The three meetings of the Public Education Roundtable so far confirmed that the interests of children, teachers and schools can only be served by dialogue and common work.

The common goal of the government and the professional organizations attending the Public Education Roundtable is for children to receive competitive education and improve the activities of the teachers and schools.

During the public education debate day (in parliament) it became evident that the Socialist-Liberal Democrat government reduced educational funding through short-changing municipalities and abolishing the 13th month wage. The civic government since 2010 has been replenishing the educational budget via the state support, wage rises for teachers and school improvement programs.

Since its establishment one month ago, the Public Education Roundtable has yielded several results. The government listened to every suggestion and was able a solution for almost all of them. The only demands than cannot be met are the latest demands to increase teachers’ wages, the proposals endangering the availability of free textbooks and withdrawing schools from the state support system.

The government’s position is that the previous system of municipality-ran schools has failed, municipalities amassed a total debt of 1,300 billion Forints, hundreds of schools had been closed and thousands of teachers laid off, thus this system should not be brought back, thus the state support system must remain in place. At the latest, March 8 meeting the participants all agreed with this as they agreed that the institutional state support system must be overhauled beginning with this autumn.

Beyond the above results, the Public Education Roundtable formulated meaningful proposals in several other areas, some of which are already being implemented: the financing of the (state institution for school administration) KLIK has been supplemented and its debts are being handled.

Headmasters will receive additional authorities, employment issues are being solved and the promotion system is under revision, teacher training is improved and teachers’ further education system is being revised while the curriculum framework and the national curriculum are also being revised.

(Ministry of Human Capacities)