The success of Hungary’s national strategy largely hinges on whether Hungarians living within the Carpathian Basin can embrace Hungarian language education as a common cause, Minister of Human Capacities Zoltán Balog said at a Budapest conference on Friday.
The conference was held at the occasion of the signing of a long-term cooperation agreement between Hungarian teachers’ associations from eight neighbouring countries, Minister of State for Public Education Judit Czunyiné Bertalan and Director General of the Institute for Educational Research and Development József Kaposi.
Minister Balog said those involved should regard the Carpathian basin as a single unit and develop a long-term strategy which reflects this unity. The strategy should encompass cooperation, professional ties and an optimal utilisation of existing resources, including the creation of good scholarship systems for the education of teachers in all countries with a Hungarian minority.
Teachers should not only preserve Hungarian identity, but develop it further, while Hungarian educational standards should have a common minimum within the entire region, he added.
Judit Czunyiné Bertalan said the agreement represented a milestone in educational cooperation and that the inclusion of the Institute for Educational Research and Development opens new perspectives in this cooperation.
(Ministry of Human Capacities, MTI)
