National Institute of Public Education

The foundation of the National Institute of Public Education (NIPE) in 1990 was part of the democratic transformation of Hungarian public education. A new national institute came about, involved in research, development and services in the field of public education, with responsibilities determined by the ever changing needs of a diverse, multi-player system of public education. The governments that founded and maintained OKI expected assistance in the modernisation process of an increasingly pluralistic Hungarian public education and professional support - both to the educational administration working on the improvement of public education and to those on the institutional and local levels working on the innovation of public education.

The Institute has been an active player in the transformation process of Hungarian public education and helped work out and implement several important national provisions. The range of national educational institutes has changed considerably since the Institute's foundation. New responsibilities emerged, new organisations came about to perform them and the resources of research and development have greatly increased. The National Institute of Public Education has also been affected by these trends: it has been reorganised several times in the rapidly changing educational environment, resulting in fewer responsibilities, smaller size and an altered professional role. National development in the field of public education is now performed by a number of independent institutes - one of them being the National Institute of Public Education - working as partners of one another.

In accordance with the mid-range research and development plans of OKI and its new charter issued in 2000, the Institute is engaged in research and development activities that aim to improve the efficiency of public education. The Institute assists in making professionally well-founded decisions, improving school teaching and learning, strengthening the innovative ability of education and integrating Hungary's school structure into the European educational environment. As a background institute of the Ministry of Education, the Institute makes efforts in order that the government's provisions prove to be a success in renewing education. Besides - and in harmony with - activities performed at the request of the government, the Institute is involved in research and development projects in cooperation with Hungarian and international organisations and, occasionally, by individual appointment as well.

We aim to be effective in creating and distributing the background knowledge necessary to operate the increasingly complex and rapidly changing system of modern public education. We believe that this requires a great deal of openness. That is why we make efforts to take the multidisciplinary approaches best suiting the current problems of education, encourage cooperation with professionals working in the field and build contacts with players of the economy and society outside the field of education. We intend to improve education by making partnerships not only with national institutes of education, but with all players - such as private enterprises offering educational services, local governments, churches - who accept our cooperation. Both in professional debates taking place within the Institute and in outside communication we intend to engage in such objective, well-informed and open dialogues that inspire new ideas and help find new sorts of solutions to future challenges.

The aim of research and development done by the National Institute of Public Education is to continuously renew Hungarian public education, assist its adaptation to current professional and social requirements, support the decision-making process in educational matters and finally to accumulate and spread knowledge concerning public education and its social environment. Our objectives further involve finding new solutions in actual pedagogy as well as educational policymaking, developing and distributing modern programmes that may result in an increased efficiency of education and contribute to the improving quality of education. OKI is also expected to explore social expectations concerning the content of public education, develop content requirements, analyse their fulfilment and carry on research thereof, as well as promote international contacts of Hungarian public education.

A number of research projects aid the improvement of the system of public education. OKI performs research that supports mid- and long-term governmental planning and decision-making in the field of public education as well as SWOT analyses. Research activities involve other interdisciplinary and pedagogical research and analysis serving as the foundation of developing public education as well as supporting the Minister of Education in performing his legal obligations. The Institute also publishes a report "Education in Hungary".

The Institute is engaged in research and development activities in public education and in related areas and its activities include pre-school, primary and secondary education as well as lifelong learning. The Institute's responsibilities further involve the education of students with special needs, the education of the Roma minority, developing programmes providing equal chances and doing research and development that aim to modernise the content and methods of school education and adult education.

OKI is responsible for modernising the content of public education, for developing programmes that support certain school subjects and cultural domains and for developing the content and methodology of out-of-class teaching. A part of this is piloting model programmes and pedagogical systems, performing school-level development and doing research that help enhance the efficiency of teaching and learning.

The Institute is involved in providing professional assistance to teachers, among others by developing and organising in-service teacher training programmes and by contributing to the in-service training of school management.

Distributing the results of research and development activities has particular significance for OKI - a task performed by publishing a monthly journal and books as well as electronic communication.

Building and maintaining international contacts is a high priority for the Institute. We are actively involved in developing various databases of OECD and providing statistical data on Hungarian education. The Institute is an important member of CIDREE, the organisation of European institutes of educational research.

The National Institute of Public Education is a background organisation of the Ministry of Education. Its operation is mainly financed by the budget, but the Institute has access to other financial resources through international research tenders, which helps perform its research and development activities.

The Institute operates on the basis of an annual work plan and on the basis of a three-year mid-term plan. A Consultative committee consisting of senior researchers and executives of the Ministry aids the plans and strategic planning.

The Institute has 66 employees, 37 of whom are directly involved in research. There are 8 senior researchers.

The Director General of the Institute is Gábor Halász; the Deputy Director General is Julianna Borsi-Wolf.

OKI's activities take place in three centres for research and development; the Principal's Office, the Publishing Centre and the Finances department assist them.

This unit is responsible for the coordination of the Institute and assists in the management of research and development activities performed in the Institute. The unit has an important role in international activities of the Institute and in broadening international contacts. Colleagues at this unit handle research documentation and the Institute's library also belongs here.

The Centre performs interdisciplinary research activities in order to monitor trends within the educational system, both on the macro level (system- or policy-oriented) and on the level of individual schools. Responsibilities of the Research Centre involve the analysis of changes taking place in public education and in vocational training, their interpretation in a Hungarian and international context with a view to teacher training and in-service training. Its responsibilities further include the publication of a report "Education in Hungary" on a regular basis, as well as preparing the necessary research and analyses in advance. The Centre continuously monitors and analyses social expectations concerning public education and the determining factors thereof. The Centre is also responsible for performing research supporting educational decisions and preparing SWOT analyses. The Research Centre contributes to analyses in the field of educational economy, which serve as a basis of studying the efficiency of public education and support the relevant decisions. Research areas include the relations of education and the world of work, with reference to vocational training and lifelong learning in particular.

The Centre is responsible for developing curricular programmes and the necessary means and methods of implementation with an aim to renew the content of public education. The Centre's tasks include research as well as related innovation in individual schools. The Centre undertakes research concerning content and curriculum issues of public education - the content of teaching, the structure of school subjects and links between school subjects. This activity is related to cultural domains, subject areas, age groups and areas of education. It involves the development of teaching and learning methods, innovation at the level of schools and support for alternative approaches. The Centre is engaged in teacher training and in-service teacher training in order to distribute the results of research and development.

The Centre is responsible for developing programmes that aid the content development of public education and is involved in developing means and methods necessary for their implementation, as well as supporting innovation on the school level. We document adult education, develop the relevant curricula and evaluation criteria, and draw the conclusions. The Centre is also involved in developing programmes that provide efficient education for disadvantage youth, creating educational models and efficient teaching programmes for Roma youth (including the necessary research). Researchers of the Centre are engaged in dialogues and cooperate with other organisations dealing with adult education and the education of socially excluded and Roma students. It has an important role in operating the Adult Education Academy, an organisation responsible for the accredited in-service training for teachers involved in adult education, and the education of socially excluded students and Roma students.

The intention of this study is to analyse and evaluate the current state of affairs and ongoing trends in Hungarian public education. As on previous occasions, an abridged English version of the Report is also being published, which forms the present volume.

The idea of producing a comprehensive report on the changes in public education at intervals of every 2 or 3 years was originally conceived in the mid-1990s, following the OECD report on Hungarian education policy. The concept was motivated in part by background analyses relating to the OECD report and their influence on debates concerning education, and in part by OECD recommendations. Hungarian public education administration officials came to the conclusion that such a thorough professional analysis, based on statistical data, research results and documents, could have several positive effects. Firstly, it may have a favourable influence on general opinion concerning public education by approaching problems in a systematic, thematic and professional manner, thereby making trends in education policy more predictable and more rational. Secondly, by analysing the system and providing feedback, it may have a favourable influence on the quality and efficiency of education. Thirdly, by documenting events in educational policy-making it aids continuity and helps to maintain a balance between change and stability in an age characterised by rapid changes and unstable periods of transition.

This report aims to present innovations concerning quality development in the field of Hungarian educational management. The reason for the emphasis placed on quality concerning school management innovations may be explained by the transitional process of education in Hungary. Currently Hungary has one of the most decentralised systems of education in Europe. However, educational traditions are rooted in a centralised system, with great regional and local differences amongst schools, whilst the country experienced a dramatic economic crisis in the past decade. These factors challenge the decentralised way of governance and school-management. The ability to maintain and even to improve quality becomes a crucial issue or even a test of the system

The Hungarian educational system has undergone fundamental structural changes in the past decade. Its main direction has been decentralization, which has been undertaken parallel to the society's democratic transition. The deconstruction of the centralized educational management system started in the early 1980's. The aim of the process has been to create a flexible school system that is capable of reacting to the more and more differentiated social needs. This strengthened local autonomy and increased the importance of local initiatives.

The appearance of technological wonders and their use in the field of education, however, can not automatically be regarded as pedagogical innovation. Is it at all possible to define the term, and if so, how? Education researchers at IEA were curious about the answer to this question when they assessed the role of Information Technology in the innovative pedagogical practice of different countries.

EMP/SKILLS - Skills and Employability Department