This is how Hungary wants to modernize its universities

Modernising Hungary’s higher education sector and turning universities into innovation hubs is key to securing the country’s competitiveness, the deputy state secretary for education said in an interview in daily Magyar Nemzet’s Wednesday edition.

“Globally, we rank highly in almost every field of training,” Balázs Hankó of the Innovation and Technology Ministry told the paper, evaluating the results of the structural transformation and international rankings of Hungarian universities ahead of the Feb. 15 deadline for applying to university.

Today eleven Hungarian universities rank among the top 5 percent of the world’s 28,000 universities, “with two-thirds of our university students” studying in one of them,

he said.

Increasing the number of university graduates is vital to the country’s economic development, Hankó said, noting that this year 350 bachelor and 400 master’s courses have been announced in 48 cities.

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On the subject of the change to the model for how universities are run, Hankó noted that

21 Hungarian universities have gradually shifted from being state-run to being operated by an asset management foundation.

“The aim has been to provide universities a structure that allows them greater flexibility and autonomy so they can be competitive both at home and abroad,” Hankó said.

“This is why we have provided them with the appropriate legal framework, institutional profiles and significant resources,” he said, noting a 2.5-fold increase in central funding.

Hankó said the Hungarian government this year has earmarked 1.9 percent of GDP for spending on higher education, which, he said, “only a few [countries] in Europe can proudly say”. Also, the government is