10/06 Social rather than race-based integration needed in education, says gov t official

Janos Lazar, who is also mayor of the southern Hungarian town of Hodmezovasarhely, said that talent and ambition should be the focus of efforts to help poor students to become integrated rather than racial background.

    Hungary s Roma pupils, the most part poor and from fragmented families, still face discrimination in the country s schools and are often segregated, in spite of the programmes of successive governments to reverse the situation.

    He said child protection measures, job creation and social inclusion programmes should be the main integrative tools employed. Parental support also contributes to the success of poor students, he added.

    Lazar criticised the Socialist government s integration programmes over the past eight years and said that "swift changes" were needed in education policy.     These will include restoring respect at schools, for example by re-introducing the disciplinary measure of making students repeat a year, which was scrapped by the Socialists for younger pupils.

    Lazar said too many graduates are jobless while the most talented leave the country. This is something which must be also changed, he said.

    He called for reform in the system of vocational training, saying that the state should only support vocations for which there is labour-market demand.

    "There is a lot of wasted funds trickling out of the vocational training system," he said.

    Earlier in the day, the new education state secretary Rozsa Hoffmann addressed the conference and announced that the secondary school-leaving exam system and the national curriculum would be reformed.

    Zoltan Pokorni, the head of parliament s education committee (Fidesz), said that the Bologna process in higher education would be reviewed under the new government.