ECo-C Hungary: A guessing game of sorts?

Recent reports from the ECo-C Representation in Hungary indicate that good progress is being made in that country. In recent months, we have published news covering the training of trainers from that country, watching their progress from candidates to fully-fledged trainers. Another step has now been taken, since the country representative also indicates that the ECo-C Lernzielkatalog has now been published in Hungarian.

As signs of readiness goes, this is significant, since this booklet is a harmonized reference manual, a terminological dictionary and a guide which indicates the learning objectives of each ECo-C element. As such it has many uses: applicants receive an idea of what the certificate will teach, students use it to determine what they need to understand, whereas trainers remember what they must impart… and, of course, employers figure out the communication skills of the person they hired! The only conclusion one can come to is that ECo-C Hungary is pretty at the countdown level, with an imminent “blastoff”.

This is further validated by reports that the ECo-C country representatives have found the first training institute to take up the certificate in West Hungary. One can imagine that no announcement will be made before the last details (including the format of the course, the verification of the facilities, the official certification of the institute, etc) has taken place, but this has never stopped anyone speculating.

So… where could this institute be located? If we seriously attempt a guess, our first idea would be: a city; because larger cities tend to be forerunners in taking up innovative ideas. But that is no answer: there are many larger cities in West Hungary. Arguably, Budapest itself is located in the middle of the country.

Thus, instead of wasting energy in guessing that which will no doubt be revealed soon, we could try to understand the particular context of Hungarian employees, which explains why the ECo-C is growing so rapidly there.

Although the financial crisis officially started in 2008, Hungary’s economy has made headlines since 2006, with far-reaching austerity measures designated to improve productivity, among other things. In 2010, an OECD report suggested that while the Hungarian economy is growing, a lot remains to be done, particularly in terms of education. The report specifically notes that there is an issue with study levels, with too few university graduates, and many people coming out of technical education poorly prepared for employment. If this is true, the situation of the Hungarian youth is really not much different from the situation of Austrian apprentices, which really would explain the benefit of the ECo-C.