Local services
The next Education Council meeting of the City of Debrecen was held on the 27th of November 2024, for the heads of Debrecen’s educational institutions. As an introduction to the meeting, Mayor László Papp gave a presentation on the development of the educational infrastructure over the past five years and the development plans for the near future.
László Papp previously discussed education in Debrecen as a city’s strategic sector. The aim of the Education Council is to periodically review the city’s affairs and to have an active dialogue and relationship between the institution maintainers and the educational organisations. Due to the rapid changes in the processes in Debrecen, it is necessary to be aware of everything that affects the city’s education.
The Mayor emphasised that “the city will continue to approach education in the next five years with the same attitude as it did in the previous ten years, as education has been a priority area for the city’s infrastructure development in the past 5-10 years, and the city and the institutions have been doing their part in this task.” He added that, as a result, they can create decent educational conditions and make education in the city more popular and attractive.
László Papp stressed that in the next five years, they would strive to provide similar resources for improvements in agreement with the maintainers.
Speaking about the developments of the past period, the Mayor said that the development of educational infrastructure was a priority in both the 2014-2019 and 2019-2024 periods. In the 2014-2020 European Union budget cycle, the Operational Programme for Territorial and Urban Development (TOP) had 47.7 billion funding available, which will be used in full to implement 90 projects.
“Using the funds, four Debrecen crèches were completely renovated, two new crèches were built, and the municipality acquired new equipment for seven additional crèche member institutions. In addition, the churches also made significant investments, as a result of which two new crèches were consecrated. In recent years, by expanding the number of places, we have solved the problem that not everyone could participate in nursery care due to a lack of space. The construction and development of nurseries will continue in the coming period, and the Municipality already has numerous plans for this,” László Papp highlighted.
Regarding the kindergarten developments, the Mayor said that seven kindergartens in Debrecen had been renovated in a complex way, and a new kindergarten had been built in Tócóvölgy. The amount spent on renovating these institutions was HUF 12 billion, which covered 1,324 places in crèches, 2,293 places in kindergartens and 2,371 places in primary schools.
“In terms of equipment procurement, seven nursery member institutions received 82 million forints of equipment, complex renovations were carried out at three nursery member institutions, while energy modernisation was carried out at two institutions, and new construction took place in Felsőjózsa and Postakert.” László Papp listed.
“In the case of kindergartens, complex renovations worth nearly HUF 1.5 billion were carried out in 7 member institutions, 11 institutions underwent energy modernisation, and a new kindergarten was built in Tócóvölgy, where the city plans to carry out significant residential property development in the coming period, as the construction of adequate housing in terms of quantity and quality is also a strategic issue for Debrecen,” he added. The city is also trying to think ahead, as the institutional development will be carried out before the residential investment is completed.
“Although the city has no longer maintained primary and secondary schools since 2013, it has tried to provide adequate space for development in this period, too,” he highlighted. In the case of schools, five institutions have seen significant improvements, the most striking being the Zenede. However, not being part of the complex renovations, the gymnasium of the Epreskert Primary School was also a significant development, considering the life of the southern part of the city.
László Papp pointed out,” There is still plenty of work ahead of them, for which the TOP+ funds provide an opportunity, although the developments could not start yet, as the funds have not yet arrived in Hungary.” In this regard, he said that the competent ministry expects the submission of applications by the 31st of March 2025, which will be done in full, and hopes to start developing the TOP+ applications next year. In this context, he said that “in this case, too, there is the possibility of implementing multifaceted programmes so that energy modernisations will be implemented on a large scale, especially in kindergartens, and developments related to the Debrecen School District are also included in the plans, among which the renovation of the Bólyai István Primary School should be highlighted.”
The Mayor added that “the Debrecen Vocational Training Centre is a very dynamically expanding institution, which will be able to implement its strategic developments in the coming period. The renovation of the three most prominent institutions, Mechwart, Brassai, and Beregszászy, and dormitories are on the agenda. Conditional tendering procedures have already been launched for several of these developments, and it is hoped that the 2025 budget will be able to provide the necessary development funds.
Source: debrecen.hu
