Introduction

Last modified: 27. November 2022

The Department of Humanities and Vocational Education under a different name and institutional structure, has been a key player in the agricultural and economic sciences training range of the university since the beginning. The common determinant of the many names is the human-centered approach. Man with his inimitability, his relationships, his language, his culture, his role in the world of work and training. It is therefore justified that the content corresponding to the traditions also appears in the name of our organizational unit, since according to the perspective of the staff of the Department, the main value is the person. We are proud of our masters who, at the dawn of the system change, ahead of their time, founded the majors that are the foundation of the nationally recognized training courses. We can think here of Dr. Klára Szilágyi, Employment consultant (today: Human resources consultant MA), or of the Engineering teacher and Vocational training that saw its heyday during the time of institute director Dr. Pál Völgyesy. This is the continuously maintained and renewed repertoire with which the staff with academic degrees and decades of research and teaching experience contribute to MATE's training profile, thus responding to changing social and economic conditions.

Due to the economic changes experienced in Hungary and Europe it has never been so important for the citizens to be able to meet the requirements and the expectations of the labour market and to play an active role in the world of labour as now. In this process the employment consultants play a significant part, who support and offer help for the employees in different fields, at different levels and in different ways. The Hungarian consultant training comes from a workshop, which was created almost 30 years ago and is called ’Gödöllő School’ even by the professional public consciousness. Consultant training from 1992 and the MA programme in Human Resources from 2008 are important elements of the dynamism, which respond to the changing social and economic conditions. The professional training programme in Career Guidance, which was established in 2000 by Dr. Klára Szilágyi in the Insitute directed by Dr. Pál Völgyesy is of great importance preparing people for the educator exam.

Our colleagues play a role in the quality training of consultants both full-time and correspondence, both in Gödöllő and in the capital. Our research areas, among others, include the situation of students with special educational needs or disadvantaged backgrounds, among others, the different segments of educational science, and we focus on individual and group training development and the topic of adult education.

In our interdisciplinary, complex teaching and research activities, the development of services related to career guidance (LLG) supporting life pathways is the main focus of our work. Our goal is to build on the traditions of the "Gödöllő School" to equip our students with marketable knowledge with which they can effectively support employees in successfully adapting to socio-economic changes.

The predecessor of the university (MAE) started the pedagogical preparation of specialist teachers in 1950. In today's practice, this means our training as a university engineering teacher (MA-level) and bachelor's (BSc-level) vocational instructor in connection with agricultural training. For the present and future areas of work of both agricultural engineering teachers and agricultural trainers, the optional possibility of training within and outside the school system may be mentioned. The discipline definition of the department(s) maintained by the department is twofold: on the one hand, pedagogy and, on the other hand, the discipline attached to it, i.e. the agricultural field of training, determines our work. For this reason, our mission is also twofold. From the point of view of educational science, teacher creativity plays an important role in our objectives. In our person-centered pedagogical work, we attach a decisive role to the personality forces of the teacher and focus on creative cooperation based on mutual respect, simplified problem-solving processes, effective communication, empathy, positive engagement, openness and authenticity in the spirit of a cooperative approach to life.

It is, of course also important for us that our majors connect us to the world of agriculture. The recent innovation productivity of professionals in the agricultural sector (digitalization, precision farming, etc.) can best be described along the lines of adaptation of developments. Thus, modern agricultural teacher training responds to the market needs, and can play an important role in shaping the attitudes of those who take a leading role in agriculture and open to change.

Dr. Miklós Máté Kenderfi
​​​​​​​Head of Department, Associate Professor
​​​​​​​MATE Szent István Campus, Gödöllő, Páter Károly street/1.
​​​​​​​Kenderfi.Miklos.Mate@uni-mate.hu​​​​​​​ ​​​​​