The analysis of the education strategy of the National Council of the Hungarian Ethnic Minor-ity (MNT) in Vojvodina

Abstract: Our present work is part of a longer research project on the political aspects of the Hungarian minority’s institutional system in Vojvodina, Serbia. In this paper, we consider the educa-tional concepts of the present National Council of the Hungarian Ethnic Minority (MNT II) as our starting point. The coordinative language use of minority communities is generally ac-cepted today. According to language-policy examinations, it is important to facilitate this lan-guage use by the educational system. The particular conditions and the effectiveness of its re-alization are more complex issues: they need a so-called horizontal perspective of policies. The political measures are largely dependent on, for example, the regional characteristics of the particular minority situation. Coordinative bilingualism is a stated goal to reach, concern-ing both majority and minority societies. However, it can be realized in the block and in the periphery by differing methods. This difference is a major internal cut-off point of the current challenges facing the MNT II. Regarding the competences and resources of the local munici-palities, differing tools are at disposal. In the first part of the present work, we summarize the goals of the MNT II’s educational strategy (OS) and the conclusions that can be drawn so far. After this, our paper aims at pre-senting the wider, so-called regional economic-political framework of the MNT’s education strategy and the minority political discourse connected to the elements that have been realized so far. In the second section, we focus on the limitations (structural deficiencies) of the insti-tutionally achievable education policies of the MNT, while in the third section the main issue is the relation between efficiency and the tactical and strategic debates that originate from the internal struggles of minority politics. In the fourth and last chapter, we sum up the lessons of the usual and long unrevised practice of the majority-principled decision-making in education politics.