Educational migration from Vojvodina to Hungary

Abstract

This study tries to present the theoretical framework, history, geographical peculiarities and influencing factors of the educational migration from Vojvodina to Hungary as well as the background of decisions about migration. We approach the issue from the brain drain theory to understand the phenomenon, and we analyse it from each region’s perspective. The first part of the paper is mostly based on statistical data which we try to illustrate later by including presentations of individuals’ and families’ decisions about education and resettlement in Hungary (through interviews with Vojvodina Hungarian students in Hungary).

Considering the migration between Serbia and Hungary, educational migration (with a focus on higher education) became one of the most significant types. The migration under study concerns primarily the Vojvodina Hungarian minority – first of all those with high qualifications. So, from the Vojvodina Hungarian point of view, the process involves the risk of a brain drain.

At present, educational migration is determined by both ethnic and economic factors. The push and pull factors that emerged during the Balkan wars in the 1990s as well as the transnational migrant networks, which promote and support migration, seem to have remained stable. Although the outcome of such transnational migration is considered to be open (resettlement, return, move to a third country, circulation) our research indicates that, in the majority of cases, educational motives constitute the first step towards permanently leaving the native country.

Since the beginning of the two-decade-old transnational educational migration, Hungarian nation policy (as defined by the Hungarian ministry of foreign affairs) which also affects Hungarians living outside Hungary, and its related educational policy attempt to influence the nature and extent of this form of migration (e.g. through the scholarship and/or fee-paying system). However, this policy, with its associated instruments – despite its intention – is unable to influence educational migration directly and basically. The present Hungarian nation policy is controversial, and we could not establish which its most important purpose is: to help Hungarian minority communities sustain a livelihood in their native country or to implicitly encourage resettlement. The Vojvodina Hungarian nation policy could not reach its goals (education in the native country and return from abroad) yet. However, the results of the change of the scholarship system will be seen only a few years later.