New scholarship by the Hungarian government to encourage foreign languages

A new scholarship programme by the government, regulated by the Tempus Public Foundation, is said to support 90,000 of the country’s students when they travel to the UK, Ireland, Malta, Germany, Austria, France, and China this summer to take part in two-week language courses, reports PIE News.

Each student will be awarded €2,000, meaning the government will provide around €180m in funding. However, the total funding could exceed that figure significantly as exact numbers are still unknown, and as many as 140,000 students are eligible for the programme.

The programme is called the ‘Foreign Language Learning Scholarship Programme for Hungarian Secondary School Students in Grade 9 and 11′ initiative and is available to only those students who are already studying the subjects in high school. They are able to travel individually or in organised groups and will arrive between June 13 and August 31 of this year.

Tímea Tiboldi, the head of the Tempus Public Foundation’s Language Learning Unit, told PIE News that the initiative has been set up to help motivate students who are studying languages. 

“Once [the students] have the experience of studying the specific language in an authentic environment, it will hopefully stimulate their motivation to learn that language,” she said. 

“They will be able to make friendships which last for a life-time. We very much hope that they will socialize with their peers… [And] when they return home their language learning appetite will increase so that they will be more efficient in learning foreign languages.”

Institutions and students were advised not to have strong preferences towards specific target countries before the course offerings of the language schools are made public. This is because demand will have to be adjusted to the capacity of the language schools.