Our educational system

THE BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR SCHOOL

Our school has a fifty-year tradition in food industry training. Its basic task is to maintain professional training for the meat, fermentation and canning industry, as well as for the field of quality management. The predecessor of our school was the Number 1. Food Industry Vocational School (I. számú Élelmiszeripari Tanuló és szakképző Intézet). The Bercsényi Miklós School (Bercsényi Miklós Tanulóiskola) was founded in 1952 and functioned as a vocational school in Pesterzsébet. In 1970 it incorporated the Food Industry Technical Institute and Trade School and a new school was born in Kőbánya (Budapest) next to the brewery, the canning and the vegetable oil factories: Bercsényi Miklós Food Industry Secondary trade and Vocational School. The training profile of the school in the year of its foundation consisted of the professional training of food industry workers with specializations of meat, preserving and fermentation industry training. With the reforms of the 1980s the five-year professional training of food industry technicians could start. At this time, to widen our profile we decided to start the professional training of food analyst technicians. Since 1972 we have been serving as the base of teacher training for hundreds of future educators in the food industry profession as the training school of the Teacher Training Institute of 2000 Szent István University. At the threshold of the new century we instructed about 600 students in our 29 classes, in classes 9-12 with a World Bank professional guidance in accordance with the NAT (National Curriculum) and the Framework Curriculum. We give professional education and training for skilled workers and technicians defined by the OKJ (National Register of Vocational Qualifications). We operate a vocational secondary school, start courses for entrepreneurs in harmony with the needs of the market. We introduced a competence-based professional training for food industry qualifier technicians and business information technologists in accordance with the World Bank Model. We also introduced media education in grade nine.

Our school has meat, preserves and beer industry training production halls in Kőbánya (Budapest) that operate according to HACCP quality standards. We also have a training store and a laboratory equipped with modern instruments for food analysis. Our training production halls were honored both in 2000 and in 2001.

 Our graduates are wanted both in the Hungarian and in the foreign labor market as skilled workers, technicians and laboratory workers monitoring food quality in food industry plants, at shopping centers, research institutes and in educational institutions. Gifted students go on with their studies in higher education.

Our school has developed good connections with base plants, with research institutes, with small and large business enterprises. We have partners from several countries due to which we can get acquainted with market-oriented training programs during professional trips in other countries. We take part in the Leonardo da Vinci Programme with Dutch, Austrian and Polish partners. As a result of this our best students from the meat industry specialization can participate in a ten-week trainee program in Denmark. All our students who took part in this international traineeship got their EUROPASS certificate.

With the help of TÁMOP-2.2.3  and KMOP-4.1 grants we have invested about 1 billion HUF into establishing the Central Hungarian Agricultural Training Center which coordinates the work of four schools. The partner institutions are: Agricultural and Forestry Vocational School (Piliscsaba), Táncsics Mihály Agricultural Vocational School (Vác), Varga Márton Horticultural and Geodetic Vocational School (Budapest) and the main partner;  Bercsényi Miklós Food Industry Vocational School.

THE PROFILE OF THE FERMENTATION TRAINING WORKSHOP

The theoretical part of the professional training is done by a teacher, the practical part by an instructor.

The main objective of our training workshop is to enable our students to use their theoretical knowledge in practice. Our students can qualify as technicians or production operator.

Fermentation industry is especially multi-layered within food industry. It includes the production of soda- and mineral water, soft drinks, spirits and liquor, as well as malt, beer and fruit brandy production. The main activity of our training workshop is soda and beer production. Our students have the opportunity to acquire the steps of those two technologies. All the other technologies have to be studied during visits to production plants, and off-premises or summer traineeship programs. We have a working relationship with the following companies: Rauch Hungária Kft., Zwack Unicum Nyrt., Fővárosi Ásványvíz- és Üdítőipari Zrt., Coca-Cola HBC Magyarország  Kft., Buszesz Élelmiszeripari Zrt., Dreher Zrt. Apart from these big companies we have the chance to take our students to several small production plants such as distilleries or small breweries.

Besides, we work on developing our students’ knowledge and teach them techniques for taking samples and also how to perform in-production quality control. For those technologies we do not have the possibility during production, we show or model for our students; for example, the steps of malting or fruit brandy (pálinka) production. It is not possible at the workshop to distill wort in big quantities, yet students learn about the technology of making wort, and there is a chance for them to distill smaller quantities in the laboratory, or in a smaller a distiller.

So that our students could gain a complex professional knowledge, they take part not only in industrial but laboratory training as well. During those classes they learn about measuring volume, making solutions, measuring pH value, titration, measuring dry matter content and sensual classification.

Parallel to our students’ theoretical education we establish their practical knowledge too. Their visits to other production plants, traineeship programs or research is planned in accordance with their theoretical education. Soda-water production is the only exception from this rule since we provide the employees of our school and the three other schools in the partnership with soda-water, and also sell it in our training store, so we need a constant supply of it.

FRAMEWORK CURRICULUM

THE FUTURE

We plan to raise the standard of our vocational training and meanwhile increase the number of students in our school. Our motivating incentive plan may result in a greater interest in the food industry profession. We are ready to undertake regular labor safety training for our partners at our training production plant. According to the new regulations that will soon come into effect, small production companies are also obliged to have certified professionals, be it the owner or the employees. We are ready to provide them with the necessary, high-level, certified professional training.