Imre Fekete: Technology in English teaching • The Hungarian university context
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2. Theoretical and Empirical Background
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2.6. The Hungarian Context
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2.6.1. Towards ICT Integration Into Education in Hungary

2.6.1. Towards ICT Integration Into Education in Hungary

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Hungary explicitly began working on technology inclusion following the eEurope initiative in the early 2000s (EU, 2002). While comprehensive studies into technology integration in the Hungarian context were sparse in the 2000s, nevertheless ICT devices had become sporadically integrated especially in the university context (Molnár, 2011). These integrations were typically individually motivated, and it was hypothesised that more and more teachers would embark on similar journeys of turning their courses into ICT-facilitated ones when they heard that colleagues had been successfully experimenting with technology (Kárpáti, 2012; Molnár, 2011). In the 2000s, most barriers to technology inclusion were first-order (i.e., device ownership) related (Tsai & Chai, 2012), as in 2001, 78% of Hungarian households did not have computers (Kárpáti, 2012). By 2013, only some 33% of Hungarian households were without computers; however, only 8-12% of these computers could access the Internet (Kárpáti, 2012).

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In 2002, the EU put forward its eEurope initiative (EU, 2002), which detailed plans to ensure digitalisation. Among others, it was urged to integrate technology into the school systems and EU member countries were asked to assign a relevant institution that could issue European Computer Driving Licences (ECDL) to citizens who successfully passed computer driving tests including word processing, emailing and basic webpage editing skills (EU, 2002). Hungary was one of the first European countries to integrate ICT into teaching in the 1990s (Kárpáti, 2014), but this was mainly limited to equipping schools with technology. While this development targeted secondary education (Kárpáti, 2014), the first empirical studies are from the 2000s and 2010s (Kárpáti, 2014; Molnár, 2011). European common initiatives not only targeted education, but the general technologization of services, in which there was great progress in the 2000s and 2010s, for example, in the field of digital services and digital economy, such as online banking or share trade (Kárpáti, 2014).

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Teacher training and ICT competences were also key parts of the 2002 EU initiative, which was quite progressive in detailing what quality certificates trustworthy websites should have as well as how important it would be to raise awareness to the ethical considerations of the online world, especially finding and using electronic sources (EU, 2002). As regards teachers, Molnár (2011) and Kárpáti (2012) concluded that more teachers’ interests towards technology integration should be aroused through word-of-mouth recommendations to achieve larger-scale integration goals. Hungary’s Digital Educational Action Plan (MDOS, 2016, p. 85) claimed that in 2014, 86% of learners owned laptops and by 2016, “almost 100% of learners accepted by universities own[ed] digital devices (laptop, smartphone, PC)”, but their inclusive institutional use was still found to be infrequent and mostly free-time related (M. Pintér, 2019).

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The fact that, by definition, effective ICT use of learners entails more than owning digital devices (Sallai, 2012) was also put forward by Tongori’s (2012) comprehensive review on the changing theoretical framework of ICT literacy. It was argued that ICT literacy includes legal and ethical aspects of using ICT devices responsibly on top of sufficient technological knowledge (Tongori, 2012). Therefore, ICT inclusive education is favoured because for modern generations, using ICT devices has become most natural and ICT use prepares learners for modern workplaces and contributes to the economic growth of the country (Tongori, 2012). But this only suggests familiarity with the devices, while effective use of them results from training. Students are most likely to learn about effective subject-specific ICT use for learning purposes from their educators (Dringó-Horváth & Gonda, 2018; M. Pintér, 2019; Tóth-Mózer, 2014). However, the fact that only 27% of Hungarian upper-secondary schoolteachers received subject-specific ICT methodological training as part of their teacher education compared to the 48% EU average (EU, 2019) signals a slow digital transformation of Hungarian teacher education despite repeated calls for action (Dringó-Horváth & Gonda, 2018; EU, 2018; MDOS, 2016; Öveges & Csizér, 2018).

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The administration of the EU’s (2015) digital competences self-assessment grid as part of the 2019 Hungarian country report revealed that the perceived digital competences of learners is slightly higher than the EU average (EU, 2019); however, statistical significance was not tested. Based on the same self-report, teachers’ digital competences are only slightly lower than the EU average (EU, 2019), albeit the measurement tool was not school-subject specific. Moreover, the 2021 EU report on digital skills reveals that as far as basic and advanced digital skills are concerned, Hungary is still lagging behind (EU, 2021). The highest percentages belong to those who have had strong formal education (approx. 85% of them have at least basic digital skills) which surpasses the results of the individuals making up the age group between 25 and 34 with their approx. 75% rate. With the EU (2021) results echoing Czeglédi and Juhász’s (2020) findings on the digital competences of Hungarian postgraduates, the two studies suggest that the role of formal education in helping one expand their digital horizons is not marginalizable (EU, 2021).
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