Debrecen was the venue for Hungary’s opening of the professional school year

The representatives of public education institutions were informed about the new health education programme in Debrecen schools, the new law on teachers’ careers, and modern competence measurement, among other topics, at the National Professional Opening of the Academic Year Conference Series in Debrecen on Thursday. The event gave an overview of the main changes and tasks of the upcoming school year.

“More than 70,000 students are studying in Debrecen. And the basic principle of the city’s education strategy is that Debrecen can only be successful in line with its education system. That is why in the last decade, there have been significant developments in this area every year, and during this time, the city has spent well over 10 billion HUF on various institutional developments,” Mayor of Debrecen László Papp said at the opening of the school year.

The mayor also announced a new school health education programme at the event.

“We will launch a school programme in the first six classes of all primary schools in Debrecen as another significant sub-programme of the “Move Debrecen!” programme, in which we will start working together with 58 sports coordinators to get young people moving”, he stressed.

At the opening of the professional school year, the head of the State Secretariat for Public Education of the Ministry of the Interior gave a presentation on the renewal of the regulation of the teaching profession. Hedvig Madarász said the new career law means a uniform labour law regulation in public education and enables teachers to increase their salaries. “Among other things, the salary scales have been defined instead of a fixed salary scale so that salaries can be set flexibly and with greater consideration of performance, within these limits, as and when funds and budgets are available,” he said.

Bernadett Puszter, Deputy President of the Education Office for Public Education, pointed out that the survey has moved to the digital space, so data processing has become faster. Therefore, schools receive preliminary results after 2-3 weeks. Obviously, this is not the final result for the institution because it still needs some data cleaning, but this quick feedback can be put to good use, she stressed. She also underlined that history and digital culture will be included as new areas in the competency assessment and that there will be pilot tests in these subjects in some schools in the autumn.

Source and photo credit: debrecen.hu