The Campus Hungary Programme designed to enhance the international competitiveness of higher education was launched on 15 January 2013 in Budapest. Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics said at the conference held on this occasion that, with the launch of this programme, Hungary has returned to the centre of Europe’s intellectual domain also on the level of day-to-day life.
A prime objective of the Campus Hungary Programme is to promote the employability of those graduating from higher education and to educate a Hungarian intelligentsia with an international outlook whose members are aware of their country’s and their own values. It is further the goal of the programme to increase the number of foreign students studying in Hungary and to intensify and to broaden relations between Hungarian and foreign institutions of higher education. The new scholarships are available to students studying at Hungarian higher education institutions who may equally seek grants for short or group study trips, professional training and specific training for a semester. The Programme is being implemented from HUF 3.62 billion EU aid.
Tibor Navracsics highlighted at the conference that a process will start in Hungary with the launch of the Campus Hungary Programme that „everyone will benefit from and whose success depends on us all”. The Minister reiterated that a process of isolation began in Hungary in the nineteen-fifties when opportunities to study in western countries disappeared overnight. With the launch of the Campus Hungary Programme, however, Hungary has returned to the centre of Europe’s intellectual domain also on the level of daily life. While students, researchers and instructors have had the possibility to obtain scholarships or to work abroad in the past twenty years in a variety of fields, the Campus Hungary Programme will now create the opportunity for a large number of people to attend regular organised trips, for staying and conducting research abroad as well as for bringing back home the knowledge and skills acquired abroad. The programme will also enable Hungarian higher education to open towards the world.
Minister for Human Resources Zoltán Balog said at the event he finds it important that not only young people coming from wealthy families should have the opportunity to study abroad. The sole purpose of the reform of higher education is the improvement of quality which also means competitiveness not only in Hungary but also by international standards. A shortage of funds and wasteful practices exist side by side in higher education today. The choice of studies available in higher education is distorted. Students may today choose from 800 different courses; the question arises, however, whether these courses conform to the needs of the market. More than one fifth of students today are only able to find employment in jobs which do not require a degree.
(Minister of Public Administration and Justice)
