Shocking teacher shortage in Hungary: Maths is taught by arts teachers

Although the Klebelsberg Institution Maintenance Centre (KLIK) claims that only natural fluctuation exists in the Hungarian education system, according to a survey, the lack of teachers causes serious problems for the students in some places.

A country-wide problem

In fact, the survey was done by Szülői Hang, an association that can be translated into English as “Parents’ Voice”. They did so because the government did not provide any official statistics regarding the issue. Even though their survey is not representative, 5,281 parents filled out their questionnaire – 24.hu reported.

Based on their findings,

45 pc of the parents experienced teacher shortage

which means that their children did not have classes of a particular subject for at least two weeks. To make matters worse, 31 pc of them reported about 1 month while 15 pc talked about 3 months of such time intervals. The lack of qualified teachers mostly concerns vocational high schools (65 pc). Nine out of ten parents think that

the state does not appreciate the work of teachers

and it does not provide the needed financial and moral support for them. Besides, they think that the environment is not suitable for teaching.

Teacher shortage mostly concerns the teaching of Maths (11.1 pc) and English (9 pc) which is very sad taking into consideration that from 2020 on only those can go to universities who obtain at least an intermediate level language exam. In fact, Maths and English teachers are mostly missing in small settlements. Neither are there enough Physics teachers, as well.

“Hungarian is taught by the PE teacher while Music by a primary school teacher.” – said a parent from Pest County. “One of the teachers

went to work as a wheeler in the local store

because he gets there three times more than in the school.” – said somebody from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County. Others reported that PE teachers have to teach science classes in their school.

The government claims that everything is OK!

 In Budapest, schools lack even computer science teachers because they can find better workplaces for higher salaries in the capital. What’s more, general secondary schools miss technical teachers even though they focus on technical subjects. In fact, 44 pc of the parents reported an unexpected change in the teaching staff which does not correlate with Klebelsberg Institution Maintenance Centre’s claim that there is only natural fluctuation in Hungary.

“In the pre-school, my daughter had 5 kindergarten teachers during the four years.” – said somebody from Pest County.

“We started the school in September without an English teacher

and we do not know when we will have one.” – added another desperate parent from Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County.

According to what the parents say, teacher shortage goes hand in hand with fluctuation. Furthermore, in these cases, weeks or even months pass until the school can find new teachers.

There are significant problems regarding the division of the class groups to teach different subjects more effectively. 53 pc of the parents are not satisfied with this and

blamed teacher shortage.

Demand would be great in case of Maths, English and even Hungarian language. Most parents think that teaching, e.g. Maths in smaller groups would help students to learn more effectively.

Source: 24.hu