Following our January discussion on the future of education, we organized a closed-door roundtable meeting on September 14 to further discuss the challenges in the public elementary level education in Hungary.
AmCham has been continuing its advocacy efforts in recent months to facilitate the dialogue between private and public sector decision makers to improve the country’s competitiveness. In this context, education has a strategic role, as our member companies together employ hundreds of thousands of Hungarian workers, whose skills have a fundamental impact on the performance of these firms, and thus on the economy. This is what prompted AmCham to initiate a position on the matter, which then gathered support and was elaborated in collaboration with five other international Chambers of Commerce.
In line with the policy position formulated in April, the roundtable addressed the following three areas: the prestige of the teaching profession, skill, and ability-based education, and equal opportunities and possibilities. Our invited guests, Judit Lannert, education researcher, senior researcher at T-Tudok, external expert at the Equilibrium Institute and Dr. János Setényi, education researcher and Director of the MCC Learning Institute had an insightful discussion moderated by dr. Andrea Juhos, Managing Partner of Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH).
Dr. Setényi stressed the importance of improving the quality of the teaching training with methods such as peer-to-peer learning that also contributed to the achievements of some Eastern countries such as China or Shanghai.
In the meantime, Ms. Lannert pointed out the importance of rationalizing school sizes, which could both address the current teacher shortage and would potentially help optimize the management of school equipment and buildings.
In addition, ensuring information flow and greater access to data relevant to education could also significantly help the identification of areas for development.
The experts agreed on the need to modernize the Hungarian educational system, prioritize the financial and social appreciation of teachers and reforming teacher training.
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