Requirements concerning the management staff of schools, as well as their tasks, profession related expectations and responsibilities, are regulated by Acts. School heads have both professional and management roles. They are supported by deputy school head(s), committees and professionals, the number of whom is dependent on the size of the school. In addition to the managerial roles fulfilled for payment as stated by the law, all levels of Hungarian public education and higher education includes management tasks that are performed from permanent or provisional managerial positions, which considerably contributes to the effective and successful work at the institutions.
In Hungarian education system, the head of the institution is employed by the maintainer of the institution. In addition to the state and municipalities, due to the freedom of founding an institution, educational institutions may be founded and maintained by churches and foundations in both public education and higher education. Management staff working in public and municipal sector are public sector employees, whose legal status is regulated by the law.
Other education staff working in public and municipal institutions (who are defined in public education as staff directly involved in teaching and education) are usually also public sector employees, employed by the head of the institute. The above responsibilities and their possible establishment are regulated by the law at all educational level, however, the decision on the specific method of filling the positions is mainly made by the head of the institute, with the approval of the institute maintainer. Public education
Since 2011 several new legal regulations have been adopted, the main feature of the regulation is to limit the earlier extensive decentralisation and to emphasise the responsibility of central government.
The Public Education Act adopted in 2011 (Act CXC of 2011 on National Public education) had a significant impact on the management of general public educational institutions. The greatest change in this was the change in the structure of institution maintainers (74-76/B §). Institutions maintained by the Municipal sector only remained in the case of kindergartens. Other types of public educational institutions are now typically owned and maintained by the state.
The structure of institution maintenance by the state has undergone several important changes in the recent years. In 2015 public educational institutions performing also VET tasks were taken over into the maintenance of the Minister responsible for VET and adult training, as well as VET centres were established as institution maintainers.
State-maintained pedagogical professional service institutions (with the exception of pedagogical institutions operated by higher educational institutions) were closed on 31 March 2015. Their public tasks and services are now carried out by the Educational Authority and its regional Pedagogical Educational Centres. These Centres replaced the Authority’s former Pedagogical Institutions operated in every county.
Regarding other public education institutions, on 1 January 2017 from the previous state maintainer 60 school district centres were formed, which are independent legal entities with own budget.
The public educational tasks performed by the church, the private sector and local ethnic minority governments are regulated by public educational contract.
In the church and private sectors, in the fields of appointment and dismissal, the state mainly strengthens its participation by means of enforcing consent type rights, whereas the employer rights are exercised by the maintainer.
As for the heads of higher education institutions, the responsibilities of the state had been more prominent. The new regulation effective as of 1 January 2012 (Act CCIV of 2011 on Higher Education) resulted changes that mainly affect strategy and budget within institution management, where the rights of government became stronger (13/A-13/D §).