Abstract
This chapter presents the legal framework and the main structures of the Hungarian-language educational system in Romania, provides statistics about the evolution of enrollment in Hungarian-language educational programs, and assesses its performance compared to that of the Romanian-language educational system. The Hungarian-language educational system is indeed one of the most important pluralistic elements of the Romanian minority policy regime. Yet, no forms of educational autonomy exist, and it is doubtful whether the totality of educational institutions teaching (also) in Hungarian can be considered a specific subsystem within Romania’s broader educational system. The chapter also analyzes some consequences of this ambivalent institutional setting, and it evaluates the results of official graduation examinations and of PISA competence tests according to the language of education.
Parts of this chapter will be published as an article in a Mercator Regional Dossier (Attila Papp: Hungarians in Romania, forthcoming).
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Notes
- 1.
We do not discuss the teaching of Hungarian language as a facultative subject. On this, see Papp and Márton (2017).
- 2.
In Romanian: Ministerul Educației Naționale. The name of the ministry has changed a number of times over the past decades. We do deal with this issue and henceforth refer to it as the Ministry.
- 3.
In Romanian: Secretar de Stat – Învățământ în Limbile Minorităților.
- 4.
The name of this organizational unit has also changed several times. At the time of finalizing this manuscript, the official name in Romanian was: Direcţia Generală Învăţământ în Limbile Minorităţilor și Relația cu Parlamentul (relations with parliament were also under the competence of this Directorate-General).
- 5.
Direcția Minorități.
- 6.
In Romanian: Uniunea Cadrelor Didactice Maghiare din România; in Hungarian: Romániai Magyar Pedagógusszövetség.
- 7.
The Bolyai Summer Academy, in Hungarian: Bolyai Nyári Akadémia.
- 8.
In Hungarian: Erdélyi Tankönyvtanács.
- 9.
http://rmpsz.ro/hu/h/81/magiszter; http://www.communitas.ro/interaktiv/kozoktatas/ (Last accessed: 22 January 2018); Ábel Kiadó (in Cluj), www.abelkiado.ro.
- 10.
We are aware that both “subsystem” and “network” are problematic concepts, so we use them in the absence of a better term to refer to the totality of institutions that teach in Hungarian.
- 11.
It is symptomatic that no up-to-date data about the state of Hungarian-language education are available on the Web sites of either RMDSZ or RMPSZ, despite the fact that it is precisely this kind of data that would be suitable for creating—at least virtually—a Hungarian-language educational subsystem or network.
- 12.
http://rmpsz.ro/hu/h/32/oktatasi-intezmenyek (Last accessed: 8 December 2017).
- 13.
Legea nr. 1 din 5 ianuarie 2011, Legea educației naționale, Monitorul Oficial nr. 18 din 10 ianuarie 2011.
- 14.
EL, art. 46(16).
- 15.
Source: National Statistical Institute (Tempo online, SCL103B).
- 16.
More detailed figures about the number and proportion of ethnic Hungarian pupils studying in their mother tongue will be provided later, in each subsection dedicated to the specific levels of the educational system. Here, we only summarized the big picture.
- 17.
See also: www.iksolakveszelyben.ro.
- 18.
See the next section for the precise meaning of the term.
- 19.
EL, art. 10(3).
- 20.
EL, art. 45(1) and (7).
- 21.
EL, art. 45(17).
- 22.
EL, art. 19.
- 23.
EL, art. 45(5) and (6).
- 24.
In settlements with Romanian-majority local councils, this may depend on political bargaining, but nor can it be taken for granted under Hungarian-majority local governments.
- 25.
Interestingly, the legal provisions concerning these target groups are listed together with the regulations concerning national minorities (the same art. 47 of the EL).
- 26.
EL, art. 45(8), (9) and (11).
- 27.
EL art. 46.
- 28.
The alternative textbook for the 3rd grade is lagged by administrative problems related to the public procurement procedure.
- 29.
EL, art. 63.
- 30.
In the school year 2014/2015, some Hungarian-language simultaneous classes in primary education were operating with four or even three children; however, such examples should be considered sporadic. There were also some examples of simultaneous lower-secondary classes operating with fewer (6–8) pupils.
- 31.
See art. 3(2) of the Annex in Order 5472/2017 or 5777/2016 of the Ministry of Education. Although not clear from the text that it applies or not to minority education as well, school inspectorates tend not to make any exception regarding the issue.
- 32.
EL, art. 23, 27 and 28.
- 33.
Material orientativ pentru stimularea dezvoltării copilului de la naştere la 3 ani. Available at: http://oldsite.edu.ro/index.php/articles/c897 (Last accessed: 22 January 2018).
- 34.
Authors’ own calculations based on reports by the Ministry of Education corrected on the basis of figures for earlier school years where data were missing.
- 35.
In Romanian: Comisia Naţională pentru Limba Maghiară. Within the Directorate for Minorities, there is such a committee in charge of the subject matter of the language and literature of each minority.
- 36.
Ordinul nr. 5671/2012 al Ministerul Educației, Cercetării, Tineretului și Sportului.
- 37.
EL, art. 31(3).
- 38.
EL, art. 31(7) and 32(2).
- 39.
EL, art. 77.
- 40.
EL, art. 44
- 41.
The source for 2002 and 2011 is the census.
- 42.
Ordin nr. 3136/ 2014 privind organizarea, funcţionarea, admiterea şi calendarul admiterii în învăţământul profesional de stat cu durata de 3 ani.
- 43.
EL, art. 145(1)–(3).
- 44.
EL, art. 135(5).
- 45.
EL, art. 211(2) and art. 207(5).
- 46.
- 47.
EL, art. 363.
- 48.
Law 188/2017 created the conditions for financing this institute from the state budget. Formerly, it did not receive public funding.
- 49.
EL, art. 123(3).
- 50.
EL, art. 125(1).
- 51.
Governmental Emergency Ordinance 117/2013.
- 52.
In April 2018, the senate of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy voted for the unification of the University with the other institution of higher education of Târgu Mureș, Petru Maior University, which offers tuition only in Romanian language. The Hungarian members of the senate walked out in protest against the decision, RMDSZ also condemned it, calling upon the Hungarian stakeholders to attack the decison in court, while a number of advocacy NGOs announced public protests.
- 53.
EL, art. 99.
- 54.
This does not mean that such data do not exist; only that they are not retrievable from publicly available sources about educational statistics.
- 55.
Source: National Statistical Institute (Tempo online, SCL103L).
- 56.
In Romania, this is the case with German-language schools, which are attended mostly by ethnic Romanian pupils, the number of ethnic German children being very low.
- 57.
This may refer not only to ethnic Hungarians, but also to Hungarian-speaking Roma or to Sathmar Swabs who assimilated into the Hungarian linguistic community around the end of the nineteenth century.
- 58.
For a quick analysis of the 2015 results, with similar findings as for 2014, see Barna (2015).
- 59.
PISA: Program for International Student Assessment. https://www.oecd.org/pisa.
- 60.
Due to space considerations, we cannot discuss other competence measurements. The results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) measurements are mostly in line with the conclusions of PISA studies. On the TIMSS results of Transylvanian Hungarian pupils, see Csata (2014), for PIRLS, see Papp and Márton (2017).
- 61.
- 62.
In PISA methodology, indicators of individual student performance are called plausible values.
- 63.
The sampling methodology in the case of PIRLS and TIMSS is similar to that of PISA as concerns the number of ethnic minority students that are included. See Csata (2014) for details.
- 64.
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Papp, A.Z., Márton, J., Székely, I.G., Barna, G. (2018). Hungarian-Language Education: Legal Framework, Institutional Structure and Assessment of School Performances. In: Kiss, T., Székely, I., Toró , T., Bárdi, N., Horváth, I. (eds) Unequal Accommodation of Minority Rights. Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78893-7_6
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