Excellence and Social Relevance in Hungarian Higher Education

Abstract

Higher Education in Hungary has gone through essential transformations during the period since the change of the political system has been started. The number of students has almost doubled, while the number of teachers/researchers employed in this sphere has suffered a 15% reduction. This decrease, however, was much milder than in other institutions of the R&D sphere, therefore the part of higher education in the human resources of research and development has increased from 41,2% in 1989 to 59,8% in 1996 (see Table 1). The teaching load of the staff increased substantially. This circumstance might explain, why the number of the teachers having PhD degree grows somewhat slowly relative to the non-educational R&D institutions. In any event, the fact that 69,5% of the researchers with PhD or equivalent degrees has been working in the sphere of higher education in 1996, clearly demonstrates the importance of these institutions for the future of research, development and experimental production in Hungary.