Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén said on Monday that maintaining schools and Hungarian-language education is key to preserving Hungarian communities across the borders.
At the inauguration of 38 school buses for transporting Hungarian children to school in Transylvania operated by the Rákóczi Foundation, the Deputy PM said currently 252,000 children were enrolled in Hungarian-language education in the Carpathian Basin, in 1,700 kindergartens, 1,243 elementary schools, 259 secondary schools and 20 colleges of tertiary education, he said. The Hungarian government also supports many children in Hungarian education with a 100,000 forint (EUR 260) annual grant, he added. Gergely Gulyás, the head of the prime minister’s office, said that schools were the “best tool to preserve the identity, communities and culture of Hungarians across the borders”. The government has taken on the responsibility of caring for the lives of Hungarians across the borders, as enshrined in the Fundamental Law, he said. The government supported the purchase of the buses with a 500 million forint grant, and the Rákóczi Foundation provided 150 million, he said.