Student demonstration in Budapest

Hundreds of students and teachers gathered at Budapest’s ELTE university to attend a forum entitled 'Let us decide what we want to study' organised in protest against the government's plans to eliminate several basic courses, the Hungarian news agency MTI reported.

The students read out their demands, including that the human resources ministry should drop its proposal to scrap courses and its draft amendment to the higher education law. The government should not “ban” courses turning out experts in social sciences, the European Union, or international relations, they said.

They also demanded that the government should publish the studies supporting its decisions. They insisted that scrapping courses would be equal to “going against European trends and undermining the future”.

Katalin Tausz, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, said at the forum that the university will reject any decisions that are not supported by an impact analysis or prior consultations.

At the end of the forum, the participants decided to walk over to the Technical University and join students at a similar event.