Educational Planning in Hungary

WHATEVER MAY BE THOUGHT about the results obtained from Marxist-inspired planning in the economic sphere there can be little doubt that educational planning in Hungary has proved singularly successful. Despite the difficulties facing a relatively poor and under-developed country, to say nothing of its trials and tribulations during the glacial period (1945-55) which followed the 'Liberation', the achievements of the People's Republic in the last decade must be reckoned quite outstanding. The establishment of a common 8-year school for all children, the widespread provision of pre-school training, the provision of full-time secondary education for at least 45 per cent of the pupils up to the age of 18, and the rapid expansion of all forms of higher education are only some of the more striking features of the cultural revolution that is taking place. Magyars refer to it jocularly as 'the learning disease'. Outsiders may prefer to diagnose it as the healthy symptom of a planned society. Indeed, the fact that this great little country has contrived to accomplish so much with its scant resources and in such a short space of time makes the over-sophisticated doubts and questionings of educationists who fight shy of the concept of total planning look a trifle ridiculous. At the risk of over-simplification, some attempt to outline the Hungarian educational system and the power structure behind it has been made in the accompanying diagrams. As regards the political framework, the arrangement of central and local authorities looks representative enough, at any rate on the face of things. It is certainly well integrated, like a nervous system reaching down to the grassroots and up to the highest levels of decisionmaking. But how sensitive is it to the reactions of the people themselves ? Who pulls the strings ? At first blush it is tempting to say that the power structure is pyramidal and that a Party oligarchy provides the brain behind this elaborate nervous system. In the early days after 1945 this was only too obviously the case. Before 1956, policy-framing was almost entirely a one-way process, with power flowing from the leaders of the Party to the public, and the elective assemblies merely figuring as a facade. Since then, however, there has been a steadily growing feedback both from public opinion and from local government bodies which are by no means packed with 'yes-men'. But although the Communist Party does not enjoy absolute leadership under the new Constitution it would be foolish to underestimate the extent to which it has concentrated vital political power in its own hands. Party and Government are closely identified, and while it is true that there are a number of notable exceptions to the rule, most high-ranking

Economic growth · Economics · Epistemology · Nothing · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Ridiculous · Sociology · Higher Education Learning Practices · Law

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