STUDENTS' RESEARCH SOCIETIES AS TOOLS OF TALENT MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Role of talent management in higher education has improved in the first years of the21st century all over the word. Prior to the social-economic transformation, the Hungarian higher education was characterized by special elite education. Only 10-15% of students with GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) were admitted to the universities or colleges. Due to the stricter selection system the eminence was sort of precondition of continuing the studies at higher levels. At the same time the students’ scientific activity was introduced more than sixty years ago, and developed at higher educational institutions as a further screen: the ambitious students could take part in special activities in addition to their compulsory curriculum studies, they could carry out research works independently or within the frame of teamwork. Following the post-socialist transition the number of students in higher education swelled significantly: almost 50% of high school graduate students were admitted to universities or colleges. The increased number of students in higher education and the three-cycle transformation of training also urged the reconstruction of the framework of former talent management. In the paper we give a short outlook of the popular forms of talent management, their experimental results, as well as the related problems. We examine the questions that need to be answered in the transformed higher education. These could lead back to the problems induced by the Bologna-system (multi-cycle training). They are the followings: problems of selection of talents in the shortened training time, respectively the shortened time available for those students’ research works which lasted for several years previously, problems of changing tutorial and student scales of values and attitudes, questions of requirements of continuity in the training chain of bachelor – master – PhD level etc. The situation of the students’ scientific research work– a unique movement in Europe – was the focus of the study, furthermore its results and connection with the third level (Ph.D.) of the Bologna-system higher education. Key words: competition, eminence, mass education, students’ scientific activity.