From Deconstruction to Systemic Reform: Educational Transformation in Hungary

Abstract

The study analyses the Hungarian educational transformation process following the change of regime in 1989 on the basis of a common analytical framework elaborated by the expert team of the international comparative study Transforming Societies of Visegrad Countries and Their Educational Systems (led by the Institute for Research and Development of Education of the Faculty of Education of Charles University). The study presents the transformation process in ten specific areas, such as aims and functions, management and administration, financing, structural issues, quality control, school autonomy, the teaching profession, support structures and the social aspect of education. It examines the nature of the transformation process in each of theses areas using the common analytical framework distinguishing three transformational phases: (1) deconstruction, (2) stabilisation/construction/ modernisation and (3) systemic reform. It is argued, that the transformation process has progressed unevenly in these areas, and the stage of a coherent and deliberate systemic reform has not been reached in any of them. However, system evolution processes have moved the system quite close to the more advanced stage of systemic reform. The study puts a particular emphasis on the impact of the accession of the country to the European Union in the transformation process. It argues that two different transition processes have been superimposed: one from planned economy and one-party system to market economy and parliamentary democracy, and another from national sovereignty to community membership. These two different transitions made the transformation process extremely complex and made its social and political management particularly difficult. One of the main conclusions of the study is that the shift from the second phase of transformation (construction, stabilisation and modernisation) to the third phase (systemic reform) cannot be detached from europeanisation. This shift is strongly conditioned by the nature and the quality of the process of europeanisation.