Pathways to Education in Hungary with Public Care Background

Journal of Social Research & Policy, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, pp. 139-149.

Date: July 2013

ISSN: 2067-2640 (print), 2068-9861 (electronic)

Abstract: In the Hungarian child-protection system live 21 000 children and young adults. In the case of the children who were removed from their own family it is evident that the professional bodies and the communities take the parental responsibilities, which means that all the governmental and the official agencies in the institutional child-care and the workers of the foster-care network must work on making the lives of the children in state care better. In Hungary it is not known exactly how the needs of the recipient determine the types of service they can get. We do not have any information relating what principles prevail in the planning and provision of care and services, and additionally what are the effects of the structural transformation of the system starting 2013.

In this study, we present the Hungarian child protection system and briefly also the education system, then we show the opinions of the decision-makers, the child protection professionals and the social workers in the public care system who were interviewed for Young People: Pathways to Education in Europe (YIPPEE) international research project – funded from the European Union's Seventh Framework Program. We deal with the young adults' educational career and with their aspirations for the future. We investigate those factors that can possibly determine the further and higher education career of young people with public care background and we have attempted to identify possible supporting and inhibiting factors.

Keywords: Child Protection; Educational Carrier after Compulsory School; Supporting and Inhibitory Factors.