Elvesztegetett évek és egy elveszített generáció
Wasted years and a lost generation

Summary/Abstract: The study examines the relationship between governmental education policy and teachers in Hungarian public education between 2022 and 2026. It reviews the main government decisions concerning teachers, including the restructuring of the governance system, the Status Law, the new performance evaluation system, the NAT examination, and the restrictions on the use of digital devices. The study highlights the dysfunctionality of educational governance and the substitute actions that replaced a coherent educational strategy. It also reviews the responses of the educators to these decisions. In the first half of the examined period, around 30-40 percent of teachers actively campaigned for changes to the system and for the improvement of the teaching career, while in the second half the majority of education workers shifted toward passive resistance and a wait-and-see attitude. The study attempts to explore the social causes of the differing views and attitudes observed within the teaching profession, noting that significant institutional and local variations can be measured. The paper also addresses the important role of student movements during the government cycle. Although teachers’ unions increased their membership despite governmental efforts to undermine them, the level of unionization among Hungarian teachers remains very low by European standards. Professional organizations drew attention to the anomalies in the functioning of the education system, but they were unable to influence government decisions significantly.

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