Miklós Kásler, Human Resources Minister, said the 2020-21 academic year will be "a year of schools, gyms, swimming pools and major renovation projects".
Speaking at the central ceremony opening the school year, held this time in Kecskemét, in southeastern Hungary, on Sunday, Kásler said that school development projects worth a combined HUF 100 billion (EUR 280m) were under way, financed from European Union funds and with a HUF 10 billion contribution by the Hungarian government.
According to MTI, Kásler said that families were “a national asset”, and added that 106,000 poor schoolchildren were given free equipment this year, purchased from a government allocation of HUF 765 million. He added that the government had spent HUF 4.6 billion on revamp projects during the summer in preparation for the school year and to help prevention efforts against the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier in the day, Kásler told public Kossuth Rádió that schools would open in the traditional way but warned that coronavirus-related restrictions must be taken “very seriously”. He said that children must keep a distance from one another, wear face masks and frequently wash their hands.
Kásler said that classes could be sent home and shift to digital education should one or more children be infected, and added that in the unlikely case that “the infection appears in all classes” the school would be closed.