How do Hungarian universities, schools handle the pandemic?

We are currently experiencing the peak of the fourth wave of the pandemic, and since it is already December, it looks like Hungarian schools will not close or switch to online education in the foreseeable future.

According to Telex, as parents and students experience occasional Covid cases in classes and university groups, it is worth examining the many different ways how Hungarian schools handle epidemiological precautions. In this article you will find a few examples on what to do in schools and universities if you or your peers are coronavirus infected.

Who will be sent home?

There is a discrepancy in this matter since elementary schools have classes where children can be administered the vaccine while others are yet too young to take it. 

In this case, children with no vaccination were usually sent home to be quarantined or to be tested while children who have had their jabs administered could remain at school if they produced a negative Covid test.

Under recent regulations, contact persons of any kind – vaccinated or not – must stay at home and be quarantined, says Népszava.

What if the teacher or educator is infected?

In general, schools in Hungary do not close, so institutions will try to come up with a solution to mitigate the dangers of the pandemic.

Telex writes about a case when it was discovered that one of the faculty members was coronavirus positive. The dean of the school allowed parents to decide whether or not they wanted their children to stay at home. In case they did, the student’s absence was certified by the dean. 

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Eötvös Lóránd University

In general, universities can declare their own epidemiological restrictions, says Telex. Since September, one of the most popular universities of Hungary has been conducting weekly surveys about their students’ and teachers’ health conditions.

Roughly 30-40% of the 38,156 students and faculty members fills out the survey regularly.

Although it is not a representative survey, according to the latest numbers, about 2% of those who answered are proven to be Covid positive and a further 6% believes that their symptoms might be attributed to Covid infection. 

Pázmány Péter Catholic University

At the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, the institution has already switched to online education, but at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, they still have regular education with class attendance.

Telex reports that, according to some students, the epidemiological measures are not sufficient.

They said that in most cases, attendance is strictly monitored, and some professors would still mark students absent even if they were in quarantine. Due to that, many students still attend classes with minor cold or flu symptoms which could be also attributed to coronavirus infection.

The dean of the humanities faculty refuted these claims, saying that the number of known infections is very low.

Unfortunately, it seems that the situation is handled differently at every institution. The general view of the Hungarian Government is that the educational institutions, especially elementary and high schools, should remain open as long as possible.

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Source: telex.hu, nepszava.hu