The survey showed that Hungarian students fell short of the OECD average in reading comprehension, mathematics and natural sciences. Rózsa Hoffmann, the state secretary for education, said earlier that the students involved in the survey had started school in 2003 so their poorer results are the consequences of their early period of study, she said.

Ágnes Kunhalmi, the Socialist party’s education spokeswoman, said in a statement that Hoffmann’s attribution was “an extremely weak argument” since continuous tests since 2003 and before the change in government had shown a general tendency towards improvement compared with the OECD average.

She said the deterioration was due to the government’s emphasis on lexical knowledge at the expense of a competence-oriented education. PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. The programme was launched back in 2000.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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