The leftist opposition alliance promises free tuition to undergraduates

Budapest, March 25 (MTI) – The five-party opposition Unity alliance has promised free tuition to undergraduates from September.

Istvan Hiller of the Socialists and Gergely Karacsony of E14-PM told a joint press conference on Monday that the measure would help to persuade young people not to leave the country while making higher education accessible to poor students.

Unity will return the nearly 60 billion forints (EUR 192m) to higher education which has been withdrawn from the sector by the Orban government, Hiller said.

He also promised to launch a new programme from September 2015, 85 percent financed from European Union resources, enabling every student to spend 3-5 months abroad learning a foreign language. Costing an annual 7 billion forints to the Hungarian state, the programme would set the “reasonable expectation” that every student should have passed an intermediate language exam by the time they graduate, he added.

Karacsony said the past four years had been a “tragic” time for higher education. Prime Minister Viktor Orban introduced “the highest tuition fee in Europe,” which partly explains why the number of applicants to universities and colleges has dropped by a third during the period, he added.

The ruling Fidesz party said Hiller was making “desperate and false promises” to youngsters. But if the past Socialist government is anything to go by, graduates would hardly get their degree free-of-charge, it said in a statement. When Hiller was minister of education in the Gyurcsany government in 2006, one of his first measures was to introduce tuition fees, the party noted.

The manifesto of Ferenc Gyurcsany’s Democratic Coalition clearly includes the introduction of tuition fees and Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy’s 2010 election programme also included tuition fees payable by the majority of students.

Currently 59,000 students in higher education get full state financing and disadvantaged students can benefit from the largest scholarship scheme ever introduced in Hungary, Fidesz said. Students loans are cheaper than ever and a special programme has been launched to help people pass a language exam, which is a condition for passing their degree, its statement added.

Photo: www.univpecs.pte.hu

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters