Jobbik: Govt fails in gap reduction at schools

Budapest (MTI) – The radical nationalist Jobbik party criticized the government’s education policies, insisting that development programs for gap-reduction have failed.

Results in this year’s secondary school-leaving exam were lower than at any time in the past five years and 60,000 students had to re-take exams, Dora Duro, the head of parliament’s cultural committee and a lawmaker for Jobbik, told a press conference on Tuesday. She said this was a sign that the government’s policies “have derailed”.

Duro said it took the government four years to realize that the national basic curriculum introduced under their supervision has overburdened teachers and pupils alike in terms of the teaching requirements. The state agency for schools (Klik) has failed in reducing inequality among schools and it was a bad decision to ban local councils from the operation of schools, she added.

Duro criticized the government’s Hid (Bridge) program, aimed at gap-reduction, noting that every third student in vocational schools was a dropout and the rate was as high as 50 percent for disadvantaged kids. Even programs lasting a few months have dropout rates of around 40 percent, she said.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters