Govt mulls reversal in teacher training

The government's educational secretariat is planning to radically change Hungary's teacher training system, the daily Magyar Nemzet reported on Wednesday.

The paper referred to a document from the secretariat, and said that the goal is to return to the earlier practice of training primary school and secondary school teachers separately, as well as to give a greater emphasis to the training of teachers of major subjects such as Hungarian literature or mathematics.

The teacher training model of the Bologna education system - where students receive basic training for three years and then attend a master course for two years - attracts fewer and fewer youth each year, which the secretariat proposes to resolve through re-introducing an undivided form of training, where teacher training starts right in the first year of higher education. 

Another proposed change is that students could only become teachers of "less important" subjects such as art or environment if they have had two basic majors already.

If the government approves the secretariat's plan, primary school teachers will be trained in a 4+1 year and secondary school teachers in a 5+1 year structure.