From hungary-online-owner Thu Feb 22 06:06:00 1996 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id GAA01030 for hungary-online-out31415; Thu, 22 Feb 1996 06:06:00 -0800 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id GAA01021; Thu, 22 Feb 1996 06:05:37 -0800 Received: from h8801joh@ella.hu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-online@hungary.yak.net (1019) Received: from helka.iif.hu (pp@helka.iif.hu [192.84.229.58]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id GAA01007 for ; Thu, 22 Feb 1996 06:02:20 -0800 Received: from helka (actually helka.iif.hu) by helka.iif.hu with SMTP (PP); Thu, 22 Feb 1996 15:02:49 +0100 Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 15:02:47 +0100 (MET) From: John Horvath X-Sender: jhorv@helka To: Hungary On-line Subject: (HOL) corruption in Hungary's higher education institutions Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Hi folks, Sorry I've been away from active duty. This one is quite long but may be interesting. If anyone is interested in reprinting this piece contact me at jhorv@helka.iif.hu. Bye for now, John -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Learning to Discriminate by John Horvath It has been frequently said that experience is the worst kind of teacher because it gives the test first and the lesson afterward. For the majority of foreigners working in Hungary as guest teachers, this saying has more than just a ring of truth to it. The Hungarian higher education system is rife with corruption, especially in the area of foreign language teaching. Money that has been set aside to pay for guest teachers is repeatedly and unashamedly squandered by institutions -- frequently going into the pockets of department heads, vice-principals, and principals. What makes the situation different from most corruption cases, is that it is tacitly accepted at all levels of the educational system -- right up to the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, it sends a message that if you are a foreigner who is not aware of your own rights, then you deserve to have you rights trampled on and be discriminated against. Hence, the "guest" aspect of foreign teachers working in Hungary is an irony in more ways than one. For several years now, the Ministry of Education has been running what has been termed the "guest teacher programme". A guest teacher is a teacher from a foreign country working in Hungary on a contractual basis and supported in one way or another by the Ministry of Education. Higher educational establishments have an option to hire guest teachers through the Ministry of Education for a teaching assignment based on the Ministry's programme. The main objective of the programme is to assist in the training of language teachers at universities, upper primary teacher training colleges, lower primary teacher training colleges, and kindergarten teacher training colleges. According to the Ministry, "there is a great demand for improving language teaching in colleges specializing in technology, economics and the arts." As far as the Ministry is concerned, foreign teachers should be mainly involved in the teaching of methodology, rhetoric, linguistics, language development, and special subjects such as civilization courses. In addition to this, the Ministry also considers it among the the duties of guest teachers to be involved in the organization of language development courses, control of (and assistance in) teaching practice, as well as help in materials development and the compilation of tests. In short, guest teachers can be considered as gifts to colleges and universities. The Ministry of Education even has a special budget set aside for the programme. Thus, at the beginning of each academic year (as far as the Ministry sees it, a guest teacher is employed from the beginning of September to the end of August) 1 million forints for each guest teacher employed is forwarded to the host institution. From this money, the expenses of a guest teacher is fully covered: wages for an entire year (12 months); a Christmas bonus (known as the 13th month salary); and living expenses, also known as "flat money". Though the Ministry of Education has all the rules and regulations concerning the employment of guest teachers freely available upon request, almost none of the guest teachers presently employed are aware of the existence of these rules and regulations, no less what they're about. Subsequently, host institutions have been taking advantage of this situation and have thus been milking the programme for all it's worth. There are many ways in which institutions have been short-changing foreigners teaching in Hungary. The most common has been through shortened work contracts, usually for a period of only 9-10 months instead of the full year. Not realizing that money has been provided to pay for their summer holidays, the vast majority of guest teachers have unhesitatingly signed such contracts. Most of the time teachers work without a clear contract. At Veszprem University, for example, guest teachers signed two contracts, one with the university and the other with the department, of which one frequently conflicted or contradicted the other. In addition to this, it is not uncommon for foreign teachers to find out that they end up getting less than what was actually promised. For instance, at Miskolc University, teachers were promised 1,500 forints per hour to teach post-graduate courses only to find out that in the end they were getting only 1,200 forints per hour. Throughout Hungary, guest teachers are not informed about working regulations or their rights. In some cases, teachers have been employed and not informed about their work visas, only to find out afterward that they couldn't get paid for work already done and were subsequently fired -- this despite the fact that the Ministry makes it very clear in its programme guidelines that "the work permit has to be arranged by the host institute." Likewise, it is the responsibility of colleges and universities to arrange other documents necessary for a foreign teacher's stay in Hungary, such as residence permits and the National Health Service cards -- not only for guest teachers but their families as well. Not only are foreign teachers working in Hungary not aware of their rights, but they are uninformed about how much money schools receive in support of their position. Many do not know, for instance, about the flat money. Although the money can't be paid directly to a guest teacher, a flat allowance of 40,000 forints for teachers in Budapest (30,000 for those elsewhere) is nevertheless available to pay for their housing costs. Since salaries are ridiculously low (25,000 per month, gross), this disproportionate allowance helps to make up for the low pay. Since this sum of money from the flat allowance is quite substantial -- almost half a million forints per year for each guest teacher -- abuse is, not surprisingly, widespread. Many teachers are put up in a teachers hostel, pay for their own lodgings (without little or no financial support), or are even housed at the college or university itself. In a lot of places, employees at the host institution make a business of this practice by providing accommodation to guest teachers, who in turn take this as a token of generosity. The flat money, meanwhile, disappears in the bowels of the school's administration, some of it usually winding up in the pockets of some of the administrators. Yet it's not only foreigners who are frequently fooled, but the Ministry of Education itself. In some higher education institutions, money for guest teachers are procured from the programme even when no guest teachers exist for the post. In the same way, guest teachers are hired even when there are no classes to teach. Since money from the programme is transferred in one block sum at the beginning of the academic year, the interest earned on the amount (approximately 30% p.a.) still makes it a worthwhile venture. WAYS AND MEANS -------------- There are many creative ways in which schools pursue and justify their fraudulent activities. First and foremost, there is simply no information. When information is forthcoming, it is often very confusing and unreliable. Still, for those with an inkling to what is going on, they are subsequently sent on a bureaucratic merry-go-round that grinds down their resistance to the point where they just simply give up trying. If teachers somehow do get to the point of finding out some reliable information concerning their work conditions and pay, department heads then resort to plain lying, usually preceded with the phrase that "you just don't understand the situation" or "how things works here in Hungary." Through a mesh of confusing statistics, teachers who question their superiors are quickly humbled; exaggerated amounts paid in taxes and overhead costs are frequently cited. For example, at a department meeting at the Budapest Teacher Training College, when teachers complained about low wages for the extra hours of teaching they do, the head of department pointed to the fact that for every 500 forints paid in wages the college is actually paying 1,500 forints because of taxes. Since extra hours usually do not have employment taxes attached to them (and even if it did it would be only 46.7%), this was a thinly veiled attempt at creative bookkeeping. In the words of Mark Twain: "Lies, damn lies, and statistics." While it would be tempting and easy to point the finger at a few dishonest individuals, what is shocking is this system of corruption seems to be institutionalized. Furthermore, the motivation for such behavior can't be put down to just simple greed. Rather, it seems to be a Hungarian method of dealing with shrinking budgets and downsizing. Last year, Hungarian higher education institutions were rocked to their foundations by massive government cuts, which resulted in job losses of approximately 20%. Ironically, many of those who lost their jobs were either non-conformists, young members of staff (who incidentally, provided hope in terms of new teaching ideas, methods, and enthusiasm), and foreigners. Considering that the guest teacher programme has a separate budget of its own which was not affected by the government cuts, the loss foreign teaching staff that resulted from the wave of cuts last year is incomprehensible. During the teacher cuts of last year, many foreigners were needlessly sacrificed. Unfortunately, it appears that if further government cuts will be slated for the future, it is more than likely that history will repeat itself. As a department head succinctly put it, "if the government cuts the number of teachers, it's the native speakers that will be on the front lines and who will have to go first." Native speaking language teachers lost their jobs despite the fact that the cuts in question did not affect the guest teacher programme. While everyone was in the dark and tried to forecast what kind of reductions there would be, no college or university was willing to make any commitments concerning native speakers. This, despite the fact that the Ministry had made it clear that the jobs that were to be cut were full-time staff positions (i.e. Hungarian jobs). Nevertheless, most native speakers found themselves on the chopping block. Meanwhile, Hungarian staff were busy jockeying into position and made efforts to please department heads and the administration in order to secure their jobs (better known as brown-nosing). In the end, some Hungarian positions were preserved and financed using money from the guest teacher programme. Aside from the myriad financial scandals, a lot of guest teachers are disappointed and disillusioned simply because they find that they are not being used to their full potential. Instead, they are relegated to doing menial tasks, many of which are contrary to the nature of the Ministry's objectives for the guest-teacher programme. At this point, the question naturally arises about what the Ministry of Education has been doing while the guest teacher programme is being abused and its objectives are not being met. It seems that the Ministry is fully aware of the problem but feels that there is nothing it can do. As far as the Ministry is concerned, at the beginning of each semester it determines how many guest teachers are employed and then merely transfers the money. There is no follow-up to how the money is spent nor is there any form of quality control. A reason most cited by the Ministry for its inaction is that there is actually nothing they can do. As the programme is set up, it is not their responsibility to enforce adherence to the programme guidelines. Another reason for the Ministry's laissez-faire attitude is that they are unable to do anything even if they wished to because there are no resources available to properly administer the programme. These excuses are a bit unusual when considering the amount of money that is spent on the programme. Anonymous sources have pointed out that what the Ministry is actually doing is indirectly supplying an alternative mode of funding. As the theory goes, the Ministry has never been fully supportive of the cuts it was forced to make. Thus, by turning a blind eye to such mismanagement of funds, universities and colleges are able to cushion the effects of the government's austerity measures. If this is the case, it still does not justify the activities undertaken by Hungary's higher education institutions. Moreover, it tarnishes the image of administrative bodies and sends a message to foreign governments and businesses that Hungarian (and eastern European) management is synonymous with corruption and inefficiency. Ironically, the corruption that exists in higher education seems to mirror a much larger trend. White collar crime in Hungary trebled last year, with losses to the state resulting from such crime at 11.7 billion forints (80 million US dollars), a 131% increase from the previous year. Unfortunately, the administrative practices of colleges and universities have already extended themselves beyond the Ministry's guest teacher programme. The TEMPUS initiative, launched by the European Commission under the auspices of the PHARE programme for the purpose of financing joint European projects between members of the EC and eastern Europe, has undergone similar problems when dealing with higher education institutions. With the socio-political changes implemented at the beginning of the decade, schools unexpectedly found themselves thrust into the capitalist market. In order to help them adjust to this new scenario, western assistance in the field of education has been mostly in the area of income-generation. Principals have been made to view their positions as managers of financial enterprises, thus relegating pedagogic concerns to the background. TEMPUS is an example of such western assistance in the field of education. While their initial objectives deserve merit, the way in which programs like TEMPUS are run is far from ideal. Western universities and colleges tend to benefit most from projects in terms of staff mobility and the activities planned. In addition to this, most of the grant money goes to pay for the services provided by western partners, on the one hand, and office equipment (photocopiers, computers, etc.) provided by western industry, on the other. It is without doubt that money is on the minds of college and university administrators worldwide. Thus, income-generation is an activity undertaken by the vast majority of higher education institutions around the globe. In Hungary, however, there is a slight difference. Income-generating activities are pursued for the purpose of creating a slush fund and a capital base from where to supplement executive salaries that are low in comparison to the private sector as well as a to finance holidays and "shhopping trips", all of which are regarded as fringe benefits to be enjoyed by management. Since administrators working for multinational firms earn up to five times more than their university counterparts, income-generation is seen as an attempt to redress this balance. While college and university administration use the income imbalance between the private and public sectors as an excuse to justify diverting money to their own pockets, teaching staff are left to fend for themselves with the pittance they receive as a normal salary. Subsequently, the rift between the haves and have nots is widened among those educators who are fortunate enough to participate in income-generating activities and those who are not. Western financial assistance in the field of education is used, therefore, not to improve the quality of education, i.e., through the purchase of educational materials or related activities. Instead, it is being used by most institutions as start-up capital for income-generating activities that in many instances have little to do with education. THE FINAL IGNOMINY ------------------ Mismanagement of funds, endemic to most colleges and universities, is no secret to those working in higher education institutions. Yet the teachers themselves seem to adopt an apathetic reaction to the corruption that exists. One explanation for this apathy among Hungarian teachers is because of a general psychological condition inherited from the past. Petrovic-Offner calls this a state of "learned helplessness", in where people under the previous regime were conditioned to being unable to take responsibility, not only for their own actions, but for broader issues as well. Others dismiss this prognosis and argue that people are simply afraid of change, brought about their unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions. In conjunction with this, there is a lack of initiative; it is easier to pretend not to see or hear anything. Whatever the reason, foreign teachers working in Hungary are just as apathetic toward the whole situation. For some, the knowledge that there exists no legal recourse is discouraging enough. Others have become defeatist, realizing that to change the education system is paramount to changing all of society. Still, others don't care; since many guest teachers are here for the short-term (only one or two years), they feel the effort is not worth the hassle since they will be leaving soon anyway. Thus, foreign teachers in Hungary who are slightly aware of what is going on are in a quandary about what to do. They are a fragmented group and there exists no solidarity among them since their purpose for being in Hungary are diverse. Some, such as those working with the British Council, are unable to become actively involved because of their separate contract with a sending organization. In the end, what is far too often overlooked is the end receiver of the educational process -- the students. While teachers are short-changed and others bemoan the managerial skills of administrators, students are being robbed of their education. There has been a clear decline in the quality of education despite the increase in the number of foreign professionals working in Hungary. Because of a systematic lack of information, teachers are unprepared and, in many cases, unqualified to teach certain subjects. Conversely, some of Hungary's best teachers (foreign and native alike) have become disillusioned and have left the field of education, usually for more money and peace of mind. Many foreigners have prematurely left Hungary, harboring bitter memories which have translated into a negative outlook of Hungary and Hungarians. Others, meanwhile, have simply lost faith and any hope in eastern Europe's transition toward democracy. As a teacher in Miskolc was fond of saying: "the more things change around here, the more they actually stay the same." ############# # This message to Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net # was from John Horvath # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # An announcement-only subscription (less volume) is available # at # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############