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Government funding for higher education will double next year to over 400 billion forints (EUR 1.1bn) from 210 billion forints this year, László Palkovics, the minister of innovation and technology, said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, higher education institutions will have altogether 2,100 billion in development funds, with its use based on the programmes outlined by the universities, Palkovics told a cornerstone-laying event in Budapest.
Palkovics said that the government’s strategy “aiming to achieve a paradigm shift in higher education”, which the government outlined in 2014, was successful in creating an operating structure independent from the government.
The number of students applying for places in higher education has grown by an annual 11 percent this year, he said, with 65 percent applying to institutions operated independently from the government, he said.
Palkovics laid the cornerstone of a library and community building at the Budapest Business School, the third largest university in Hungary after Eötvös Loránd University and the Debrecen University. The building is being constructed with a 5.3 billion forint (EUR 14.7m) government grant.
A few weeks ago, Fidesz-KDNP members of the National Assembly voted in the law that transfers various state assets to “public interest asset management foundations,” removing the state’s oversight of hundreds of billions in public funds.
Featured photo by Tamás Sóki/MTI
