Introduction to Culture and Literature 1

2018

„Bölcsész vagy? Az jó gáz! Azzal mit kezdesz, mi lesz belőled?”

“Are you an arts student? That sucks. What are you going to do, what will

become of you?”

‘too many university degrees’

percentage of degree holders (25-64 age bracket)

Europe 30%

Hungary 22%

OECD average 33%

UK 41%

US 43%

“university degrees are too expensive”

Annual cost of HE training

Hungary: USD 8500 OECD: USD 13.728

Hungary: 11.6% OECD: 11.3%

Hungary: 25% OECD 12%

For Hungarian men: profit 14,3 times larger than cost (OECD: 3,8%)For Hungarian women: return rate 'only’ 8,2 times larger (OECD: 2,5)

Unemployment rate (do we need people musing in rubble pubs?)

Hungary 11%

People with degrees 4% (or 3% GVI figure)

Peope with humanities degrees 4.1% (or 3.3% - GVI figure)

► "in the Hungarian labour market, degree holders have the best chances: their employment rate is far higher than that of other groups, their salaries are outstanding.” (results of a 2015 survey by Gazdaság- és Vállalkozáskutató Intézet (GVI))

►The wage gap between university graduates and others is much larger in Hungary than in most OECD countries or in any other EU member

Tertiary education in the budgetyear HE in the state budget

(billion HUF)In relation to GDP

2005 160 1.4% (or 7.5%)

2007 184

2008 191 0.82%

2009 185.5 1.1%

2010 180.7 0.78%

2011 189.7

2012 157.5

2013 123.5 0.56% (or 4.3%)

2014 133 0.57%

2015 143 0.5%

2016 160 0.67%

2017 190 0.63%

Budgetary cuts

University Budgetary cuts (billion HUF)

Pécs 9.5 46.8%

Corvinus 4 43.5%

ELTE 9.2 40.6%

Debrecen 9.3 38.8%

Szeged 6.8 35.4%

State subsidy in 2018was 56% of the 2009 level

Meanwhile: Poland 150% increase, Slovakia 154 %

Wages in higher education: onlyRomania and Bulgaria are behind us

► "It is the programmes that create value of some sort that have to be subsidized. In today’s world, it is sciences and engineering that create value. Humanities and culture, though very important, do not create value; instead, they give pleasure and happines to people” (Klinghammer István, 2013 június 10)

► Misapprehension: Every major/degree ‘leads’ to a clearly defined profession (‘szakma’)

► taking a different job amounts to ‘defection’ (pályaelhagyás)

► Defection is ‘bad’ – the education has been ‘pointless’

Humanities: three/five years of idling?(büfészak?)

Prejudices – it’s official ►

"Universities and colleges provide masses of young people with expensive degrees that will not help their entry into the labout market. At the moment, there is no demand for half of the degrees issued" (Széll Kálmán project)

► "Some people think that the education system has to be reorganised in such a way that taxpayers’ money is used mostly to subsidize programmes that will help people get jobs. Others, however, claim that education ought not to be adjusted to fit the needs of the economy. What do you think?" (Nemzeti Konzultáció)

"humanities degrees are expensive”; "arts graduates don’t find jobs”

Area Normative subsidy (1.000 HUF/month)

Employment rate (%)

Length of looking for employment (months)

economics 230 88 2,1

social scien 230 86 2,2

medical 587 87 1,9

humanities 230 82 2,4

IT 345 89 1,9

sciences 345 72 4,2

engineering 347 86 2,5

agricult. 375 86 3,1

Emloyment rate (KSH 2017)►Humanities: 80%

►Engineering: 87%

►Proportion of managerial jobs in these two groups: 71-71%

►In regions worst hit by ‘graduate unemployment’: 10 % - of this, ‘humanities unemployment’: 0,55%,

►Other regions: ‘graduate unemployment’: 5–3,5 % - of this, ‘humanities unemployment’ 0,4–0,22 %

“Not to know what happened before our birth is like remaining children all our lives”

(Cicero)

“For me, everything is hateful if it only

instructs without enhancing our ability to act”

(Goethe, Antique and modern)

“Thus with the year

Seasons return, but not to mee returns

Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine”

(John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book Three, lines 40-44)

Martin Heidegger: „A tudomány nem gondolkodik” („Science does not think”)

to think = to think from the perspective of the other

Erklären – Verstehen

(to explain – to understand; magyarázat –megértés)

Riskful thinking►„we have to stick to what I call riskful

thinking, a kind of intuitive thinking that we cannot afford in everyday life because it would undermine the safety and efficiency of our everyday lives. The task of riskfulthinking is to make the world a more complex place...

►We are the thinking that maintains the chance for the working of a society that is open, malleable, and aware of its own alternatives”

►(Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, 2011)

“Simplification is necessary for normal life, but it is also necessary that there remain a few areas – and there are very few of them –that work on maintaining and increasing the complexity of the world”

(Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, 2011)

“Egy normális társadalom képes felfogni, hogy a független gondolkodás önmagában elegendő érték, és elegendő gyakorlati haszon. Nem kell hozzáhazudni mindenféle mást.” (Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, 2011)

“A normal society is able to understand that independent thinking is sufficiently valuable in itself, having sufficient practical use. There is no need to complement this claim with all kinds of excuses and lies.”

The use of humanities►analytical/critical skills

►functional illiteracy

►42% believe in conspiracy theories and ‘behind-the-scenes powers’

►language skills: comprehension, communication (+manipulation)

►asylum-seekers: 'migrants' or 'refugees'

►rhetoric: a weapon

“I chose an elastic major (gumiszak), reading English and German. I knew that these two majors will be perfect inthe sense that I could become anything through them. I never considered my language majors as goals: I knew that they are only the means by which I could be someone; a transitional step. I knew that proficiency in two languages as well as the skills acquired as English-German major students would serve me well. And, as a matter of fact, these two major were fabulous in conjunction: I received that logical-rational thing, that you have to build up a system in your head – this is what I got in my German major, in linguistics, while in literature studies, as an English major student, I got a kind of openness, creative thinking and inspiring athmosphere that also proved to be extremely useful.”

►“With a degree in English, you can do anything: I know many examples. A degree in Hungarian is a different cup of tea altogether, like a degree in history. These majors were designed to train teachers and academics. If someone who is studying Hungarian or history realizes halfway through her studies that she does not really want to teach, well, honestly, I don’t really know what she can do. But with a language degree you can do anything, I am sure about this.”

“In my view, humanities degrees are the most convertible degrees of all. Especially if it’s a language major. If, as an arts student, you go through your studies in an active and cooperative spirit, you can acquire a pretty comprehensive kind of knowledge. Iit is not accidental that so many humanities people are employed in so vastly different fields, for a humanities person can be very ‘pliable’ (simulékony), she can do well in very different situations, precisely because she has become familiar with many different kinds and ways of experiencig the world – if she has done what she had to do in the university. She has, as it were, already acquired experiences, even if not in a direct way, but indirectly, and that is precisely why I think this is a viable profession. I am not saying that it is a primrose path, but if you are motivated and have your plans, if you know what you want, an arts degree may open many doors for you.”

►‘elastic’ (gumiszak), ‘pliable’ (simulékony), ‘viable’ (életképes)

►offers (soft) skills and competences: an ability to adapt to the requirements of the job market

►life-long learning

►cultural knowledge and competence, emotional intelligence, riskful thinking, analytical skills

►diverse occupations, ability to understand different cultural contexts – corresponds to 21st-century conceptions of knowledge