140 million HUF is available for junior school programs in the Hungarian diaspora this year, focusing on talent management, career guidance, personality development and science promotion. As Zsuzsanna Répás, Deputy State Secretary for National Policy said at the press conference held in Budapest this Tuesday, with a raised level of funding, they would like to bring around multifold events during this thematic year. As she stressed that the main goal remains in strengthening Hungarian education in the diaspora and making it appealing to parents and students alike.

A methodology package will be compiled again this year for teachers, while conferences and career orientation trainings will be organized as well. One of these will focus specifically on natural sciences and the other will be about talent management. Two roadshows will be engaged in the Carpathian Basin - one will be a career orientation training focusing on 7th and 8th grade primary school students, to help them find the most appropriate way how and where to advance in studies; and as the Deputy State Secretary added, they would like to see more light being shed on foreign Hungarian vocational education.

The other roadshow will focus on economic, fiscal and business issues. They plan to organize advancement trainings with a participant number of 100 for teachers about the role of the class-master. Region-specific trainings are planned, dealing with themes considered important by local teachers.

There will also be tenders announced, one of them aims to strengthen schools’ natural science education and the other is to ensure cooperation of teachers and kindergarten nurses. She noted, that they will develop the 'Ringató' program further on, may it reach even the smallest settlements too. In order to upgrade debate culture, they plan to initiate debate societies and for more, the game called 'Miénk a város' (literally 'The City is Ours') carries on, with upper graders encouraged to plan a hiking trail around their own areas.

She also stated, a six-issue online journal starts shortly, its specific issues being about topics such as success, talent, science, adventure, role models and expectations. First issue should be ready until 21 February.

According to Zsuzsanna Répás, the thematic programs were worked out in accordance with the strategic plan of the national policy. She reminded, for the ethnic Hungarian population located outside of current-day Hungary, 2012 was the year of the Hungarian kindergartens, last year was the year of the infant schools. For each program a 100-million HUF budget was available. She stressed, that they did pin up the idea of Hungarian education abroad and inform parents about the importance of native language schooling in such a way that they could rely on local educational associations.

Botond Siklódi Burus, president of the Romanian Hungarian Educational Association said, the dedicated years of kindergartens and infant school programmes provided an opportunity to the Hungarian community to experience educational issues. He remarked, that a big advantages of the programmes are that they help professionals with a set of methods starting with the first link in the chain of education.

He expressed, that he is happy to see the thematic series of programmes going on and they hope for the participation of civil and professional institutions abroad. Furthermore he said because of the reorganization of the education system abroad, lots of Hungarian educational bodies got endangered and situation is similar in every other area in the Carpathian Basin.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)