He set a deadline of March 23 for these conditions to be met. Pukli insisted that 75% of Hungarians supported the demonstration and that 67% of ruling Fidesz party voters did. He listed 950 institutions, 70 organisations and 35,000 private individuals as backing the protest alongside an estimated 50,000-80,000 who attended the demonstration.

Another protest organiser said the teachers had 12 demands, among them setting Hungary’s education financing on the same level as the European norm, reducing burdens on both students and teachers and delaying planned changes to schoolleaving exams.

Katalin Törley, one of the demonstration’s organisers, said teachers had indicated since 2011 that the education law brought in by the current government was not working and that the staterun body responsible for running schools (Klik) had failed.

Teachers, students and parents are suffering, she insisted. Nóra L Ritók, head of education foundation Igazgyöngy, said one of the jobs of education was to iron out social disparities, whereas the current system was leading to even greater ones.

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MTI photo: Szigetváry Zsolt