A change in culture was the aim of the Hungarian Public Administration Scholarship Program along with the switch in generations, as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics said when he greeted nearly one hundred young graduates of the program in the Parliament this Friday.

He noted, with the document certifying the successful completion of the internship program, they are now among those five hundred young people, who were and are involved in the renewal of public administration since the program’s beginning in 2011.

As Tibor Navracsics emphasised, with the Regeneration program initiated in 2010 by the government, in addition to the institutional and legislative renewal, the aim was to see a series of generational changes and a change in culture in the Hungarian public administration.

The latter is, however, a long process – he added. It is important for the Hungarian public administration to break with false ideas, bad traditions and imprints and to become not only a rigid authority of legislation or the centre of bureaucracy but to function as a sensitive system of institutions, of which all bodies and government officials keep in mind the most important aim is to serve the citizen.

Therefore the generational renewal of the Hungarian public administration through scholarship program became necessary that builds only on the domestic but also on international experience as well. Now the third year is finishing the program with European experiences, knowledge of foreign languages and now this can be utilized in real life situations – as he said.

The Hungarian Public Administration Scholarship Program was launched in 2010 and hundreds of young people have completed it successfully. Eligible to apply for the program are people under the age of thirty years with a higher education qualification and English, German or French language skills.

The scholarship program is a ten-month internship, out of which eight months they spent at a central administrative body (ministries, background institutions) and two months at an administrative body of an EU member country. To continue the program in the next seven-year EU budget cycle, the goal is to increase the number of the participants with 1,000.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)