

End of linguistic and demographic digressions, though you're not yet spared historical comparisons. For the rest of this post I want to focus on education. In 1893 95% of the Gypsy population couldn't read or write. The MSZMP Central Committee in 1961 decided to tackle the Roma problem and introduced some measures that bore fruit (though it couldn't exactly be described as a bumper crop). To give some idea of the situation they faced, in a study done ten years later but reflecting the status quo in 1961 39% of Gypsies over the age of fourteen couldn't read or write and only 26% of Gypsies between the ages of 20 and 24 had finished eight grades. Moreover, 10% of this group had never gone to school. By contrast, by the 1970s and 1980s almost all Gypsy children were attending elementary school. In the 1970-71 school year 30.6% finished "general" school (that is, eight grades) and by 1985 43.7%. As a benchmark, in 1985 89% of non-Gypsies finished the compulsory eight grades. By the 1990s 45-50% of Gypsy children finished eight grades but by then 100% of non-Gypsies met this standard. In 1993 only 0.22% of Gypsies over the age of eighteen attended university. Today that number is about 2%. Two graphs will illustrate the disparity. The graph on the left shows the percentage of Gypsies attending high school from 1930 to 1980; the graph on the right shows the percentage of the population as a whole attending high school during the same period. A rather sad commentary. By today 80% of Gypsies finish eight grades, though not always by the age of fourteen. Twenty percent start high school but only 10% of them actually matriculate.

While increasing numbers of Gypsy children go to school, segregation within the school system has intensified. The main reason for this is that parents can choose the school their children attend. Basically non-Gypsy parents can pull their children from schools where the number of Gypsy students is growing. In 1991 only 32% of the schools were segregated; today that number is 61.5%.  The schools often invoke a variety of tricks to segregate Roma students from their non-Roma counterparts. A favorite is to put Gypsies into special classes for the retarded. The percentage of "retarded" children among the Gypsies is a staggering 23.2%. The number for the population as a whole is 3.6%.

Tomorrow I will continue this thread, expanding into the work world.

Learning a language in Hungary

That is a very difficult proposition. The teaching of foreign languages in Hungarian schools is bad. Very, very bad. As far back as I can remember it was bad. Although my father in the early part of the twentieth century managed to learn German and French quite well in gymnasium, by the time I got to gymnasium it was a hopeless proposition.

Let me recount my own tortuous linguistic journey. Aside from being enrolled in a so-called German-language kindergarten where we learned no German whatsoever, I started studying French in grade five. You may recall from my earlier blog on Hungarian education that after World War II there was a school reform that established an 8 + 4 system instead of a 4 + 8 model. The school I attended was previously a gymnasium, so what we learned were the same subjects that first year students take in gymnasium. I started learning French because my family had had enough of the Germans by that time, but the favorite foreign language was still German. Although the parochial school I attended was run by a French order (Notre Dame), out of the four parallel classes they taught German in three and French in only one. Our French teacher by Hungarian standards wasn't even half bad. The fact that she was a nun stood her in good stead in mastering a foreign language. Because she majored in French she was sent by the order to a French university for a couple of years. So she could at least speak the language tolerably well. However, the class focused on reading and writing, with virtually no conversation. As an aside, our teacher taught us famous French folk songs; not surprisingly the lyrics stuck in my mind for years on end, even after my French studies were rudely interrupted by the introduction of Russian in grade eight. So after three years of French I switched to Russian.

That was an interesting experience. I don't think our teacher knew more Russian than we did. I.e. zero. She was at best a couple of lessons ahead of us. Not surprisingly we learned practically nothing by the end of the year. But in one respect it wasn't a waste because after finishing the eighth grade and moving on to the first year of gymnasium we started Russian again from scratch. From the same book! The reason we had to start again was because in our class there were students who had attended schools that hadn't introduced Russian the previous year.

In Hungary there were practically no teachers proficient in Russian. My new teacher in the gymnasium used to teach German and French, and I believe that she was more or less fluent in both since she studied in Vienna and Paris. But neither German nor French was taught anywhere and she had to make a living. Therefore, she started learning Russian. Again, she couldn't have been more than a year ahead of us, assuming that she learned something in the year that we learned nothing. Once again, it was book learning. We couldn't utter a sentence in Russian. Or rather, we had to memorize elevating sentences about the life of Pushkin and his wet nurse from whom he learned to speak Russian so beautifully! Came the Hungarian revolution and we couldn't exchange a word with the Russian soldiers. We couldn't explain what on earth was going on in Budapest. Although, as I mentioned earlier, two years of Russian were compulsory even in college. I don't quite remember how many hours of Russian instruction we received but we were on a downward linguistic slope; we started forgetting even the little Russian we knew in high school. End of my story. Consider it a minor miracle that you're reading an English-language blog written by someone who knew not a word of English when she left Hungary and whose sole language, years of study to the contrary, was Hungarian.

Language teaching didn't improve substantially in the Kádár regime. Foreign travel opportunities were severely limited and to study abroad was the privilege of the very few. The one impetus for at least some Hungarians to learn foreign languages was that the country was becoming a popular tourist destination. It was an advantage for people in the service sector to have a rudimentary knowledge of a foreign language.

With the change of regime Russian was no longer a compulsory language. So students rushed to English, German, and French classes. But who were their teachers? The former Russian teachers who tried to learn English, German, or French with the same poor results as the German and French teachers who had earlier tried to learn Russian. I remember visiting Hungary in 1993. My cousin, a school principal, announced that her school was very lucky to have an excellent young English teacher. I mentioned that I wouldn't mind sitting in to see what's going on in an English class in her school. I was told: no problem. She will talk to the young teacher. Well, it turned out that there was a problem: it was in mid-December, too close to Christmas, and my classroom visit wasn't convenient!

Today, aside from the lack of experienced teachers, the problem seems to be the same as in earlier times. Students don't learn to communicate in a foreign language; they can neither speak nor comprehend. They are in the same boat as the Hungarian students who were trying to converse with the Russian soldiers in 1956.

In 2005, according to the Eurobarometer's poll, 58% of Hungarians "spoke" no foreign language whatsoever--fifteen years after English, German and French were introduced into the curriculum. That's a tricky statistic to use for purposes of extrapolation. But more anecdotal evidence. Representatives of foreign companies complain that applicants for jobs that need the knowledge of a foreign language are often able to recite complicated grammatical rules even natives are unfamiliar with, but it is impossible to have a conversation with them and therefore they cannot be hired. One university president complained that out of the 1,000 potential graduates about 400 couldn't receive a degree last year because they couldn't pass the compulsory language exam. Apparently the textbooks still resemble my Russian textbook where we learned about Pushkin's life and his literary accomplishments and memorized Tatiana's letter to Onegin, but we couldn't ask for directions from a passerby.

Some people have tried to explain Hungarian deficiencies in learning a foreign language by pointing out that Hungarian is not an Indo-European language and therefore Hungarian speakers find it harder to learn a western language. This is hogwash. Finns manage; the percentage of Finns speaking one or two foreign languages is among the highest in Europe. Moreover, Hungarians find it easier to learn a western language than to learn Finnish whose grammatical structure is very similar to Hungarian. Some people claim that dubbing films and television series in Hungary impedes language learning. However, research shows that using subtitles can actually encourage and facilitate it. According to Eurobarometer that is the case in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, countries with a very high percentage of people speaking foreign languages.

The ministry of education under Bálint Magyar has worked hard to overcome Hungary's foreign language gap. It introduced an optional extra year (essentially grade thirteen) devoted solely to learning a foreign language. And apparently textbooks are getting better, especially English ones. Currently about 80% of the students who enter ELTE have already passed at least one intermediate language exam. The preferred language is English. Eighteen percent of them have already passed exams in two languages, the second language most often being German. This is all very promising, but I don't know when Hungarians will get to the point that we can say with Nepomouk, the Hungarian interpreter in Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, that Eliza must be Hungarian and of noble blood for she speaks English “too perfectly.”

Hungarian public education: 1956-1990

Because I have no personal experience to rely on, I have to turn to historians dealing with this period. I chose Ignác Romsics's Magyarország története--A XX. században (Budapest: Osiris, 1999) mostly because Romsics spends a fair amount of his book on educational and cultural matters. I learned from him about the educational changes introduced, what worked and what didn't. It seems that the ministry of education and the experts came up with new ideas about every ten years.

Romsics considers the expansion of kindergartens a real success. In 1938 there were only 1,140 kindergartens, most of them private, but between 1960 and 1980 the regime built 2,000 new ones. With this expansion the number of children who could enjoy the benefits of early education tripled. By 1986 92% of children between the ages of four and six attended kindergarten. The number of kindergarten teachers also grew enormously--to 33,500. While in 1950 one teacher had to look after 44 children, that number was only 13 by 1985.

During this period the quality of education improved substantially in the lower grades (that is, the first eight grades in the 8 + 4 model). I mentioned earlier that the reform of 1945 establishing a uniform school system was slow to take hold due to the huge discrepancies inherent in the old system. It took a couple of decades to close the old one-room village schools. In their place the government established larger district schools to which children were bused from a number of smaller villages. Just to give you some idea of the changes. In 1960 there were 6,300 "general schools" but by 1980 there were only 3,500. Seventy-five thousand children under the age of fourteen were bused while 10,000 lived in boarding schools. In 1955 98% of children attended elementary schools, but 37% of them never finished the compulsory eight grades. By 1980 the dropout rate was under 5%. You may recall that in earlier years the teacher-student ratio was 1:44. By the 1980s it was 1:15. The quality of education was further improved in 1978 when new textbooks were issued, and in some better schools the teaching of a foreign language (in addition to Russian) was introduced, occasionally starting with grade three.

Unfortunately high schools didn't participate in this improvement in educational standards. According to Romsics the problem lay with the regime's failed attempts to extend the duration of compulsory education to ten or twelve years. Between 1960 and 1965 the number of high schools grew by 50%. There were about 200 new high schools, mostly in small towns and larger villages. The number of high school students also mushroomed. In 1955-56 there were 119,000 students attending high schools (gymnasiums, technical high schools, or teachers' high schools); by 1965 their number had reached 236,000. Moreover, over time the classroom size decreased. In 1960 there were 35-40 students per class, but by the 1980s that number was only 28-32. The teacher-student ratio during the same period changed from 1:18 to 1:13. These statistics may sound impressive, but they gloss over the huge differences among high schools. On the one hand there were the elite gymnasiums, mostly in Budapest; on the other, the mediocre to outright inadequate high schools in the small towns. (This is still the case, and that's why on international educational olympics a small number of Hungarian students excel while on general tests [PISA for example] Hungarian high school students as a whole perform miserably.)

The last time I wrote about education I neglected to mention a new type of high school that was introduced in 1949. These schools were called "technikums" or technical schools; they were designed  to produce "middle cadres." I remember their beginnings. In Pécs, a city with coal reserves nearby, the first "technikum" trained middle cadres in mining. These "technikums" were not a great success and by 1968-69 they were discontinued. Instead a new technical high school (szakközépiskola) appeared on the scene. It was supposed to prepare students to become well educated workers with specialized skills. Since relatively few students could enter university and the gymnasiums with their matriculation examinations prepared students only to enter college, these technical high schools became more and more popular. Between 1970 when they were first introduced and 1980, 367 such technical schools were established; by contrast, the number of gymnasiums shrank from 258 to 165. About 30,000 more students studied in technical high schools than in gymnasiums.

During the 1956-90 period higher education was also expanded greatly. According to Romsich the changes were in fact injurious to the quality of education in these institutions. Between 1960 and 1965 the number of institutions of higher learning more than doubled. From 43 to 92. This expansion was mostly due to changes in name only. Educational facilities training teachers for kindergartens or lower grades were upgraded to universities. That move further lowered the quality of higher education. (A similar situation occurred in this country as well when rather inferior teachers' colleges were transformed into universities offering both undergraduate and advanced degrees, mostly in education.) Out of these 92 there were only 24 bona fide universities. The rest were colleges training future teachers or nurses. (I would like to mention here that, unlike in English, Hungarian has two words for teacher: "tanító" and "tanár." The former can teach only in the first four grades while the latter is qualified to teach in the higher grades. Even in that second category one normally distinguishes between "általános iskolai tanár" and "középiskolai tanár." I.e. the general school teacher and the high school teacher.)

In the 1960s only 18% of students who finished high school entered college or university. By the 1980s 35%, though many more would have liked to enroll. In 1962 the regime gave up the idea of strict quotas based on social origin, so the percentage of students coming from a working-class or peasant background slowly dropped. In 1956-57 it was 55% but by 1984 only 37%.

Acceptance to college was based on a point system. The formula combined high school grades and  entrance examination results, with more weight given to grades. I never considered this fair because, after all, grades vary greatly from school to school. An "A" from an elite school simply can't be compared to an "A" from a substandard school. I also found it strange that after the centrally administered matriculation exams students still had to take entrance exams.

Prior to the war the favorite course of study was law. That changed after 1948. Who wanted to be a lawyer, a judge, or a prosecutor in a dictatorship? Even at the end of the Kádár regime only 4-6% of university graduates got law degrees. (Note that there are no separate law schools in Hungary. Law is essentially an undergraduate "major.") Engineering students, on the other hand, were in great abundance: 27-30% of the undergraduate population. Eleven to fourteen percent chose teaching.

At the universities the teacher-student ratio was outstanding by any standard--1:4. However, the quality of the professors was uneven. According to Romsics "it was way below international standards." One problem was the cultural isolation of the country. Another was linguistic isolation. To help alleviate the latter problem by the mid-1980s some bilingual high schools were established. And among well-off families many children attended private language classes. Slowly but surely more people took higher-level foreign language examinations.

The main indicators showed progress. By the 1980s 18.5% of the population had high school degrees (still very low) but that was a marked improvement over 1960 when it was only 6.2%. Those with college or university degrees grew during the same period from 2.3% to 7%, though in comparison to other western countries anemic. The problem is that statistics don't lend themselves to qualitative analysis. What do students learn (to analyze, to be creative, or to spout back)? How do they spend their free time? What is their relationship to their college or university (as alums or potential contributors, for instance)? Of course, I realize that this is not part of the Hungarian model, but it can have a powerful influence on the quality of the institutions.

I was talking to a university professor the other day who attended one of the better universities in the second half of the 1980s. She told me that "quality was bad when I was a student but today it is is even worse." And one hears the same thing over and over again. The student body grew tremendously but the teaching staff didn't. New colleges and universities were established some of which, according to their critics, don't even deserve accreditation. But that is another topic.

Hungarian public education: 1945-1956

First a few words about the war years, especially 1943 and 1944. Although the Soviet troops were still nowhere and Hungary was not yet a battlefield, the education of children was not without its problems. During 1943 Hungary was the target of aerial attacks so attending school wasn't always easy. In Budapest, for example, the "siege" lasted for months; most people were happy to survive in bomb shelters. And when there was door to door armed conflict, going to school was out of the question. Even in cities where the German takeover was relatively easy, with armed opposition lasting only a few days, schools were closed for the first semester of the 1944-45 academic year. No teaching, no grades. And what was especially academically damaging was that many school districts didn't insist on repeating this term. They simply passed students on. This was especially harmful to students in the lower grades.

Where the fighting was intense, schools were not spared. Across the country sixty percent of the high schools were damaged and about half of the elementary schools. Two thousand schools were very heavily damaged. Although repair began immediately, over 800 couldn't be used as late as 1947. There was not only damage to the buildings; often such items as desks, books, and lab equipment were gone.

In spite of these difficulties the coalition government launched the democratization of the school system because in the years prior to 1945 the school system was effectively organized along class lines. The lower classes (mostly peasant boys and girls) attended the six-grade elementary schools, the lower middle-class the "middle schools" (polgári), and the children of the middle- and upper-middle-class attended gymnasium between the ages of 10 and 18. This system was immediately changed with the introduction of eight years of "general school" (általános iskola) and four years of high school that could be either gymnasium or teachers' high school. Later the ministry here and there tinkered with the system, but the formula of 8 + 4 has remained to this day.

Educational reform got off to a rough start. In the first couple of years the change was often merely a difference in name. It didn't matter what the old one-classroom village school was called; basically it remained the same old village school. It didn't matter what the law said about the educational attainment necessary for teachers in the higher grades of the general school if there were no such teachers available. And the demand for "specialists" in math-physics, in geography, in literature-history or in a foreign languages for grades five through eight was empty if there were no trained experts. At the top, the former elite gymnasiums remained exactly the same elite schools as before. The teachers were university educated with specialties. There was no shortage of foreign language teachers. Theoretically schools could teach any western language if there were qualified teachers, but in most schools the preferred language was still German. This was the situation until 1949 when Hungary introduced Russian as a compulsory language and stopped teaching everything else.

Between 1945 and 1948 most of the schools were in the churches' hands, predominantly in the hands of the Catholic Church. Sixty-three percent of the eight-grade general schools, 49% of gymnasiums and 74% of all teachers' high schools were parochial. In the summer of 1948, after a huge debate, parliament passed the law on the nationalization of schools. Altogether 6,500 schools were taken over by the state. The Protestant churches and the Jewish community, realizing the hopelessness of their situation, didn't put up a fight. The Catholic Church, under the guidance of the Prince Primate József Mindszenty, resisted--with devastating consequences.

After the nationalization students encountered an entirely new world. Often they had to change schools because theoretically at least the cities were carved up into different school districts and each student was supposed to attend the school in his district. But Hungary was still Hungary, communist or noncommunist. I had classmates in my new school who came from the other end of town because they were attached to the school and its teachers. On the other hand, a former classmate of mine who lived about three doors down from the district school, refused to change schools and remained in the old Catholic gymnasium, most likely because her parents were convinced that standards would be higher there than in the former Hungarian Reformed middle school (polgári) catering to daughters of better-off peasants from the surrounding villages. But the standards didn't remain the same even there because the nuns could no longer teach and most of the lay teachers were transferred to other district schools.

In my new district school some teachers remained from the earlier Calvinist days, but they were not exactly shining lights. Then there were the (I assume) undereducated newcomers. The most amusing was a fellow who was supposed to teach history but got stuck on "primitive man." What I remember most vividly was how "primitive man" tried to discover what in his environment was poisonous and what could be eaten safely. The "taste tester" sampled. If it was poisonous, we know what happened to him. All this high-level teaching was accompanied by the teacher's ostensibly imitative theatrical performances!

Between 1948 and 1955 the number of high school students almost doubled in contrast to the Horthy period when it grew by only 20%. The emphasis was on developing a new educated class with working class or peasant roots. That could only be achieved by the Hungarian version of affirmative action at the expense of children of white collar workers or those of the former "ruling classes." Children whose parents the regime found objectionable were often denied admission to high school. Entrance to university was strictly regulated by quotas; well over 50% of the students came from a lower-class background. To accelerate the process the government introduced the so-called "specialized matriculation course" (szakérettségi) that was supposed to prepare people, often older than eighteen and with very little formal education, to enter college. The "course" was originally one year in length, and when that turned out to be a huge fiasco it was changed to two years. Gyula Horn, prime minister of Hungary between 1994 and 1998 and formerly a high party official in the Kádár regime, went through one of these preparatory courses and from there straight to the Soviet Union to study "finance." I often wondered what kind of economics he could possibly have learned in Stalin's Soviet Union! I'm not saying that these students were undeserving, but many were unprepared. I personally encountered quite a few fast-tracked students as classmates; as far as I know they all finished college. According to rumors, professors were told to pay special attention to their "progress."

As far as the universities were concerned standards dropped considerably. Famous professors were fired to make room for the "politically correct." Some didn't even have to go through the usual promotional procedure. I knew one teacher who without any experience whatsoever became a full professor and head of a department. (Later he became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences!) Between 1950 and 1952 175 new university textbooks were published. Eighty-six of them were translations from Russian. Everybody had to take two years of Marxism-Leninism and two years of "extra" Russian--basically elementary Russian redux. There were an incredible number of compulsory classes, and attendance was taken. It was like an extension of high school. Classes started at eight in the morning and at four o'clock we were still busily taking notes. Independent work was practically non-existent, and very little time remained to do any extra reading in the library. Each course had a textbook that had to be memorized and spewed back at oral examinations. At the same time some professors had a more self-serving concept of teaching. A later famous literary historian taught us early Hungarian literature in the second semester of the first year. He happened to be writing a book on a minor Hungarian poet. Thus, for the entire semester every lecture was a detailed analysis of everything this fellow ever wrote. Beside his name I don't remember a thing about him!

If you think I exaggerate, let me quote the historian T. Iván Berend, who attended the same university I did a few years earlier. In his autobiography Történelem-- ahogy én láttam (History as I saw it [Budapest 1997]) he writes about his university years. "The standards of my studies at the Faculty of Arts [of ELTE] were shamefully low. We were unable to become familiar with most of the historical literature of the past. Our 'textbooks' on world history were light-blue colored pamphlets published by the Soviet Party College [Pártfőiskola].... Important historical works were absent from the recommended reading list and often even from the libraries. What they considered to be ideologically undesirable, bourgeois, or 'antagonistic' to the regime were discarded or their reading was restricted to 'researchers' with special passes. Western books and periodicals were not available. We heard nothing of new historical debates or theories.... Language requirements didn't exist, only Russian was available and even that on a low level."

By leaving Hungary I entered an entirely different educational system, and I must say that it was a welcome change. As opposed to my Hungarian university experience the years spent in college in the West were enjoyable and fruitful.

Hungarian public education: The beginnings

It is clear from comments to my earlier post on education that people have rather strong views about the kind of education Hungarian children should receive. Some believe in the old-fashioned "Prussian" model that has been the norm in Hungary ever since 1869 when the first education law was drafted. Although Hungarian education underwent many changes over the subsequent 140 years, the Prussian model that emphasizes factual learning and discipline remained its cornerstone. Yes, today most of the children finish high school at the age of eighteen while about a hundred years ago most sons and daughters of Hungarian peasants quit school after four grades at the age of ten. Yes, a hundred years ago most village schools had only one classroom with a single teacher. Today there are very few schools where there are not enough teachers. In fact, the opposite is true: too many teachers for too few children. While in 1910 the student teacher ratio was 67:1, nowadays the trouble is that in certain places the ratio is 14:1. Discipline until very recently was enforced rigorously. Children were supposed to sit in their seats with their hands behind their backs and no spontaneity of any sort was allowed.

Even today there are a lot of people who are convinced that this was and remains a good model and that new ideas about teaching lead to ignorance and sloth. Our academician, Gábor Náray-Szabó, who gave such a bad name to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in an interview that I translated to everybody's delight, said another terribly clever thing the other day. He thinks that no one should be able to matriculate and go on to college unless the student knows fifty Hungarian poems by heart! Obviously his thinking on education is rooted in the Prussian model. Even in the 1950s for the Hungarian language and literature matriculation exams students had to memorize several dozen poems. As if it served any useful purpose. (But wait, here's an old rationalization made new in a poem by an American high school English teacher: "I make them memorize soliloquies, some lines to keep, should they / be taken prisoner, like John McCain, in some foreign jail.")

In the 1870s illiteracy was high in Hungary--over 65%. By 1910 it was only 33% but still lagged behind Western Europe where illiteracy was around 10%. The 1869 law made education compulsory between ages of 6 and 12 or six grades, but most of the village boys and girls left school after the fourth grade and began to work alongside their fathers and mothers. The overwhelming majority of the village schools had only one classroom and children of all grades studied together. If one could call it studying. The teachers in these schools were not terribly well educated themselves. After four years of elementary school and four years of middle school they attended teachers' high school and at the age of eighteen were let loose on the villages. The lower middle class sent their sons and daughters after the first four grades to middle school called polgári. Most of the girls never got any farther. Girls actually couldn't even attend gymnasium before 1891. They could study at home and take exams in the school. Very few did. Those boys who aspired to greater heights after finishing four years of elementary school entered gymnasium of eight years' duration that ended with a comprehensive (matriculation) exam necessary to enter college. Before World War I  2.5% to 3% of students between the age of 10 and 18 attended gymnasium; put another way, 1.4% of the whole population finished high school. That sounds terribly low today, but apparently on the continent only in Germany was the percentage of high school students higher.

After the First World War the structure itself remained the same but more money was spent on education. More than twice as much, mostly on elementary education. In 1919-1920 there were 5,584 elementary schools with 824,454 students while in 1937-38 there were 6,899 elementary schools with 963,087 students. The student-teacher ratio improved greatly: only 48 students were taught by one teacher. Let me add that even in the 1950s in gymnasiums the average class size was over 40. Illiteracy was lowered from 33% to 15% while the number of high school graduates grew substantially. By the 1930s 10% of the children between the ages of 10 and 18 were attending high school. The percentage of those who finished high school in the population as a whole also grew enormously. It more than doubled from 2.6% to 6%. As for university graduates--before the war out of 1,234 Hungarians there was one university graduate; by 1930 the ratio had improved to one in 759. Put differently, in the population over the age of six, in 1930 1.1% had finished university. Again, this sounds very low but if we compare it to as late as 1990 when only 7.6% of the population over the age of seven had finished university, neither the Rákosi nor the Kádár regime could brag about its achievements in this respect.

Finally, one more thing about the educational system prior to 1948, the year of the nationalization of schools. Most of the schools were parochial, and most of the parochial schools were Catholic. Prior to World War I 80% of elementary schools, 64% of gymnasiums and 59% of middle schools were in the hands of the churches. After the war because of border changes the churches' role in education only increased. By 1920 86% of elementary schools were parochial. The situation was the same in other types of schools as well. Despite the government's efforts to establish new state schools, the situation barely changed. There were cities where there was no choice: all high schools were in the hands of the Catholic Church. For example, in my hometown Pécs. Two parochial boys' gymnasiums and one girls' gymnasium. Interestingly enough, prior to World War I there was a state "reálgimnázium" for boys but after the war the school simply vanished.

It was after World War II that a thorough reorganization of the educational system occurred and in 1948 that the dominance of parochial schools was broken. But that is another story.

Hungarian higher education

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the state of higher education in Hungary. Two members of parliament, Klára Sándor and Bálint Magyar, both SZDSZ, are involved in attempts to improve the quality of education in Hungary. A few days ago I introduced Bálint Magyar who by training is a sociologist but who has spent most of his political life in the area of education. I didn't write about Klára Sándor, but she is one of the three SZDSZ members of parliament who was directly elected by a majority vote from an electoral district in and around Szeged. In civilian life she is an associate professor of linguistics at the University of Szeged. Therefore it is not surprising that she is the vice chairman of the parliamentary committee dealing with educational matters. She and Bálint Magyar are close allies when it comes to women's rights and education. The two of them often co-sponsor legislation.

Their latest proposal is to eliminate the common practice by some students of not finishing their studies within the "given" time frame. Let's assume that getting a bachelor's degree should take four years, but instead 10-20% (38,000-76,000) of Hungarian students finish their course work in six or seven years instead of four. That by itself is unacceptable on educational grounds in my opinion. It is also economically unsound. Lazy, no-good students can have a free ride on the taxpayer's money. Moreover, the universities (all seventy of them) receive money from the government based on the number of students enrolled. So the universities, whose most important duty should be to maintain high standards, are themselves not really interested in changing this unsavory and highly unfair system. The longer the state pays for more and more students the better it is from their point of view.

I don't know all the background negotiations preceding the latest parliamentary move by Klára Sándor, Bálint Magyar, and two of their MSZP colleagues, Zoltán Szabó and Sándor Magda, but my suspicion is that first they tried to convince István Hiller, minister of education and culture, to start negotiations with the universities and the "student unions" about a change in policy. The idea is that, when presenting enrollment figures on the basis of which they receive funding from the state, the university will no longer be able to count the laggards who spend six or seven years finishing their course work when, on paper, it should take only four years. If I am right, Hiller most likely said to them that he understands perfectly what they are talking about. After all, he himself is a professor of history (ELTE) in civilian life, but the universities will never accept this.

The students? Well, one has an idea. One doesn't even have to listen to "chief student" Norbert Miskolczi who heads HÖOK (Hallgatói Önkormányzatok Országos Konfereciája). In Hungary there is a whole hierarchy of student unions. Each university has a student union and all seventy unions are represented in a "conference." Miskolczi, who seems to have been busily studying for the last nine years, stands at the top of this pyramid. He is the president of the presidents. I assume that this organization resembles KISZ (Kommunista Ifjúsági Szövetség), at least in the sense that the student leaders receive salaries. Just like Ferenc Gyurcsány did after he became KISZ secretary at the University of Pécs. HÖOK is basically a trade union whose job it is to defend the interests of the students. Up to a point that would be fine and dandy, but it seems to me that Mr. Miskolczi and his fellow HÖOK representatives have one task they believe to be of paramount importance: making sure that student life is not too arduous. Too much work, nights in the library, writing essays all weekend--that is not exactly their cup of tea.

Yesterday I had the dubious privilege of listening to a discussion between Klára Sándor and Norbert Miskolczi on József Orosz's program Kontra (KlubRádió). István Hiller must be a saint if he can stand "negotiating" with Norbert Miskolczi at gatherings of the representatives of the universities. He is a very annoying and, let me add, stupid young fellow. And as is often the case, in his great ignorance he thinks that it is all so clever to call a member of parliament in her early forties "Dear Klára." Miskolczi also has a peculiar view of the credit system introduced in Hungary not long ago. According to him, the whole idea behind it is "to make sure that students can decide the pace at which they want to proceed" during their university careers. Of course, this is a huge misunderstanding or, perhaps less charitably, a brazen lie.

So the university presidents are up in arms and the students are standing shoulder to shoulder with them. But in order to raise standards this practice of self-paced learning must change. As it stands, there are only three Hungarian universities among the top 600 universities in the world: Budapest University of Technology and Economics (307), ELTE/University of Budapest (316), and the University of Szeged (480). Nothing to brag about. Debrecen, Pécs, and Miskolc are not even in the top 1,000!

By definition Fidesz is against the proposed legislation because they are against everything the other side suggests. In addition, Fidesz is the favorite party of the younger generation. According to all polls university students are great fans of Fidesz. Fidesz became especially popular among the students when in 1998 the Orbán government abolished tuition that had been introduced as part of the Bokros package in 1995. Fidesz certainly doesn't want to lose its popularity among the student population. Fidesz's excuse for not supporting the bill is also the credit system. Ten years ago this could have been introduced but not today, they say. Well, I who spent quite a few years making sure that students had enough credits to be promoted to the next class could explain to the Fidesz politicians how easily it can be done and that the credit system has nothing to do with it. Or rather it does in the sense that a certain number of credits is necessary for promotion. To give you an idea of the low standards are here is another example: a student gets three cracks at trying to pass the final exam for a course!!! He fails the first time, he fails the second time, and perhaps he is successful the third time around. I hate to think what happens if he fails the third time. I have the sneaking suspicion: nothing. Miskolczi of course sees nothing wrong with the practice. In fact he complains that students must pay for these second and third exams. How unfair! It boggles the mind. That's all I can say. This way Hungarian higher education will not improve.

Hungarian education: Back to state schools?

Let's face it, Hungarian education is in shambles. There are too many colleges and universities. Because there is no tuition for about half of the students and because there are no strict limits within which a student must complete requirements for a bachelor's program, a lot of students look upon higher education as a pleasant way to spend six years or so doing practically nothing. When it comes to elementary education, most of the village schools with only a handful of students are not only very expensive to maintain but also of poor quality. On tests comparing educational achievement in different countries Hungary is lagging behind. Researchers claim that about 25% of the adult population is functionally illiterate. And then there are the huge masses of mostly Roma adults who didn't even finish eight grades and who have no marketable skills.

Those who try to convince the world that there is no problem with Hungarian education point to the impressive results of Student Olympics in Mathematics or Physics, where Hungarian students excel. Well, both descriptions of the Hungarian situation are correct, because there are huge differences between so-called elite schools and the ordinary run of the mill schools.

Here is a very brief account of the history of public education in Hungary. Until 1948 there were basically two kinds of schools: parochial schools and schools run by the government. Most of the lower grades were in state hands while most of the high schools belonged to the Catholic or Protestant churches. That changed with the nationalization of schools: 99% of schools became state schools. After 1990 an entirely new system was introduced. Some of the schools were given back to the churches, but the rest were handed over to local governments. This is a hybrid system where the central government contributes a certain amount of money per student, but otherwise the local governments are responsible for maintaining the schools in their jurisdiction. This is not a very good system especially in the case of smaller villages. There are so few students and thus the head quota brings in so little money that it is impossible to maintain the school. But who will take it over? Yes, one could suggest that the children of village P could be bussed to the next village. Ah, but it's not that simple if the next village refuses to accept the children from outside. As happened not long ago when it turned out that the children of village P were mostly Gypsies. No way the next village would take them. Unfortunately, I don't remember what happened exactly, but at the end the children of the village were not left without a school.

But it happens left and right that even larger towns are unable to keep up their schools. Some time ago I wrote about Tatabánya where the last non-parochial school was to be taken over by the Catholic church because the town was unable to maintain it. I felt then as I feel now that not giving parents a choice between a public and a parochial school is wrong. Whether the parent wants it or not, he/she will forced to send the child to a parochial school.

And now comes the surprise. The government came to the conclusion that it should reestablish schools under the direct jurisdiction of the state and thus limit the discrimination rampant in the current system. Also, I assume, the state would like to prevent situations like that which occurred in Tatabánya. What will come of it? Perhaps nothing, although I think it might be a good idea to take some steps in this direction. Local governments are strapped for cash, small villages are unable to maintain their schools. A chain of state schools could solve a lot of problems and might improve standards. I'm not a great fan of centralization but what's going on right now cannot and should not be perpetuated.

Adult education in Hungary

Or rather its total lack of it. Learning throughout life (continuing education) was and still is a totally alien concept in Hungary. First of all, in the Kádár regime one rarely needed to learn new things. If you were a skilled worker in one of the large state factories your future was absolutely secure. It almost never happened that the worker lost his job or that within that factory entirely new skills had to be acquired. I guess one reason for this absence of learning was that the machinery the workers used didn't change a lot over time. (Most of the Hungarian factories' equipment at the time of change from socialism to capitalism was hopelessly obsolete.)  As for continuing education (a hot topic in the Hungarian media lately), it was limited to a very small group of people such as medical doctors, researchers, and university professors. I'm almost certain that a high school teacher of history didn't bother to read much after he got out of college.

A few days ago there was a conference organized by UNESCO on the topic of adult education and it turned out that the Hungarian situation is really bad. In Europe Hungary is dead last. Only about 5% of the adult population is involved in formal learning of any sort. Let's say, taking courses on handling the computer, using a word processing program, or getting around on the internet. The situation is especially bad in the older group, fifty and over. Only 5% of Hungarians over the age of 50 use the internet, as opposed to 30-40% of their peers in Western Europe, and even this 5% for the most part confine their use to e-mailing.

There is a late night program on ATV, Változások (Changes), that has in-depth discussions on various topics. For the last two weeks or so the theme has been public education. As part of the series the four experts had a vigorous discussion that began with a startling observation. One of the panelists claimed that Hungarians are not inclined to learn later in life because they think they know everything already. And they think they are superior to their neighbors. During the Kádár regime they got used to the idea that Hungary was the most desirable (or the least awful) place to live in the Soviet bloc. This false sense of superiority was further fueled by the relative successes of the first few years after 1990. The economy picked up, people started to live a bit better, and they somehow thought that this was going to last forever. Of course, economists and sociologists knew perfectly well that beneath the surface there are serious problems: half a million people with less than an eighth-grade education, another one million with no skills, too few people in the workforce, etc. Here and there attempts were made to organize job training programs for the uneducated and unskilled, but (as often happens with such programs) the students learned totally useless skills. People finished the course and there was still no job. No wonder that their enthusiasm didn't last long. What to do with these people, I haven't the foggiest. It seems that the Hungarian government doesn't know either.

Going back to non-job-related adult education, formal and informal. Americans have long had a fetish for self-improvement and a desire to learn new (often hobby) skills. They get together in informal literary clubs to discuss classical literature, modern fiction, or hot-button nonfiction titles. In almost every high school in the evenings there are adult education courses. At our high school one can take Arabic, flower arranging, introduction to computers and the internet, cooking, knitting, ballroom dancing, basic computer maintenance, ceramics, Spanish, tap dancing, yoga. Should I continue? The fees vary but are usually under $100. For the wealthy, universities organize foreign tours for alumni with the expert assistance of a faculty member. For no cost at all, people can listen to entire college courses. Many universities put some of their more famous lecturers on the internet. Recently I listened to 26 lectures on the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and currently I'm trying to squeeze in a course on Greek civilization.

Hungary is a wasteland in this respect. Once upon a time was a lecture series called Mindentudás egyeteme (University of all knowledge) that was very good. You could see it on television and on the internet. The funds given to the progam by a multinational corporation dried up and the series came to an end. Again, it was good but it was obvious that putting on these lectures was expensive. A huge lecture hall had to be rented, the lecturers had to be paid, and most likely they had to pay something to the television station as well. How much cheaper and simpler it is to videotape a university lecture. The professor comes free because he is giving his normal lecture for which he gets paid by the university. The only other expense is broadband service for the university's web site. And often foundations foot the bill.

One final thought. Using one's brain is apparently necessary for older people's mental health. Use it or lose it, the saying goes. Perhaps if Hungarians were more active mentally throughout their life they would feel younger and more fit. As for physical activity that is another story. Equally depressing.

Back to school in Hungary

On September 1 Hungarian children are returning to school, and the press is full of complaints about the financial burden this places on the family. Before I go into some of the details of what Hungarian schools demand, a sidenote and a personal hobby horse. In Hungary the educational establishment, specifically the ministry of education, still hasn't figured out that it would be much cheaper for the parents if the schools or school districts, similarly to the practice here, purchased textbooks and lent them to the children for the year. If a child ruins the textbook then the child's parents will have to compensate the school for the loss of the book. Otherwise the book is lent out to a new child the following year. Some textbooks can have quite a long life expectancy (until they become outdated). This practice teaches children to take care of the books that don't belong to them, and it is decidedly less wasteful than having parents purchase brand new books each year. And the textbooks are not cheap.To give a few horrifying examples, especially considering average Hungarian wages: the price of the first-grade textbooks in a Budapest elementary school (Szent László Általános Iskola) is 8,000 Ft ($50), for fourth graders 11-13,000 Ft ($70-$80), and for seventh graders 16,000 ($100).

But that is not the end. I'm not even sure whether I will find the English equivalents of all the items that the school demands because I don't know what is what. The above mentioned elementary school has an arrangement with one particular store for the basics; this package costs 6,000 Ft. (almost $40). However, it's incomplete and most likely includes only crayons, pencils, erasers, notebooks, and such. But the school usually demands a great deal more than that. I am copying the list attached to an article in Népszava, "This year it is a bit more expensive to begin school." So, here in paragraph style, starting with the Hungarian description (since sometimes I'm guessing at what these "must-haves" are) is the shopping list for parents of first graders. I will give the total price at the end.

(1) Tisztasági csomag (hygiene package: towel, glass, a package of napkins, Kleenex); (2) Tornazsák (fehér zokni, póló, shorts, jó minőségű tornacipő ) (gym bag: white socks, T-shirt, shorts, and good quality sneakers); (3) Ünneplőing, illetve szoknya vagy nadrág (clothes for special occasions: usually a white shirt/blouse and blue pants or skirt); (4) Iskolatáska (backpack); (5) Papírdosszié (paper folder); (6) Vízfesték (watercolor set);  (7) Dobókocka (dice? What's it for? Taking on Vegas?) (8) Stift vagy folyékony ragasztó (This is a bit of a mystery but it is either "stift" or liquid glue); (9) Vékony, vastag ecset (thin and thick brush);  (10) Olló (a pair of scissors); (11) Üzenőfüzet (a little book in which the teacher sends messages to the parents); (12) Leckefüzet (I guess this is a booklet in which homework assignments are recorded); (13) Papírcenti, 100 cm (measuring tape, thank God from paper and therefore cheap); (14) 2 csomag írólap (two packages of writing paper); (15) 10 db boriték (10 envelopes; I wonder what these are for); (16) Zsírkréta (I assume some kind of crayon); (17) Gyurma (modeling clay); (18) 30 félfamentes rajzlap A/4, 20 famentes rajzlap A/4 (drawing paper); (19) 2 csomag kivágóminták (színes papir) (colored paper for cut outs); (20) Korong (that is a disk but I can't fathom what the kids need this for); (21) 1 db hangjegyfüzet, 2 db négyzethálós füzet, 3 db vonalas füzet (1 notebook for music, 2 notebooks for math, 3 notebooks for writing); (22) Hurkapálca (skewer; another mystery); (23) Tolltartó, 12 színes ceruza, 1 radír, 1 hegyező, vonalzó (pencil holder, 12 color pencils, 1 eraser, 1 pencil sharpener, ruler).

My head is spinning. I checked what my local Connecticut elementary school demands for first graders (the only outlay for their parents) and found this: 1 pencilbox, 1 pack of 16 Crayola crayons, 2 folders, 2 Elmer glue sticks, 1 pair of blunt scissors, 1 ring binder, 2 pink erasers, and 12 #2 pencils. How modest for a town that was awarded not only the "best small town in Connecticut" award but also the "most expensive small town"!

And now let's see what all this stuff costs the poor Hungarian parents. The supplies I mentioned above will cost 14,000 Ft. in addition to the 8,000 Ft. for the textbooks. That is a handsome 22,000 Ft or over $135. For a first grader?! As I already mentioned, the cost of textbooks goes up as the children move from grade to grade. So it's no wonder that parents are complaining. 

I really wonder whether all this is necessary for a first grader. I guess if the school wants to teach them musical notation in the first year the kids need a rather expensive notebook. But is it possible? Is it necessary? I understand that the Hungarian school system is set up such a way that it crams too much into the first year or two. In the end the kids don't have a firm grasp of the three R's. In spite of all this fancy stuff a good 25% of fifteen-year-olds can't understand what they read. They are functional illiterates. This in a country that until recently thought of itself as excelling in education, in learning, in cultural achievements. Something has to change. But how?