As a tradition of more than 50 years, upper-secondary education (ISCED 3) typically starts from grade 9 in Hungary after completing the 8-grade single-structure educational phase (i.e. primary and lower secondary, ISCED 1 and 2). Most commonly, it involves 4 grades in general education, and 5 or 3 grades in VET depending on the programme.

The training in upper secondary general schools usually lasts for 4 years, but in some cases, like talent support programmes and disadvantage compensational programmes, with a preparatory year, the education consists of 5 years (e.g.: Arany János Talent Support Programme; bilingual education; language preparatory programmes).

Based on the VET 4.0 strategy adopted by the government in 2019, the institutional structure of the initial vocational education and training has changed from the school year of 2020/2021. The existing institutional structure – secondary vocational school, vocational upper secondary school - has been replaced in a phasing out system by other instructional types, which provide bigger flexibility and institutional interoperability; the Technicums (technikum) and the Vocational schools. The duration of the training in technical schools is 5 years. After the first two years of providing sectoral knowledge, dual training takes place in the second cycle. The duration of the vocational school is 3 years. The first year gives sectoral knowledge, followed by two years of dual training.