2022

Scholarships for disadvantaged students

The “Útravaló” (Path) program provides support for disadvantaged and multiply disadvantaged pupils and students from the last year of basic school (ISCED 1-2) until the HE graduation. The scholarship program has four sub-programs: Path to upper secondary school, Path to profession, Path to graduation, Path to diploma. Due to the governmental 2.5 billion HUF subsidy, more than ten thousand children and young people can benefit from this performance-based scholarship program, the amount depends on the academic results of the pupil/student gained at the end of the previous school year.

The Roma Nationality Study Scholarships are also open for application, students who attend a Roma nationality upper secondary school and achieve an academic study average of 4 are eligible.

Addition, modification and deletion of VET program requirements

Anyone can make a proposal to the minister responsible for vocational education about a program requirement, its modification and deletion. In the procedure, the administrative deadline is three months, and the assignment of an expert is mandatory. The requesting client pays an administrative service fee for the procedure for registering, modifying and deleting the program requirement - at the same time as the application is submitted.

Digitalisation

For the implementation of the Public Collection Digitisation Strategy the Government allocated 5.1 billion HUF. The document sets out digitisation tasks for memory institutions for the period 2017-2025, including access to digital contents and their use for educational purposes.

The infrastructure required for the launch of web archiving in Hungary was procured with the help of the state support for the development of the IT system of the National Széchényi Library, within the framework of the National Library System Project.

In addition, the Government has created the legal environment and the necessary financial background by amending the law and decrees so that the National Library can perform its task in the field of preservation and provision of “born-digital” content in addition to digitisation.

2021

Loans for adult trainings

Beside the higher education loans, student loan is available for adults (18-55) at the Student Loan Centre to finance their trainings so that they have the opportunity to participate in vocational education or in adult learning against their financial difficulties. The training loan can be used for only training fees in the case of feepaying programmes. In this case the loan is transferred directly to the institution. The loan is available only for trainings of at least 3 months.

2020

Free online learning material for micro and SMEs

Free online learning material (the „Be a smart entrepreneur” online training module) helps the development of micro and SMEs. The training was developed by the Budapest Institute of Banking (BIB), the educational institution of the Budapest Stock Exchange. The training includes the most relevant topics such as business innovation, digitalization, change of generation, HR opportunities and communication.

The administrative burden of private organizations providing adult training reduces

The time spent for administration has reduced by 90 per cent for the organizations providing adult training due to the new Act on Adult Education. The decrease is due to the fact that the responsible public body requires less data, operates one joint online data requesting system instead of the previous two according to the survey conducted by the Association of Organizations providing Adult Training.

New vocational education institutions

As of 1 September 2020, there is a new vocational programme in the first grade of technicums (technikum) -previously named as upper secondary vocational grammar schools. The name of vocational schools has been changed from “szakközépiskola” to “szakképző iskola”. Previous programmes will be phasing out in the newly named institutions.

New Catch-up programmes

Since September 2020 the previous catch up programme called “Bridge” has been replaced by “Dobbantó”/“Springboard Class” and “Műhelyiskola”/”School Workshop Programme”. These programmes together help students obtain basic education and partial vocational qualification.

Teachers’ status and pay rise

The salaries of teachers in vocational education and training institutions has been significantly increased since 1 July 2020. The 35 billion HUF additional funding provided by the state budget in 2020 allowed for an average 30 % increase, the exact amount of the pay rise was determined on an individual basis.

An employee of a vocational education and training institution no longer has a civil servant status, as his/her legal status is now regulated by the Labour Code.