Requirements concerning the management staff of schools, as well as their tasks, profession related expectations and responsibilities, are regulated by Acts. School heads have both professional and management roles. They are supported by deputy school head(s), committees and professionals, the number of whom is dependent on the size of the school. In addition to the managerial roles fulfilled for payment as stated by the law, all levels of Hungarian public education, VET and higher education includes management tasks that are performed from permanent or provisional managerial positions, which considerably contributes to the effective and successful work at the institutions.
In Hungarian education system, the head of the institution is employed by the maintainer of the institution. In addition to the state and municipalities, due to the freedom of founding an institution, educational institutions may be founded and maintained by churches and foundations in public education, VET and higher education.
Other education staff working in public and municipal institutions (who are defined in public education as staff directly involved in teaching and education) are employed by the head of the institute. The above responsibilities and their possible establishment are regulated by the law at all educational level, however, the decision on the specific method of filling the positions is mainly made by the head of the institute, with the approval of the institute maintainer.
Since 2011, the increased central responsibility of the state in public education and VET has been characteristic.
Act CXC of 2011 on National Public Education has significantly changed the structure of the maintainers of educational institutions (§ 74 - § 76/B). The municipalities, which had previously been mainly responsible for the maintenance of institutions, remained responsible only for kindergartens. For the other types of educational institutions, the state is the main maintainer.
The structure of institution maintenance by the state has undergone several important changes in the recent years. The majority of secondary VET institutions were taken over into the maintenance of the Minister responsible for VET and Adult Training, and VET centres were established as institution maintainers. Secondary schools providing VET in the health sector are run by medical universities, while the maintainer of secondary schools providing VET in arts and pedagogy are school district centres.
Regarding other public education institutions, on 1 January 2017 from the previous state maintainer 60 school district centres were formed, which are independent legal entities with their own budget. The public educational tasks performed by the church, the private sector and local ethnic minority governments are regulated by public educational contract.
The heads of school district centres and institutions run by municipalities are public servants, their status is regulated by law. The public servant status of heads of public education institutions and school-based VET institutions run by VET centres and universities was abolished from 2020.
In 2021, the right to maintain most public higher education institutions was devoted to foundations established by the government. With this change, the public servant status of teaching staff in institutions that went through the model change was also abolished.