The 2012 Hungarian National Core Curriculum (NCC) already contained some aspects of the global perspective; the key development tasks included Education for Environmental Awareness and Education for Active Citizenship and Democracy, the core competences students had to acquire by the end of their studies included Social and Civic Competences and Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship (Government of Hungary, 2012). It is also important to note that intercultural skills constituted a part of the core competence Communication in Foreign Languages (Government of Hungary, 2012). Even though the CONCORD report stated that experts were working on incorporating the global perspective into the new National Core Curriculum, the results of this endeavour are barely visible. The 2020 NCC does not contain any key development tasks which should be incorporated into all subjects, the number of core competencies was reduced from nine to seven, and it does not include Social and Civic Competences anymore. In the whole document, the word democratic only appears 16 times and only in connection with History. Conversely to previous NCCs, the 2020 NCC puts more emphasis on notions such as national identity and national defence, and such notions as critical thinking, democratic participation, active citizenship, and individual responsibility appear less markedly (Bálint et al., 2020). The word global appears 45 times, but mostly in relation to science subjects (e.g., Physics, Geography) or as a counterpoint to local patriotism and local identities in the case of History. Looking at the language learning sections of the National Core Curriculum, it becomes quite apparent that the intercultural aspect appears less markedly in the 2020 NCC than in the 2012 version: even though the intercultural dimension is present, the goals suggest that through the language, the students are expected to learn more about their own culture than other cultures. The global perspective does not seem to be incorporated into the topics teachers should address in EFL classes either: even though the students are expected to deal with a number of broader topics, e.g., “current topics”, “the environment” or “intercultural and cultural topics”, the suggested sub-topics seem to be quite superficial and fail to examine issues from different perspectives (e.g., in connection with the environment, the students should deal with the topic of climate change and natural disasters, but are not expected to familiarise themselves with the topic of sustainability).

Although based on the key development tasks which appeared in earlier national core curricula, the school should be the place where students become active democratic citizens, the Hungarian school culture seems to be dominated by the misconception that politics should be banned from schools (Hunyadi & Wessenauer, 2016). This view became prevalent after the change of regime in 1989, following decades of political indoctrination in all spheres of society. Nowadays, people associate politics with party politics with all its negative overtones, so other aspects of politics got banned from schools as well and many teachers feel that they are in no position to discuss public affairs and any controversial issues with their students (Bálint et al., 2020; Hunyadi & Wessenauer, 2016). As a result, students do not have the opportunity to discuss current public issues or social problems under the guidance of their teachers (Hunyadi & Wessenauer, 2016). The negative consequences of the taboo of politics are quite conspicuous: based on several studies, it seems that Hungarian students are apathetic and disillusioned with politics, which is manifested in their lack of interest and participation in public affairs (Bálint et al., 2020; Fekete, 2020; Gáti, 2010; Integrity Lab, 2016; Szabó & Kern, 2011). In 2018, only 69% of people entitled to vote cast their vote, and a quarter of the ones abstaining were under the age of 29, which clearly shows the passivity of the younger generation (Boros & Laki, 2018). The 2016 Hungarian Youth Empirical Research also corroborate the findings about students’ political apathy. Fekete (2020) examined the answers of more than 4000 youngsters aged 15–29 to map their global competences and found that they are not interested in social, public-life related or political issues and a vast majority of them are afraid of foreigners and immigrants. Apart from their disinterest, they also have grim prospects of their future, and not even does this dissatisfaction manifest in political action. The recent PISA study (OECD, 2020) on students’ global competence reinforces the fact that there is still much to achieve in the incorporation of the global dimension: Hungary scored low in examining issues of global, local, and intercultural significance, and significantly lower than the OECD average when it comes to students’ attitudes towards immigrants and agency regarding global issues (e.g., taking action for collective well-being and sustainable development). However, other studies show that they want to make their voice heard, they want to talk about current issues, and they feel that their schools should have a role in preparing them to do so. Sixty percent of the participating students in the Flash Eurobarometer survey claimed that this dimension is missing from their education (Gáti, 2010). Adopting the global perspective could be a remedy to this situation, but first, it would be imperative to examine how Hungarian EFL teachers see their role in fostering the above-mentioned competences, what attitudes they have towards treating global issues in class and what happens effectively in the classrooms.