Back to school

A pro-government commentator criticizes liberal education norms that put individual liberty first. A liberal teacher accuses the government of ignoring the needs of poor children.

Magyar Idők’s Zsolt Bayer thinks that education should not consider individual liberty as the most important value. The pro-government commentator sees modern educational methods that put individual liberty first rather than acknowledging the importance of factual knowledge, obligations and discipline, as serving the interest of global elites that need trained ‘useful idiots’. In Bayer’s view, popular alternative education methods intended to produce putatively ‘free’ individuals will only create ideal consumers.

In Heti Világgazdaság, Nóra Ritók, head of an alternative primary school at Berettyóújfalu, in eastern Hungary, accuses the government of ignoring the deep crisis of public education. She thinks that the government uses education to facilitate its own Christian and nationalist rhetoric, while in poor regions there are not enough teachers and the education level is below average. Ritók claims that the government does not consider it in the least important to help children with special need, including socially deprived kids.

Tags: education