Pál Csáky, Member to the European Parliament for SMK/MKP protested against the discriminatory steps against Hungarian-language-schools in a letter addressed to the Slovak Minister of Education, Juraj Draxler, calling on the minister to respect the request of parents and professionals.
The member of European Parliament worded his letter related to some of the measures introduced in September, which were requested to be reconsidered earlier by many ethnic Hungarian teachers and parents in a form of a petition containing more than 26 thousand signatures, without much success. The petition was supported by many ethnic Hungarian civil organizations from Slovakia, also the SMK/MKP and Most-Híd political parties, and some ethnically Slovak MPs like Pavol Hrušovský (KDH), Mikuláš Dzurinda and Magda Vášáryová, independent MPs.
One of the criticized measures is that according to the basic syllabus of the Slovak ministry of education, the number of Hungarian language classes significantly decreases in schools with Hungarian language of conduct, also the number of free-choice subjects compared to the Slovak counterpart institutions. The free-choice subject classes were usually used for improving the standard of Hungarian language education in these schools till recently.
Parents and teachers also rejected part of the measures of public education law which prescribes compulsory minimum number of students in a class, thus putting small schools on countryside in serious danger. This measure jeopardizes hundred small Hungarian-language-schools in Slovakia, which is one-third of the total of 261 Hungarian minority educational institutions.
The minister of education spoke to the delegation of ethnic Hungarian teachers about this issue two weeks ago, but he has rejected all their suggestions for change without any exception.
(MTI, 17 June 2015)
