This note provides an overview of Hungary’s digital education ecosystem, including the digital tools for system and institutional management and digital resources for teaching and learning that are publicly provided to schools and educational stakeholders. The note outlines how public responsibilities for the governance of digital education are divided and examines how Hungary supports the equitable and effective access to and use of digital technology and data in education. This includes through practices and policies on procurement, interoperability, data privacy and regulation, and digital competencies. Finally, the note discusses how Hungary engages in any initiatives, including with the EdTech sector, to drive innovation and research and development towards an effective digital ecosystem.
Country Digital Education Ecosystems and Governance
13. Hungary
Abstract
Key features
In Hungary, the government plays a central role in providing a vision, a strategy and digital tools and resources to the education system. Digitalisation efforts for education are well underway, with student information and learning management systems provided to a significant part of the school system, a varied offer of digital education resources, and a defined strategy for the provision of digital infrastructure to schools.
This 2021-2030 strategy is aligned with European Union-wide goals and goes beyond the provision of infrastructure and aims at leveraging digital tools to foster equity within the system by focusing on socio-economically disadvantaged students and schools, on learners with special educational needs, and by preventing school dropouts. On the latter, early warning systems are in place and partially leverage the information available through existing information systems.
The Educational Authority, a dedicated agency overseeing public education in Hungary, plays a central role in providing digital tools and resources, organizing national assessments, administers matriculation and secondary school entrance exams, as well as supporting co-ordination and co-operation between stakeholders such as school district centres and other school maintainers, schools, universities, and non-profits. Nevertheless, its efforts in disseminating education data, broader collaboration with the private sector could be explored with a view to foster educational technology (EdTech) start-ups and support further innovation.
General policy context
Division of responsibility
Governance over the school system is shared at the central government in Hungary – the Ministry of Interior is responsible for overseeing public primary and secondary education, while the Ministry of Culture and Innovation is similarly responsible for secondary and post-secondary vocational education and training (VET) (albeit with select profiles such as agriculture, security and defence managed by other relevant ministries) as well as higher and adult education. The central school maintenance institute (Klebelsberg Centre) is an agency under the Ministry of Interior that oversees the organisation, maintenance, and curriculum for state owned primary and secondary schools throughout 60 school district centres. Other maintainers exist like municipalities (only for maintaining kindergartens), national minorities, churches, public and private higher education institutions, funds, associations, non-profit and for-profit firms.1 State owned vocational education institutions are maintained by VET Centres, national offices under the Ministry of Culture and Innovation that are in charge of a number of VET educational institutions. Also, other school maintainers exist.
The central government and associated agencies such as the Educational Authority (Oktatási Hivatal) and the above-mentioned Klebelsberg Centre are responsible for provisioning digital technologies.2 While the central government provides financial resources for procurement, the former agency provides central institutional management tools and resources, the latter provides local tools to primary and secondary schools, while both produce and provide digital resources for teaching and learning.3 Indeed, the Educational Authority is Hungary’s main provider for resources and access to digital tools supporting teaching and learning notably through the National Public Education Portal.4 These materials can be complemented by resources provided by other institutions. For instance, the Klebelsberg Centre provides digital resources through the e-Kréta platform to schools providing a grading platform, while the state treasury provides a platform for administrative procedures.5 6
Regulations and guidelines regarding access and use of digital tools are provided by the central government, mandating which tools and minimum infrastructure must be present while allowing a degree of autonomy to educational institutions adopting digital tools and resources that might be available. Said rules are directly enforced in public primary and secondary institutions, while allowing some latitude for privately-run institutions to set their own digital tools and resources, and for public schools themselves to procure additional resources. On data collected on digital tools and resources, a legal framework (via legislation and government decrees) exists regarding the privacy and protection of student, teacher, and school staff data, as well as portability and access to said information.7
Digital education strategy
Digitalisation is central to the public education strategy adopted in August 2020 by Hungary for the 2021-2030 period.8 The strategy aims to develop digital competences of students and teachers as well as digital services in order to ensure public education responsive is to the challenges of the 21st century, and envisions specific interventions aimed at developing digital content and resources and the further development of a public education learning management system (LMS).
The strategy is aligned with the European Union’s target of a maximum of 15% low-achieving eight graders in computer and information literacy by 2030, which prompted a renewed focus on students with special educational needs (SEN), and students with low socio-economic status or at schools located in low socio-economic areas.9
This focus was accompanied by significant changes to digital education policies and expenditures throughout the education system. Indeed, the Ministry of Education invested significant resources on the education system’s ICT infrastructure, notably on connecting schools through broadband, wireless or mobile connections, providing devices such as laptops or tablets, or ICT tools, with particular emphasis on equipping secondary students with their own devices on a one-to-one basis.
The public digital education infrastructure
The Hungarian government provides quite a significant part of the public digital ecosystem for primary and secondary schools, including tools for the management of student information, student admission, proctoring and support platforms for assessments, a platform for system-level assessments themselves, platforms for facility and financial management, and early warning systems.
Digital resources for teaching and learning are also provided by the government via the Educational Authority, and occasionally by other stakeholders such as philanthropies. This section reviews two aspects of the public digital infrastructure in Hungary: digital tools for system and school management, and digital learning resources for teaching and learning.
Digital ecosystem for system and school management
Student information system and learning management system
In line with Hungary’s central governance and oversight of the educational system, the government provides several system management tools and resources to educational institutions, especially but not restricted to those providing primary and secondary level education.
Two tools work in tandem: the publicly owned information system of public education, maintained by the Education Authority by law, and the e-Kréta platform, which is licensed by the government from a commercial provider10. Both platforms combine to provide the functionalities of a student information system and an institution management system, with the latter used mainly for documenting the day-to-day processes at school such as grading, assigning homework, and attendance among others, using a unique educational identification number. While most of the information at the institutional level and from grade 4 to 11 standardised assessments are available through the portal maintained by the Education Authority, most of the day-to-day data entered by schools and that can be reported in real time goes into the e-Kréta platform.
An Application Programming Interface (API) is in place to push the data to the central information system managing all of public education data. This allows the aggregation of the information from both platforms, which is then displayed in analytics dashboards for teachers and that can be made available to parents, and provided to the National Public Education Portal for further uses. Albeit use and data entry to the e-Kréta platform is mandated, teachers have embraced the use of the comprehensive e-Kréta platform for some of these tasks, as well as communicating with parents, with usage ramping up during the onset and aftermath of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
The publicly owned National Public Education Portal (NKP) is the main public educational learning management system in Hungary, featuring free digital content produced or provided by the Educational Authority or other entities such as the National Audio-visual Archive or museums, which can be used without registration but there is a possibility for students and teachers to register and therefore reach protected contents or functionalities. The portal contains learning materials, tests and other interactive activities and exercises, as well as interactive dashboards. Teachers can also use the platform to assign tasks or assessments to, and communicate with, students, and create their own content for use in their classrooms. In addition, some schools, notably primary and secondary institutions managed by school district centres, can complement the content from the portal with LMS functionalities from the e-Kréta platform as needed. In addition to materials produced by the Educational Authority for free, several stakeholders such as philanthropies and publishers made resources available for free, especially during the disruption caused by the global pandemic.
Admission and guidance
Although free choice of school for all students is enshrined in Hungarian legislation, upper secondary general or VET schools are allowed to organise admission exams based on their needs and relevant regulations11. A student admission management system administered by the Education Authority manages student enrolment, processing of applications, submitted digitally by parents, and the decision process. Admission to primary and lower secondary education is based on enrolment at nearby institutions or a decision by institutions should parents or students exercise their right to enrol at other institutions.12 Additionally, as education is mandatory until age 16 in Hungary, students who opted not to go through the admission process are assigned to an upper secondary school.
Career guidance is available to students in lower secondary education through a digital platform maintained by the Education Authority under the auspices of a Human Resources Development Operational Programme (Emberi Erőforrás Fejlesztési Operatív Program – EPOP 3.2.13-17) aimed at supporting and expanding career guidance at schools with a view to foster interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) careers. This career guidance measurement and support tool (Pályaorientációs Mérő- és Támogatóeszköz – POM) consists of a self-assessment component to assess interest, and a STEM component, and provides a comparative outlook of a student given profile and related career prospects.13 In addition, a mandatory career guidance study has been conducted in the 2022/2023 school year through an examination of 8 grade students via a similar platform also set up by the Education Authority.
Exams and assessments
The National Assessment (formerly known as the National Assessment of Basic Competences) is a national standardised assessment that is sat by students enrolled in primary, secondary and VET institutions at grade 6, 8 and 10 in literacy and mathematics, and, from 2007, allows longitudinal student tracking across grades. Results from the assessment are used for system and school-level diagnostics, to inform policy, and in secondary analyses.14 The assessment is managed by the Educational Authority and has been administered in digital format since the 2021/2022 school year and extended in the 2022/2023 school year to a fully digital exam for students between grade 4 and 11 in literacy, mathematics, natural sciences, and foreign languages, with historical thinking and digital culture components foreseen to be incorporated. Results from the national assessment are associated with a student’s unique identifier and made available to teachers, schools, and parents.
In addition to standardised summative assessment, regular formative assessments are also associated to students and aggregated with other information such as attendance in the above-mentioned e-Kréta institution management system, where it remains available for consultation and visualisation through reports and dashboards. Primary education institutions can also employ the instruments and digital resources developed for teachers made available in the eDia platform developed by researchers at the University of Szeged and funded by dedicated public funds.15
Other tools and resources
In alignment with its policy vision of reducing the ratio of early leavers, Hungary has developed and uses an early warning system maintained by the Educational Authority (the reporting system for early school leaving – ESL) that leverages student data that is currently collected and aggregated to flag students at risk of dropping out. Information from classroom-based assessment performance, attendance, grade repetition and feeling of belonging for particularly vulnerable groups, refugees and asylum seekers, is combined and used to inform interventions and direct students towards support programmes.16
Primary and secondary institutions themselves can also self-assess their digital competences, as well as obtain guidance through a “digital namecard system” (DNR) in areas related to the use of digital education resources and ICT infrastructure17.
Digital ecosystem for teaching and learning
The provision of digital resources for teaching and learning is a public responsibility in Hungary and made available in open and closed access forms to teachers, learners and the broader society depending on use.
The above-mentioned National Public Education Portal (NKP) platform acts as the primary source for open education resources (OER) for primary and secondary public education.18 The portal contains a range of static and interactive digital learning resources, much of it accessible to students with special education needs. Its contents are openly accessible without a need for registration, but a private area is available upon registration. Students registering with their unique identifier have access to further functionalities for the platform, such as direct communication with teachers, virtual workspace where students and teachers can work together, and individually assigned exercises and tests. Similarly, teachers can register to the platform, communicate with students and create their own teaching or assessment materials and they also can access copyright protected content to use for educational purposes.
Tools and resources available within the NKP portal are complemented by the e-Kréta platform for all primary, lower and general upper secondary schools , which in turn offers a digital assessment system for primary, secondary, and VET students, and is expanding to provide digital collaboration spaces. Besides locally developed resources, schools can also use tools developed by, for example, Google (such as Google Classroom, data privacy issues notwithstanding) or Microsoft, such as Microsoft Teams for communication and the Office 365 suite, for which a license is provided, with servers kept within Hungary or the European Union for compliance with relevant data privacy regulations.19
Beyond dedicated materials and resources for use in the classroom, there is also a wide offer of digital educational resources. There are educational programmes that are produced by M5, a public TV channel, offering openly available resources related to the national assessment, school subjects such as mathematics, literacy, history, natural sciences, and foreign languages, and culture in general.20 Additional audio-visual educational content is openly provided by the National Audio-visual Archive (NAVA) within the remit of its recording, hosting, and cataloguing nationally produced content.21
Educational content in written form is also produced and disseminated to the general public through the Sulinet News Magazine, while a range of technical materials such as books, technical journal articles and other learning materials for higher education can be accessed at a Digital Library (Digitális Tankönvytár) maintained by the Educational Authority.22 23
In addition to its other roles, the Educational Authority acts as the main public education textbook publisher in Hungary, a de facto national taxonomy exists for primary and secondary education materials based on the groups and subjects for which materials are published. Almost all the portfolio, including supplementary materials, is accessible in digital portable formats (such as PDF).24
Indeed, the materials available at the above-mentioned National Public Education portal contains at least one smart textbook per age group or school grade – from grade 5 – for each school subject, which implies a classification. Further classifications are induced in practice by how textbooks are acquired in Hungary – earmarked resources exist for the purchase of educational resources, digital, or otherwise, but purchases go through the state-run Könyvtárellátó Nonprofit Kft. (KELLO), which classifies materials according to subject, age, grade, and religious denomination when pertinent.25
Access, use and governance of digital technologies and data in education
Ensuring access and supporting use
Equity of access
Students with special education needs, from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, and enrolled in schools located in areas with low socio-economic status are groups of policy priority for the Hungarian digital education strategy for 2021-2030.
In addition, a focus on digital education is likely to be well received by Hungarian school-level stakeholders. Data collected during the 2017/2018 school year before the COVID-19 global pandemic through the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) indicated that 36% of school principals in Hungary felt that the school’s capacity to provide quality instruction was hindered (by “quite a bit” or “a lot” in their responses to TALIS) by a shortage of digital technology for instruction. These findings are in excess of the average of 25% of principals throughout OECD countries, albeit no statistically significant difference was observed between advantaged and disadvantaged Hungarian schools, in line with TALIS findings for other survey participants.
Observed or perceived lack of resources for digital education notwithstanding, Hungarian teachers might be particularly poised to leverage said resources when available – TALIS also shows that 79% of teachers in Hungary reported that they could effectively support learning through digital technologies (by “quite a bit” or “a lot”), against 67% of teachers in average for OECD countries, albeit their regular use of digital technologies is less frequent than in other OECD countries (48% of teachers reported letting students use ICT resources for school work against the 53% OECD average), which might be due to a less available digital infrastructure.
Supporting the use of digital tools and resources
The central government, either directly or through specialised agencies, plays a rather significant role in the provision and support of digital tools and resources in Hungary, especially for primary and secondary educational institutions in alignment with its central role in the education system. Procurement for digital technologies and learning resources for institutions is performed by institutions for low-value items, but by their respective maintainers for all needs carrying a significant financial cost. For instance, the Klebelsberg Centre aggregates school district centres’ demands, which in turn were aggregated from schools by the school district centres and leads the procurement process for digital tools and resources requested by primary and secondary educational, public institutions.
Price regulation, as well as the setting of criteria or requisites for purchase of digital tools and resources vis-à-vis their effectiveness fall within the remit of a specialised agency, the Digital Governmental Agency (DKÜ) under the cabinet of the Prime Ministry in charge of unifying and harmonising IT procurement processes.26 Although the DKÜ itself does not negotiate prices, it nonetheless regulates the amount of latitude procuring institutions can have when negotiating in each process. Along with price, compatibility with existing tools and resources also plays a decisive factor in procurement decisions. Albeit a possibly long and laborious process, this semi-centralised procedure can provide a degree of harmonization and equality of access to digital resources to schools.
As above-mentioned, student information systems and learning management platforms are provided by the central government through the direct provision of a publicly owned platform maintained by the Educational Authority, and a commercially licenced platform (e-Kréta). Data entry into the platforms and its use are mandated, which assures their widespread adoption. Guidance and training regarding its use is provided through dedicated sections of the platform.
Although the latter platform also acts as a repository of digital resources for teaching and learning, schools also have a degree of autonomy when it comes to textbooks, whose purchase is funded by earmarked subsidies and guided by a state owned non-profit, which offers an approved selection of traditional or digital textbooks.27 Schools with additional discretionary funds can also adopt lists outside of the endorsed list. Professional development is available for the use of digital resources, but the responsibility of implementing it lies with Pedagogical Educational Centres of the Educational Authority.
Cultivating the digital literacy of education stakeholders
The development of digital literacy is a policy objective in Hungary, figuring on its reformed national primary and secondary education curriculum and present in teacher training and continued professional development. 28
Strengthening digital competences is among the objectives of national digitalisation initiatives and included in the framework for teacher competences. The acquisition of said competences is mandatory for initial teacher education and optional, albeit strongly incentivised, for continued professional development since the teacher competence framework is central part of the government Decree regulating teacher career progression. 29 Such strong incentives are likely to bring teachers closer to formal instruction on how to incorporate ICT to their teaching – in the latest TALIS, 51% of teacher in Hungary reported that this use was included in their formal education or training.
Students are expected to be in contact and literate in several aspects of digital competences, such as algorithms and people-system interfaces supported by a dedicated Digital Culture curriculum – which took the place of Informatics – mandatory instruction time. In addition, results from TALIS collected in 2017/2018 indicate that teachers in Hungary might be well poised to support students acquiring digital competences: 79% of teachers feel capable to support student learning using digital technology (“quite a bit” or “a lot” in TALIS instruments), more than the average of OECD TALIS participants of 67%.
Moreover, students are also stakeholders in the implementation of digital education policy through consultations to the National Student Council (Országos Diáktanács), which was established in 2017 and that was consulted by the government in key topics related to digital education, such as elements of the national core curriculum reform, Internet connectivity at schools, and student experience during the disruption and following remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Governance of data and digital technology in education
Similar to other European Union member countries, Hungary adopted the EU-wide General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which prompted changes to the Hungarian 2011 Data Protection Act amended in 2018 to incorporate provisions included with the GDPR to the national legal landscape regulating data privacy and protection. 30 Albeit no specific provisions exist for education data privacy or protection, much of its collection and management can be understood within those afforded for data collected in the public interest, or statistical purposes.
With the GDPR and Data Protection Act as backdrop, the dissemination and exercise of data rights and access to information collected for education purposes is managed by the Education Authority, which provides information on the protections afforded to student, teacher, and school staff data, as well as its access and use for research purposes. Beyond the data collected as part of the managed learning management system, digital tools provided by Microsoft or Google are available for voluntary use at schools, eventual GDPR compliance issues notwithstanding.
Supporting innovation, research, and development (R‑D) in digital education
The existing digital education platforms supported by Hungary can set the scene for the development of more tools and resources adapted to its local context and foster an environment where innovation can flourish into a richer digital education ecosystem. The provision of financial or non-financial incentives to dedicated R-D, and the incubation or support of education technology (EdTech) start-ups are some of the policy levers that can be considered when building a more diversified innovation portfolio.
As with other aspects of Hungary’s implementation of its digitalisation strategy for education, the Educational Authority plays a central role. In alignment with the goals communicated in the 2021-2030 digital strategy, the Educational Authority has specific funding for research on digital education and education data, some of which is provided by the European Union and in collaboration with local universities and non-profits.31
Despite these efforts, access to education data can be further incentivised with more thorough documentation of available datasets, especially at the student level, and innovation fostered with clear rules for development and piloting of digital education technology. This could also leverage Hungary’s emerging start-up landscape into more EdTech companies, thus improving the potential for innovation. The OECD Going Digital Toolkit illustrates this potential – 40.7% of all businesses in Hungary are start-up firms in the information industry. 32 Such an approach could also complement more directed, already existing, partnerships with the private sector for the provision and support of digital tools to schools such as the Vodafone Digital School Programme, which has a focus on equality and digital competences.
In alignment with its Public Education Strategy document for the upcoming 2021-2030 period, Hungary’s digital education policy aims to prioritise the development of online education platform, the provision of digital resources for teaching and learning and to collect and fully leverage data sources at the classroom level.
These efforts aim to build on ongoing efforts on the development and implementation of a digital competence framework for students and teachers and on increasing investments on digital infrastructure. Development of digital education resources, textbooks, and other materials are in order to match the revised curriculum and desired competences, for which an expansion of the capabilities in the e-Kréta platform are also in order, not only to better leverage the richness of education data that is collected, but to also increase system resilience in case of possible disruptions in the future.
Notes
← 1. Klebelsberg Központ, accessible at http://kk.gov.hu/
← 2. Oktatási Hivatal, accessible at https://www.oktatas.hu/projects_educationalauthority
← 3. Information System of Public Education, available at https://www.oktatas.hu/hivatali_ugyek
← 4. Nemzeti Köznevelési Portálon, accessible at https://www.nkp.hu/
← 5. https://www.e-kreta.hu/
← 6. Magyar Államkincstár, accessible at https://www.allamkincstar.gov.hu
← 7. In particular, Decree No 121 of 2013 (available at https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/2013-121-20-22) outlining the tasks of the Education Authority, and Act 89 of 2018 (available at https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/2018-89-00-00) and its Annex 1 regarding the information systems serving public education.
← 8. Digital Strategy for the European union 2021-2030, available at https://2015-2019.kormany.hu/download/d/2e/d1000/K%C3%B6znevel%C3%A9si%20strat%C3%A9gia.pdf, in Hungarian.
← 9. With the standard of achievement derived from student performance in the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS). Student performance is considered to be low achieving if their score falls below the level 2 in the ICILS scale, interpreted as possessing only a functional working knowledge of computers as tools, applying conventional software commands to perform basic research tasks, and to add simple content to information products.
← 10. Educational Authority is the operator by law of the information system of public education which has a central database of all the actors of PE like school maintainers, schools, educators, pupils, experts etc. This database is accessible through the homepage of the Educational Authority, https://www.oktatas.hu/hivatali_ugyek
← 11. Within the framework of the 2011 CXC Act on Public Education, available at Köznev. tv. - 2011. évi CXC. törvény a nemzeti köznevelésről - Hatályos Jogszabályok Gyűjteménye (jogtar.hu) (in Hungarian).
← 12. Further information on the admission process and system can be found at https://www.oktatas.hu/cimke_lista?keyword=k%C3%B6z%C3%A9pfok%C3%BA+beiskol%C3%A1z%C3%A1s, and https://kifir2.kir.hu/JellapKitolto/egyeni, respectively.
← 13. Available at https://pom.oktatas.hu
← 14. Notably, through a dedicated analysis software (FIT elemző szoftver) that is interoperable with the database.
← 15. Available at https://edia.hu/
← 16. Such as the 1997 Child Protection Act, available at https://net.jogtar.hu/jogszabaly?docid=99700031.TV (in Hungarian).
← 17. Digital Readiness Evaluator System , from the Hungarian acronym for Digitális Névjegy Rendszer, available at https://www.digitalisnevjegyrendszer.hu/page.php?pid=77#mi
← 18. Available at https://www.nkp.hu/
← 19. As Google’s compliance to General Data Privacy Regulations (GDPR), especially within schools is being scrutinised throughout the European Union, with countries such as Denmark ruling against its use in the classroom (https://www.datatilsynet.dk/afgoerelser/afgoerelser/2022/jul/datatilsynet-nedlaegger-behandlingsforbud-i-chromebook-sag-, in Danish).
← 21. From the Hungarian acronym for Nemzeti Audiovizuális Archívum, and available at https://nava.hu/ (in Hungarian).
← 22. Available at https://hirmagazin.sulinet.hu/hu
← 24. Available at www.tankonyvkatalogus.hu
← 26. From the Hungarian acronym for the Digital Governmental Agency - Digitális Kormányzati Ügynökség Zrt, https://dkuzrt.hu/.
← 27. The Könyvtárellátó Nonprofit Kft., or KELLO. More detail is available at https://www.kello.hu/rolunk (in Hungarian).
← 28. In particular, the materials created for the new Digital Culture subject can be found at https://www.tankonyvkatalogus.hu/site/kiadvanyok?SearchForm%5BschoolType%5D=&SearchForm%5BschoolYear%5D=&SearchForm%5BschoolSubject%5D=2353&SearchForm%5Bauthor%5D=&SearchForm%5BproductId%5D=&SearchForm%5Btitle%5D=&SearchForm%5Bnat%5D=&yt0=, while information for in-service teacher training can be found at https://pedakkred.oh.gov.hu/PedAkkred/Catalogue/CatalogueDetails.aspx?Id=8131
← 29. Regulated by Decree 326 of 2013, available at https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/2013-326-20-22
← 30. Act CXII of 2011 on the Right of Informational Self-Determination and on Freedom of Information, available at https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pdffile=CDL-REF(2012)021-e.
← 31. Such as projects aiming to incorporate digital education tools and resources into classroom practice (RRF-1.0.0-2021-00003, available at https://www.oktatas.hu/kozneveles/projektek/rrf100, in Hungarian).
← 32. From the OECD Going Digital Toolkit, based on the OECD Structural and Demographic Business Statistics (SDBS), and available at https://goingdigital.oecd.org/