Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

New Training Structure in Geography Education in HungaryGábor MezősiDepartment of Physical Geography and Geoinformatics – University of SzegedH-6722 Szeged, Egyetem str 2. POB 653, Hungarye-mail: mezosi@geography.huAbstractOn the base of the Anglo-Saxonian model all training systems will be adapted by 2006 inHungarian higher education, though medical, law, and artist education are excluded. Theplan for the new Geography undergraduate programme has been prepared collectively bythe national institutions of the higher education and submitted to the Hungarian AccreditationCommittee with request for foundation. The education structure is simple, as it isbased on a module system framework. We suggest dividing the education at least into threeprofessional streams. Those undergraduates who leave the system after the completion ofthe undergraduate education (“acquiring a degree”) should acquire knowledge that can beapplied in actual practice, as a part of their curriculum, as well. Those students who wouldlike to continue their studies in a narrower field on Masters level (academic stream) shouldstudy “more courses on the special subject”, and those who would like to become teachersshould learn something different. Students can leave the third differentiated stream forthe labour market having a professional qualification. According to our ideas, they can beemployed as for example geoinformation specialists, managing area development and touristor environmental geographical managers. During the training, several professional outputscan be ensured within the framework of studies. In the module of differentiated professionalknowledge students will have to obtain 65−75 credits (from 180 B level credit), however,there are possibilities to transfer credits between the different streams, thus students do nothave to decide “early”, or rather there is no deadline determined when s/he should commither/himself to a stream.Key words: teaching structure, Higher Education, Geography, Hungary, Module-basedprogrammesThe system based on two cyclesIn 1999 the member countries of the EU agreed that the systems of higher educationin Europe should converge. At that time, the objective was to ensure that theeducational-research capacity and the performance of the European Area of HigherEducation should become number one in the world by 2010 and it should also exceedthe American system. Regarding efficiency, the European system of labour force– compared for example to the American one – has apparently two weak points.Firstly, the labour force is less mobile and secondly it is difficult to compare themany different qualifications. Basically, the establishment of this converged system,called the Bologna-process, serves to remove these disadvantages from Europeanhigher education.161