A speech by István Csernicskó at the academic year opening ceremony of the Rákóczi Institute
Dear Minister, Religious and Secular Dignities, Ladies and Gentlemen!
Dear Colleagues, Students!
The Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian Institute is a foundation higher education institution, which thus does not receive state or municipal support in Ukraine, but it must meet all professional, personal and material requirements of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the National Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education.
That’s okay, and the institute meets those requirements. This is confirmed by the fact that 5 courses in higher vocational education and 12 courses in basic education (undergraduate) all have Ukrainian state accreditation, 5 out of 7 master’s programs are also accredited, and the accreditation of 2 courses is due in the upcoming academic year.
A total of 939 students started this academic year in the undergraduate and master’s programs of our institution. These students, without exception, successfully passed the central independent assessment, the so-called ZNO in Ukrainian language and literature, without which they would not have been able to apply for any major in higher education. Thus, our students have an official document issued by the Ukrainian state proving that they speak the state language, and the young people who have been admitted to the master’s program also have a successful intermediate English language exam, which is also an admission requirement according to the ministry regulations. If, in addition to Ukrainian and English, we add the native language of the majority of our students, i.e. Hungarian, we can see that they are all multilingual based on the secondary school completed in Hungarian, their native language.
Another 319 young people are studying at the institute’s higher vocational training centre. The outsourced trainings will also be attended by 319 people this academic year. 219 people enrolled in the trainings of the Egán Ede Vocational Training Centre. To date, 887 people have applied for Ukrainian language courses at our Adult Education Centre, and for the Hungarian as a foreign language courses there are 3,145 applicants so far.
Today’s event therefore means the grand opening of the 2020/21 academic year at Rákóczi Institute (taking into account all forms and levels of education) for a total of 5,828 students. With the addition of the teaching staff and administrative and technical staff, there are more than 6,000 of us.
Dear Colleagues! Dear First Year Students!
For the academic year ahead, I wish all of us a successful year full of experiences and success, and of course a healthy one!
September 23, 2020
István Csernicskó