The Government is committed to the development of a quality education system that creates opportunities, Minister of State for Social Affairs and Inclusion Károly Czibere said at an education forum in Budapest.

In his opening speech at the conference on the opportunities provided by inclusion-facilitating education, organised by the Centre for Fundamental Rights, the Minister of State emphasised that if a child grows up with a feeling of hopelessness and believing that they have no hope of acquiring available knowledge, then that leads to decay for the whole country and this is why the integrated teaching of children is our common cause.

The Government rejects all forms of unlawful segregation and is committed to the development of a quality education system that provides opportunities, and which is of key importance in facilitating the inclusion of disadvantaged children, he stressed.

It is from among experiences and facts, accusations and prejudices that we must find the narrow path towards the satisfactory settlement of relationships within Hungarian society. There is only one possible starting point: trust and the will to search for a solution, he pointed out.

The Minster of State declared that we must keep in mind that according to the Fundamental Law, Hungary assures freedom of education in the interests of enabling children to acquire the highest possible level of knowledge. The Government has introduced several measures in recent years to ensure this, such as the development of its Inclusion Strategy.

According to Mr. Czibere, the target set by the Strategy is clear: to promote social and national unity, increased solidarity and a decrease in segregative phenomena. It is difficult to find a solution through purely central regulation, and accordingly the whole of society must recognise that there is no alternative to integration and the only possible debate can be regarding methodology, he continued.

For this reason, the Minister of State said he welcomed the launch of the series of forums that will enable dialogue on, amongst others, the school environment, the role of parents and the community, the dangers of falling out of the school system, teachers’ real or supposed lack of effective tools and the regulation of education policy.

At the conference, opportunities provided by non-governmental organisations and the instruments available to the legislator for providing opportunity-providing education that facilitates inclusion will be the subject of a roundtable discussion.

(Ministry of Human Capacities)