The government provides a lot of help to families for the start of the school year, and teacher salaries will continue to rise from January, said the government spokesperson.

Eszter Vitályos explained in Kossuth radio's Sunday Newspaper program: the family support benefits due in September (gyet, gyest and family allowance) were already paid at the end of August, which affects 1.1 million families.

In Hungary, textbooks have been free for all students for years, which takes HUF 15 billion off the shoulders of Hungarian families. Kello Könyvtárellátó NKft. It has delivered 13 million textbooks to 4,100 schools for 1.2 million students, he said.

The government provides free or discounted meals for children through local governments, which primarily helps those living in larger families, those receiving regular child protection benefits, and families raising chronically ill or disabled children.

Separately, the government provided needy families with 80,000 free school supplies, he added. In addition, 500,000 laptops have been distributed to 5th and 12th grade students in recent years, and additional laptops can be expected to be delivered by the end of 2025, he said.

According to Eszter Vitályos, the family-friendly tax system also helps families: through the available tax benefits, families have had more than HUF 4,500 billion in extra income over the past 12-13 years.

He noted that the government also tries to provide assistance to Hungarian families living across the border.

The government spokesperson said that from September 1st, the state will provide students studying in public education and vocational training free of charge with the basic knowledge of traffic and the knowledge necessary to pass the practical exam to obtain a category B road driver's license. In addition, they maintain the possibility of reclaiming the successful language exam fee, which in recent years has meant more than HUF 6 billion to Hungarian families and was used by more than 187,000 young people, he said.

Speaking about the removal of mobile phones from school, he said that the purpose of the measure is to get more attention to learning, and that children should not "use gadgets" during breaks, but talk to each other. He put it this way: the distribution of free laptops indicates that "if the digital device helps learning, then its use will not only be an option, but also an obligation."

Eszter Vitályos said about the "extremely justified" salary increase for teachers, that the government maintains the multi-step salary increase that it started this year, which resulted in the average salary of teachers reaching HUF 670-680 thousand. The salary increase will continue on the first of January, an increase of around 21 percent is planned for 2025, which will increase the average salary of teachers to roughly HUF 820,000. If they follow this increase, it will even exceed HUF one million by 2027, he said.

He emphasized that the government has undertaken to adjust teachers' salaries to the average graduate salary, "which means that it will keep the average salary for teachers at a minimum of 80 percent".

He touched on the performance evaluation system, as he said, there was a general goal that those who take on more at school should earn more. In his opinion, the performance evaluation system is being developed accordingly.

Regarding the shortage of teachers, he said that it is managed by the Klebelsberg Center. "Obviously, there are places where there are vacant positions, we are trying to solve these as well, so that the school year can start everywhere without disturbance," he declared.

The government spokesperson noted that interest in the teaching career has grown over the past two years, this year teacher training became the second most popular based on applications to higher education institutions.

MTI

Cover photo: Eszter Vitályos
Source: Facebook/Eszter Vitályos