Trade unions grouping together Hungarian teachers have announced that they will start strikes or protests next month against Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s new national curriculum for primary and high school students. The teachers say, they refuse to learn out the material which they consider too nationalist and conservative.
Liberal and socialist teachers and students gathered for a flashmob protest in Budapest against a new school curriculum which they criticize for promoting nationalism and curbing academic freedoms.
In the education field, Orban has tightened control of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and forced the Central European University, founded by George Soros, to leave the country.
Prime Minister Orban’s government now has its eyes on primary schools. Then new curriculum has significant changes in the subjects of history and Hungarian, aimed to strengthen the country’s national identity.
“There was a need for change in the identity forming subjects history and literature. This was not a matter of professional debate, and the changes that were made will be beneficial for the whole of the Hungarian education”, stated the minister for Prime Minister’s Office, Gergery Gulyas.
The PDSZ union has said it will begin strike or protest action in early March, and that teachers will sabotage the new curriculum if it stays in its present form.