Institution

The Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) is the central organisation in the Republic of Hungary coordinating education and culture. The head of the ministry is the Minister, who is also the member of the government. The MEC is responsible for legislation related to education and culture. The Acts in relation to education and culture also determines the basic functions of the ministry. The ministry is divided into deputy state secretaries’ offices headed by deputy state secretaries who are in charge of the management of certain technical areas. In governing higher education, the deputy state secretary of HE and Science is responsible for preparing decisions of higher education policy, submits the draft report on the annual budget and subsidy of higher education, and performs control of legitimacy over state institutions of higher education. The authority of the MEC extends only to issuing and enforcing legal regulations. The maintainer of the higher education institution and the institution itself adopt their decisions in compliance with the Government and ministerial decrees and the internal regulations. As regards the heads of institutions, the Minister will exercise the employer's rights.

Involved

Zoltán Loboda is the Head of the Department for EU Relations in the Ministry of Education and Culture. He takes part in the preparation of EU decisions related to education and co-ordinates the elaboration of the ministry’s mandate to EU educational policy. He is in charge of the national implementation of EU educational policy goals especially related to Education and Training 2010 Work Programme and Lisbon process. ’s Lifelong Learning Strategy and chairs the work of the inter-ministerial committee that has been set up to assist the implementation. Within the Hungarian LLL strategy, the creation of a NQF is considered to be a n important policy tool to develop a more coherent LLL system and improve its cross-sectoral connections. NQF developments are underway and an inter-ministerial Task Force chaired by Zoltán Loboda is devoted to work out a development plan. The Secretariat of the Task Force is provided by the EU Relations Department. ’s office and the National Bologna Board. The EU D epartment is assisting the office and the Minister in creation of the framework and giving policy advise on the integration of HE into the European Higher Education Area.

Bologna/ NQF

Within the new government structure the Ministry of Education and Culture is involved in the preparation of HE qualifications framework and Ministry of Labour is in charge of the renewal of the National Register of Vocational Qualifications. After having consulted on European Commission’s EQF proposal, the MEC was asked to draw up a Concept of the National Qualifications Framework. An inter-ministerial Task Force has been set up to co-ordinate and supervise the development proposal which is considered to be a strategic plan for implementation. The proposal shall be submitted to the Government by the end of this year. The main objective of the Concept is to gradually integrate all existing qualifications systems into an NQF.

The MEC and the representatives of the institutions launched a curriculum development program, set up specialised teams and discussed the theoretical and methodological issues of designing qualifications requirements in harmony with the new framework proposed by the EQF.

An inter-ministerial Task Force is currently preparing an NQF implementation strategy with involvement of stakeholders and ministerial officials of the fields concerned.The qualifications framework regulated output requirements are intended to be improved on the basis of the learning outcomes approach and developments should be fed back as input requirements in the long run.

The Minister regularly holds higher education roundtables with the participation of the main HE actors and representatives of the business world to discuss different aspects of the HE reform.

Role and Expectations

An outstanding priority of the Ministry is to empower their partners and HE institutions to fully implement the Bologna process. Creating an EQF compatible NQF is especially important for the Ministry in making LLL a reality. The Ministry supports HE institutions to participate in programs of the European Union and other international organisations in order to explore different options and ways which might contribute to a change of attitude indispensable in the institutional system and as result a more outcome- and competence-oriented approach will gain ground. This project facilitates the elaboration of different arrangements to NQF in the HE sector and provides opportunities for discovering international examples through peer learning.