Hungarian government officials greeted teachers and students at Hungarian schools across the borders at the start of the academic year on Saturday and pledged continued support for mother-tongue education from kindergarten to university.
State Secretary Árpád János Potápi attended a year-opening event of Hungarian schools in Slovakia in Držkovce (Deresk), in southern Slovakia. Although the coming months may be fraught with difficulties, Hungary’s government is committed to continuing its programs supporting mother-tongue education across the borders, as it has done for 12 years, he said. The subsidies have made quality mother-tongue education available for some 300,000 Hungarian children in the Carpathian Basin, he said. The government has contributed to the building and reconstruction of some 1,000 kindergartens, and regularly supports 50 institutes of secondary education and dormitories, as well as 8 higher-education institutes, he said. This year, 3,675 children start learning in Hungarian-language schools in Slovakia, “which is cause for optimism,” he said. Péter Szilágyi, a deputy state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, attended an event in Mali Hejivci (Kisgejőc) in western Ukraine. He said the Hungarian government aided teachers’ efforts to bring stability into children’s lives in the region.
Photo credit: MTI