11) Learning, education, the school system

When children are 2 or 3 years old, they sometimes go to a creche, where they learn simple games
and songs. Then at the age of 3, it comes the kindergarten, where the children learn folk songs, the
basic counting and reading and they can socialize. After then it comes the primary school, which
consist of two parts, the lower and the upper part. The children are 6 years old, when they start the
primary school in Hungary, but in English-speaking countries they start it one year earlier at the age
of 5. In this school they can lear the basic counting and literacy in the lower part, and in the upper
part there are new subjects: physics, biology, chemistry, and so on and they have to prepare for
Matura, what is written at the age of 12.

The next school where they can attend to is the secondary school. It can be a grammar school, if you
want to go to university, or it can be a professional grammar school, if you want to learn an exact
profession. In Hungary and in English-speaking countries the compulsory age for education is 16
years. At the age of 16, you can get a General Certificate of Secondary Education and at the end of
the secondary school, you can get a Matura.

In english-speaking countries you can learn two more years for an „A” level or learn a profession. If
you want to go further, you can learn in university. First you can get a BA degree and the next level is
the MA degree. State and private university basic degrees are completed in 3 to 4 years, the master
degrees are completed in 2 years. If you are interested in your professional in a high level and you
want to become a researcher, you can do the doctoral school and when you finish it, you get the
Ph.D level. Doctoral degrees can take seven year. If you are interested in the business and you want
to learn, how can you lead and management people and projects, you can start the MBA
programme, completed in 2 years.

When I was a child, I went to kindergarten, primary and secondary school in Szeged, where we lived
with my parents. I like learning, it results that my certificate was always full of high marks. My
secondary school is a grammar school, and part of the pedagogical faculty of Szeged, so a lot of
student teacher taught us in every subject. Once my godfather taught us as well, it was a funny
situation.

After I have gotten the Matura, I moved to Budapest and started my higher education in the
Budapest University of Technology and Economic faculty of electrical engineering. I got my BA
degree,and started to work. Then I thougth, that I love learning and I am highly interested in
management, so I started MA course in Budapest Corvinus University faculty of management and
leadership. This is my last semester now, so I have to prepare the final exams.

In my opinion the lifelong learning is very important in these days, especially in my field, in computer
science. You have to always update your knowledge in order to stay responsive and keep up with the
new trends. So you can do some extra courses, which are outside of schools, and are often on the
internet.

There are student exchange programmes, where the students can meet foreign people, countries
and cultures, and during they learn foreign languages. I think it has only advantages. Unfortunately I
haven’t been in Erasmus or some kind of exchange programmes, but I see my friends, who have
taken part of it, that they speak foreign languages confidently and they have a lot of foreign friends
and they often go to visit them.