Hungary’s economic growth requires many more skilled workers and technicians than those provided by the current education system, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga said at an event organized to welcome the Hungarian winners of Euroskills, a competition for young skilled Europeans.
Speaking about the dual, practice-oriented education system Mihály Varga said that the Ministry for National Economy and the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MKIK) have together succeeded in increasing the role of real economy in determining the direction of education.
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The Hungarian team ended the competition as sixth out of twenty-five participants and they were awarded 20 medals at the Euroskills competition in Lille, France.
As the Minister stressed, they are placing even more emphasis on this field than before. The number of trainees practising their job at real workplaces will increase one-and-a-half times by 2018. The number of participating companies will be two-and-a-half times higher, he added.
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In order to support this, he said, the so-called “chamber guarantee” principle has to be converted into law. This means that the Government will ensure that as many as possible trainees will obtain skills at market participants through MKIK.
The Minister pointed out that several young career-starters only realize after obtaining a secondary school final exam certificate or higher education diploma that they would have more opportunities through having proper work skills. Therefore, he emphasised, this trend has to be reversed. The excellent results of this competition also help call attention to the importance of obtaining marketable knowledge, Mihály Varga said.
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MKIK President László Parragh said that the institution came to an agreement with the Government in 2010 to revamp the vocational training system and introduce a dual, practise-based scheme. Chambers have become the supervising authorities of the vocational training system, but it may take years to make the model fully efficient and provide skilled workers that markets really need, he added.
Compared to the size of the country, he stressed, place six is a great achievement in this competition. In 2018, Hungary will host the competition, as the very first country in the region, László Parragh said.
(Ministry for National Economy)
