Posted on TOL Hungary on July 29th, 2007 by robertnemeth
If you want to go to a (state) university in Hungary, you do not need to pass an entrance exam any more. Whether you will be accepted or not depends on how you performed in high school. You receive points for your grades - the limits that you can enter universities with became public earlier this week. Since Hungarian higher educational system is worth some thoughts, this gives a good occasion to it.
One can have maximum 144 points - exactly so many are needed to get in to some universities, for instance if someone wants to study Communication or Eastern Languages at ELTE or International Economics at the Corvinus University. Let’s drop Eastern Languages, there are only a few places, so, you will have to be really good to get in. We should rather take a look at the departments of communication.
Years ago, economics and legal studies were the favorites among the applicants. Recently, communication (meaning some kind of Media Studies) joined them as well. The result: now, every year, more than 1,000 students graduate with a degree in Communication. If someone thinks logically, he or she can ask: why? Is there such a need for, let’s say, journalists? Obviously not. Most of these students want to “work in the media”, meaning: they want to see themselves on the screens. Since there are too many of them, and the education at some of the universities is quite poor (not only in these departments), they cannot manage it. So, for five years, they studied for nothing. To be a bit populist: they spent the money of the taxpayers for nothing.
Furthermore, more than 80,000 students were admitted this year, out of 109,000 applicants. For almost ten years, politicians tend to say that their aim is that half of the people in a generation should have a diploma. Some experts debate that it is a good idea, but there is a bigger problem. There are more and more complaints by companies that they cannot find enough people with sufficient professional knowledge. Letting thousands of students studying communication will definitely not solve this problem. Since universities receive money for each students they accept, it is not in their interests to cut the students of these departments. We can still hope that after a while everyone will realize that it is not so easy to have a job “in the media”, and a new trend will emerge in the applications. Let’s also hope that the new Bologna system will help in this and those who will have their BA will also obtain some applicable knowledge with it.
posted 21st July on The Regional Wrap by ctwalker
Education reform in Russia is taking on a curious sheen, as a piece by Peter Finn in today’s Washington Post describes. The Russian authorities are seeking to have high school-level history and social studies teachers adopt the content of two manuals that have been created by Kremlin advisors.
The history guide contains a laudatory review of President Vladimir Putin’s years in power. “We see that practically every significant deed is connected with the name and activity of President V.V. Putin,” declares its last chapter. The social studies guide is marked by intense hostility to the United States.
The article notes that while officials have suggested that the nationalist-oriented course guides are not mandatory, some are dubious.
One Russian teacher observed:
“The scariest thing, and the fact that makes me really sad, is that these manuals and any new textbooks will be seen not as a recommendation or a choice for teachers, but as an order.”
The author of the “Sovereign Democracy” chapter in the history guide said as much when he responded on his blog to criticism from teachers that parts of the book were little more than crude Kremlin propaganda.
“You will teach children in line with the books you are given and in the way Russia needs,” wrote Pavel Danilin, a 30-year-old editor at the Effective Policy Foundation, a consulting firm that works for the Kremlin and is headed by Kremlin loyalist Gleb Pavlovsky. “To let some Russophobe [expletive], or just an amoral type, teach Russian history is impossible. It is necessary to clear the filth and if it doesn’t work then clear it by force.”
Russia’s (hobbled) education sector has gotten far too little attention in the overall context of recent Russian development. Fair-minded Russians and the outside world would be well advised to pay more attention soon.
A round-up of education news from post-communist Europe, Russia and Central Asia for the last few weeks. If you have any suggestions about things that have been missed, know of any education blogs from the region, or relevant news agencies please leave a comment.
RUSSIA
(from themoscowtimes.com, 08.06.07): “A Ryazan student said Thursday that she was being threatened with expulsion from her college after being detained at a Dissenters’ March in Moscow.”
(from themoscowtimes.com, 07.06.07): “High school students are asking President Vladimir Putin to annul the results of a state exam after answers were posted on the Internet 10 hours before it was administered.”
(from mnweekly.ru, 24.05.07): “Orphans thrive at new concept home…When children graduate from the children’s community, they are supported financially through university. The loving homes and stability given in the community assure a greater chance of them continuing in higher education.”
(from mnweekly.ru, 24.05.07): “The RF government has initiated a Bill calling for the introduction of compulsory general education. If the State Duma approves it, the school age could be extended to 20.”
(from kommersant.com, 08.06.07): “The overall amount of bribes annually given in Russia for entering universities reaches $520 million, Interfax announced referring to UNESCO report on corrupt practices in education, which covered 60 states of the world. The conclusion of the report is that bribing, fake graduate degrees and other violations are wide-spread both in developing countries and in developed ones…”
CENTRAL ASIA
(from rferl/rl, 11.06.07): “International labor officials estimate that there are tens of thousands of children throughout Central Asia — some as young as seven years old — working to support themselves and their families, even though a formal education is legally compulsory.”
ARMENIA
(from armenianow.com, 08.06.07): “Grades of the 55,000 students, who sat up the new joint system test in Armenian Language and Literature serving for both graduation and university entrance, raised a wave of discontent when it was learned yesterday that only 2.3 percent of the examined received the highest 19-20 points, against 35 percent in previous years…”
CZECH REPUBLIC
(from praguemonitor.com, 07.06.07): “Bullying exists in three quarters of Czech elementary and a half of secondary schools, according to the results of the first part of the Quick Survey project in 2007 that the Information in Education Institute (UIV) released today…”
(from radio.cz, 12.06.07): “EU Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel made clear in Luxembourg this week that she is in favour of a School Fruit plan that would reinforce nutrition in schools and help fight childhood obesity while also helping European fruit producers…But not everyone is backing the scheme as yet: representatives of the Czech Republic and the UK this week were among the more vocal sceptics.”
HUNGARY
(from budapestsun.com, 31.05.07)”With the the recent tendency of school closures, educational institutes in Hungary are increasingly motivated to guarantee their survival by providing some extra programs and profiles…”
(from caboodle.hu, 25.05.07): “A recent study has shown that most Hungarian teenagers have a very high opinion of their parents. However, an expert says youngsters have an idealized picture of the family that does not always reflect reality…”
ROMANIA
(from nineoclock.ro, 11.06.07): “…[there are] extraordinary cases of abandonment [of youth]. The UNICEF representative in Bucharest was recently warning about the fact that nowhere in the world both parents in a family leave to get work abroad…”
(from nineoclock.ro, 04.06.07): Violence in Schools.
