The South-Hungarian higher education institutions’ agglomeration based on the gravity model (original) (raw)
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Impact of Institutional Changes on Hungarian Higher Education after 1989
Higher Education Quarterly, 2008
This study used data summaries and interviews to analyze changes in the Hungarian higher education since 1989. The first part of the article relies on statistical data, and put the Hungarian higher education system into the international context. It focuses on enrollment changes, spending patterns, and the size and quality of teaching personnel. Available data suggested a * Manuscript Click here to download Manuscript: HungHigher.rtf 2 dramatic increase in enrollment, coupled with declining or stagnant resources. The second part of the study focuses on micro-level activities of selected universities and departments with special highlight on research, teaching, administration, and institutional change. The study argues that the creation of a stable, performance-oriented, well-financed higher education system in the postcommunist Hungary has been achieved imperfectly. Keywords Enrollment increase in higher education, higher education systems of transition economies, Law on Higher Education, sector-neutral financing, work incentives. This article examines the institutional changes in the Hungarian higher education after 1989 with specific emphasis on the explosion in enrollment, decrease in funding, performance incentives, and institutional leadership. First, we compare the increase in higher education enrollment with similar increases occurred in different times in Western Europe and the USA. We discuss the nature of public and private expenditure, and their relative change over time. In the second part of the article we present the results of interviews conducted with department chairs, vice-deans, and budget directors from five Hungarian universities. Interviews help to uncover details of Hungarian higher education not captured by statistical data. We focus on work incentives and other factors that might influence teaching and research in higher education. Furthermore, we are interested in the impact of changing institutional rules on academic activity, and possible remedies to the current problems of the system. Major Trends Enrollment Increase The recent explosion in higher education enrollment in CEE may well resemble to similar increases in Western Europe and the USA in the postwar period. According to data from the Hungarian Ministry of Education, higher education enrollment more than quadrupled between 1989 and 2005 (Ministry of Education, 2006b). Similarly dramatic increases were recorded in the rest of the post-communist countries. The industrialized nations experienced significant enrollment growth in earlier periods. Windolf (1992) examines the growth rates of US, Germany, Japan, France, and Italy between 1870 and 1985. The US experienced an explosion in enrollment rates right after the war due to the GI Bill program (A program that supported enrollment of returning military into higher education. It was adopted by the US Congress in 1944). In five years enrollment rates more than tripled. In contrast, in Germany it took almost 20 years to reach a similar increase in enrollment (from the late 1950s to the late 1970s). In the UK (Mayhew at al. 2004) the most rapid increase occurred between 1988-89 and 1992-93. In four years enrollment rates almost doubled (from 17% to 30%). It was also rapid between 1960-61 and 1972-73-from 5% to a peak of nearly 14%. This later increase is comparable to the postwar US increase (GI Bill), yet it took more than twice as long as in the US (12 years as opposed to five years). Windolf (1992) reviewed three major theories explaining educational expansion: human capital, competition over social status, and political theory. According to human capital theory, university enrollment expands at times of economic growth and contracts at times of economic recession.
Transformation of Hungarian Higher Education
2010
out the system—not simply reserved for an educational elite. Distance learning provides the most exciting challenge to the status quo, especially as it becomes clear that many remote parts of the world will have Internet access long before they enjoy decent roads. The Task Force on Higher Education and Society brought together 14 educational experts from 13 countries with the intention to start an ongoing debate, not to answer all the questions. We firmly believe that rapid progress can be made, but only with political will, new resources, and people prepared to contemplate and develop imaginative solutions. At the report’s launch, Wolfensohn asked why we needed such a document when what is being said is absolutely straightforward. “We need it,” he said, “because we’ve forgotten it, because we don’t give higher education the weighting that is required.” We wholeheartedly agree.
Hungarian Higher Education 2014
2015
The destiny of Hungarian higher education is an intriguing topic for all because – as many of us would agree – the future of Hungary depends on the present of education. At the beginning of each year when higher education applications are submitted, tens of thousands of families are in agony because they have to make a crucial decision. By then, the central budget has already earmarked the state funds to be spent on higher education in the given year. Higher education institutions are busy recruiting their students: they are organizing open days, placing in advertisements, competing at the Educatio Fair, and politicians also speak up more often on the topic at this time of the year. The whole of society is concerned with the basic issues of higher education. Is it worth attending higher education institutions in Hungary? Do graduates have any kind of future ahead of them? In which direction is the standard of Hungarian higher education heading? Who pays the costs of education and wh...
The paper has been developed upon the invitation of the editors of the coming Springer International Encyclopedia of Higher Education. It serves as a background for a final (short) chapter about the HE in the country.
The Bologna Process as a Trojan Horse: Restructuring Higher Education in Hungary
European Education, 2008
The author describes the influence of the Bologna Process to the higher education (system and policies) in Hungary. The first results of the cooperation of higher education institutions under EU umbrella, expected as well as unexpected changes in the organizations and cultures of the institutions are examined. The paper is based on empirical researches and findings. Various interpretations of the 'Bologna Process' by different actors of the higher education policy arena in Hungary, their (the actors') various interests and drives are also questioned and described. Debates among policy makers and higher education practicionaires, reflected in the media are presented. Besides, interviews of the leading figures of the Hungarian higher education on the one hand and the labour market on the other create the basis of the research results. These results show the followings. There are significant differences among the relevant higher education actors about the necessity of the Bologna process. The role of the state in higher education as well as the legitimacy of other actors in the higher education policy formation are also debated. These debates go back partly to the different interpretation fo the reform process (mentioned) and partly the different interests on higher education as public or private good. Some of the fightings are caused by a top-down policy shaping system which lacks the necessary social consensus making mechanisms and techniques. To sum up: the Bologna process is a cover name for a radical reform in Hungraian higher education as well as in the entire society. The most vulnerable goups might be the students leaving the (new) system with the new BA or BSc degrees. They seem to be at risk because of the uncertainty of the new degrees (their values for further studies on the one hand and on the labour market on the other). If students of socially disadvantaged groups may leave the system en mass (which is expected by experts and urged by policymakers), than the higher education system may not support the social equality, a social function having been developed after the political transition of 1989/90.
Impact of isntitutional changes on the Hungarian Higher Education after 1989
2007
This study used data summaries and interviews to analyze changes in the Hungarian higher education since 1989. The first part of the article relies on statistical data, and put the Hungarian higher education system into the international context. It focuses on enrollment changes, spending patterns, and the size and quality of teaching personnel. Available data suggested a * Manuscript Click here to download Manuscript: HungHigher.rtf
Hungarian Higher Education 2016. Strategic progress report
2017
The next edition of our strategic progress reports evaluates the priority areas of the Hungarian higher education in relation to the developments of the years of 2015 and 2016. Following the pattern of the previous reports, the authors of the individual chapters will outline past trends and potential future consequences in the context of the current events. While in our last analysis we put certain areas into an international context by presenting several detailed international comparisons , this time we will primarily focus on the current situation in Hungary. Our study is constituted by the material previously sent to the participants of the “Hungarian Higher Education” conference held on 26 January 2017, completed by the presentations of the speakers followed by a discussion. At the beginning of our report – in accordance with our established routine –, we provide an overview of the most important claims stated in the individual chapters. However, the picture will only be complet...
Higher education reforms in Eastern Europe. A Hungarian-Romanian case study
2012
The paper analyzes, comparatively, the Hungarian and Romanian higher education systems, based on four dimensions: history, structure and financing, internationalization, quality assurance. The perspective of the analysis is the integration of European ways to reform the university, pursued by the Bologna process, and the replacement of traditional, nation (or groups of nations) - specific models, with a unified, common market-driven
education as well as specific higher education systems; 0 it organizes meetings, seminars, and symposia and initiates or collaborates in joint studies on contemporary problems of higher education; 0 it co-operates with other organizations and institutions, both national and international, governmental and nongovernmental, in the undertaking of its various activities and the accomplishment of its goals. Authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of U N E S C O and do not commit the Organization.
Three well- known higher education institues and their researchers have been working together in cross-border cooperation for several years: University of Debrecen, University of Oradea and Patrium Christian University. These were the aims of the investigators during the researchers: 1. Introducing and assessment of transformation of higher education in a way of Bologna process. 2. Measuring of regional level changes occured in the supply of higher education in a point of social cohesion and progress. 3. On the higher education to swept changes and challanges, these follow from the local and regional comparison and analysis of disposal. Worthy of note that the book was written under HERD research that had been carried out in Partium: in Hungary, in Romania and the Ukraine. The "third mission" means the European system of higher education is able to involve challanges at universities where researches undertake charges; this is called by this tchnical term.