English Public schools

There aren't any public schools that speak English full time as the national language is Hungarian.

Your kids either have to learn Hungarian in a remedial class and/or privately or they have to go to a private school where they can use English. Alternative languages are German and French. Both of these languages are used as the medium of education in some private schools here.

If you want a private school, search these forums and you'll find some previous discussions about it and some links to school info.

what can I say now???
Coz Hungarian is not that easy as English
And private schools r still quite expensive. I'm looking for some other options..

Om Muhammad wrote:

what can I say now???
Coz Hungarian is not that easy as English
And private schools r still quite expensive. I'm looking for some other options..

Well unless you want to homeschool them, it seems that they'll need to learn Hungarian which would be a good idea anyway unless you want them to be isolated from their peers and not to be able to interact in society.  Kids learn languages pretty quickly, they absorb it faster than most adults.

Fluffy is correct, either pay out of pocket for private school or your children will have to learn Hungarian.
If they are young enough they should be able to pick up enough Hungarian in a year or two to be able to catch up to kids in their age group.
That's a huge problem for people who move to another country and bring kids with them.
My father didn't speak any English at all at age 7 when he arrived in the US. He was put in classes with other kids from countries all over the world and they all learned English the hard way.
The teacher didn't speak any of their languages so they were forced to catch on.
My American friend had her 8 year old boy in the American school here in Budapest, it is very expensive. When they no longer could handle the steep fees she enrolled him into the Jewish school. He didn't speak Hebrew either.
It was killing her to see him get down on himself and feel like he wasn't as smart as the other children. They left Hungary and went back to Canada.
Sorry, not much positive advice for you. Money talks.
On the positive side, my dad learned English quickly and his accent was 100% American. He did however pick up some sort of mixed NY/ New Jersey style of speaking...

I can understand that they have to learn some Hungarian... but my kids are 5, 8 and 10 years old. So i want them to carry on with whatever they are learning now..
Like we are here in Saudia.. They have all subjects in English here, even though here not all people are learning English but still these Arab people are very much intrested to learn English..
So why there is no concept of English language in Hungary in their public schools? or in all European region?????
Though it says that English is an international language, easy to communicate with others!
They huge number of foreigners.. there must be a school with reasonable fee for those kids!

Om Muhammad wrote:

I can understand that they have to learn some Hungarian... but my kids are 5, 8 and 10 years old. So i want them to carry on with whatever they are learning now..
Like we are here in Saudia.. They have all subjects in English here, even though here not all people are learning English but still these Arab people are very much intrested to learn English..
So why there is no concept of English language in Hungary in their public schools? or in all European region?????
Though it says that English is an international language, easy to communicate with others!
They huge number of foreigners.. there must be a school with reasonable fee for those kids!

Sorry to say you are not alone but the fact is that it's just tough luck.  That's despite all the good reasons you put forward.

There's not really much of a culture here with speaking English and there's a bit of a nationalistic thing going on as well.   For example, they do not put subtitles on TV programmes which I always  found very useful as a way to improve language skills.   

There is one school we know of where supposedly they teach English on a day to day basis but we heard recently that they do not even have an English teacher now.  As far as we know there are very few native speakers teaching English in public schools and the quality of non-native English teachers is quite variable.

People who come here on expat packages usually try and include some coverage of school fees hence the international schools are more corporately funded (e.g. expensive). 

I think - and I might be wrong - that the French school is subsidised by the French state.  I believe the  Austrian school also gets some funding.  Whether I am right or wrong on that, it doesn't help you much. Sorry.

Yes, most people who bring kids with them to Hungary get their jobs to cover the fees for schools.
These are high paying jobs.
My old friend moved to HU from Canada, her husband was the son of a 1956 er. The grandfather moved back to HU in 1990 and started up some real estate companies with his sons.
This one son with the American wife just was not good at sales or much of anything so his wealthy father paid their rent in Buda and then school for the kid. The other child was still to young for school.
Couple of years he went to the American school and was doing ok but then family resentments from the uncles caused issues and they pulled him from the pricey school to make the rest of the family happy.
The uncles were jealous that the one bro needed help with everything while they worked hard and he couldn't make a go of anything.
Really sad story. In the end he and his wife and kids went back to Canada, probably upset the old grandfather but family fights are not good either.
I give credit to my Ca. gal though she moved to HU to follow her husband and his family, had her 2 babies in Hungary and did her best in the offices to make money.
She stuck with her  husband even though he was a disappointment to everyone.She told me even her own father in Ca. said he would support her and her 2 kids if she would just come home and leave her husband, sad.

You might look into homeschooling, maybe there are some other parents willing to start up a home study group with a few kids?
My friend told me the American school was costing over $20,000 a year for a 8 year old and high school kids were somewhere over $25.000 a year.This was a decade ago too.

30 some years ago my HU husband was thinking of sending our American son to Hungary to live with his grandparents and learn Hungarian and go to school here.
I couldn't bare the thought of sending him alone over here but now I sort of wish I had done so.
We also considered sending him to a boarding school in Germany, couldn't bare that either.
Too bad my emotions got in the way because it would of been really good for him, well maybe not boarding school with strangers but coming over here with his grandparents.
Again in Hungary many young people are learning English so they can work after college etc. but overall it is just a minor thing to learn in the public schools as they are just teaching the basics, kids who want to learn English well must take extra classes and pass exams.
The gov. doesn't have to employ  teachers with English speaking skills at the tax payers expense to please just a handful of ex-pats. Seems hard but that's reality.
Hungary doesn't have the money for a few kids who don't know the native language.
That is extra schooling and someone has to cover the costs.
I mentioned a few examples in the past of Hungarians from the US who's children actually spoke Hungarian at home in the US but when their parents moved back to HU with them all those kids had a hard time in school.
One was a couple with a 12 year old girl, they moved to a village where they were the wealthiest people, big house car from the US. The kids were jealous of the little girl and teased her to death about everything from her accent to the way she dressed.
The family decided to move back to the US because it just wasn't working out for their girl.
Another family were from the 8th district. My husband met the man in Las Vegas , they worked at the same co.
My husband and I even on a holiday here visited the man's mother to give her some gifts he sent over with us.
They were a Gypsy family and locals of the 8th district.
Ok, they sold everything in Vegas and moved back to HU with their two teenage sons.
Those two Gypsy boys were not as rough and tough as their new classmates in the 8th district were.
About one year later in Vegas we ran into the parents in a store. They all moved back to Vegas because their 2 sons were so unhappy in Hungary. They spoke Hungarian too.
We spoke for a bit in the store with that couple, they were now living in a trailer and trying to get back on their feet after having sold everything to move to HU.Guess their sons were really miserable here for them to go through all of that.
Culture shock is worst for kids sometimes.

Also the way of teaching and the subjects will probably be different then the way they are learning at the moment.
I have heard the classes are fairly hard here in Hungary, harder at least then in the US.
Both of my sisters skipped a full grade just by moving from the east coast to the west coast of the US. Classes and subjects were harder in the east.
your kids may have to go back a grade or two in Hungary to be at a equal learning level. That could work out good though, they could recap what they already know while learning Hungarian at the same time.
I was concerned about sending our son to HU when he was 11, 30 years back because he didn't speak Hungarian .
My husband had no fears at all about that, he knew he would catch on even if he only learned Hungarian and nothing else.
Maybe you will be able to find a small group of other parents in the same boat and you can all hire someone to tutor Hungarian after regular school hours?

Om Muhammad wrote:

Like we are here in Saudia.. They have all subjects in English here,

This is not Saudi Arabia. with copious oil income to support all the logistics to support multilingual education and all the books, curriculum and educators in more than one language.

Om Muhammad wrote:

So why there is no concept of English language in Hungary in their public schools? or in all European region?????

There is a concept: English as a second language. But German is more commonly supported by the state.

But as already stated, this in Hungary. The language is Hungarian.

Also note that the EU only has two members that speak "national" English, the UK and Ireland. And will only have one after Brexit.

And English is only an "international" language due to colonialism. Same could be said for French (SE Asia or West Africa) or Spanish (Central/South America). An issue that Hungary was not party to historically. So insisting Hungary now bow to linguistic requirement as the default language for education is a very questionable, even if it is reasonable to learn English as a second language as a nod to geo-linguistic realities. But, then again.... with current global tendencies, Mandarin may eventually supplant English, so maybe young people should keep their options open.....

Om Muhammad wrote:

Though it says that English is an international language, easy to communicate with others!
They huge number of foreigners.. there must be a school with reasonable fee for those kids!

I think you vastly over estimate the number of foreigners in Hungary. And also overestimate the number of English speaking foreigners here with children expecting public education.

And not to mention, and already stated, many expats are here on short term assignments, and their children's education in expat English (or German) schools is part of their compensation.

Thank u for ur reply in detail.. I do appreciate it!
At least I can say now I can imagine it will not be ez to search for Schools for my kids.
Let's see what is written in fate

Omg. I'm feeling really sorry for those Gypsy boys.. And that little girl!
So seems like Hungarian people r not friendly or maybe they don't know how to express it! I mean the (Appreciation)
Coz even when we visited Hungary I noticed their females were quite rude.. maybe the guys really treat them badly or something... I Don't know but this is what I saw in general in public !

1 more thing I would like to know from ur prospective...
Me and my family are all permanent Resident of Hungary.. But my husband is insisting now that I should move with my kids to Hungary and stay there until I will get the passport (as the situation here in Saudia is also getting very bad day by day to survive)
So basically I'm an English Teacher here having experience of 10 years in teaching English to Primary and Higher grades.. And my husband is working in a company (small)
So he is planning to stay here by continuing his work and going to bear our all expenses there In Hungary.. So, I know that I have to learn the language to obtain the citizenship...
In other hand, I want to choose a place where the education will not be a matter or can be continued easily..
So is it possible for us to stay in any different country to obtain the citizenship on our Permanent Residency of Hungary? Or do we have to start from 0 again to get theirs Permanent Residency first then citizenship...???
If there is any suitable country for my kids do let me know (as I don't want to waste my time for getting the citizenship of Hungary then moving onwards somewhere else) though my husband is thinking once we get the passport we can be settle anywhere easily
Any Suggestions Plzzzz.. I'm so worried!

Being a legal resident is good enough for most people.
Honestly I would not worry too much about education for your kids , it will all come together no matter what.
They might just be better off taking a time out from school and just learning to speak Hungarian.
My son who is now 41 years old was tested in school in Cal. because he was a "trouble maker" for his teachers. Turns out he has a high IQ ( probably not from my side, well maybe) he was always asking way too many questions and I am not lying, the very first day of Kindergarten, I was called at home to meet with the principle.
My son was the ring leader of a school break out.
Not exactly a kid who warmed the hearts of any teacher.
They  didn't know what to do with him so they placed him in with the "special education " kids, I pulled him from public school as soon as he was
old enough to attend a school for the 7th grade.
Just 3 years of private schooling and he got very good grades and had zero issues with his teachers. They just treated the children like humans in private school.
Age 15 we couldn't afford his next High School costs so placed him back in public school. The worst thing I ever did to him.
After the very first grading period his teacher called me to inform me that he was getting straight F's in every subject.
I asked why, she said he was a nice kid but sleeping at his desk all day long.
That's how bored to death he was.
We allowed him to take a HS equivalency test, not your everyday GED test.
He passed without any study and we let him leave school at age 15.
He didn't wish to go on to college, was sick of the education system, didn't want to learn a trade either.
Long story short, he is now running a casino in Las Vegas, again his wild attitude keeps him from actually being the shift boss but they know he can run the entire casino gaming area on his own and let him do that several times per week. Just not making the huge bucks because he will not play the game of kissing rear ends.
He is a "problem child" but what can one do?


Let your kids have a school break and learn the local language, in the long run they will catch up or not.
The bad thing is my SIL has 38 years of being a educator in CA. My cousin has a PHD in education and most of my relations are or have been teachers in the US and Poland and even one here in HU. I personally think that is nothing knowing what games schools play with students that they can not control or understand.
Sometimes having common sense and nerve is enough to get ahead in life.
I don't really know much about IQ and testing, I know my one sister was tested at 145 another the eldest at 131 and me at only 126. Not sure if that is average or not although my sis with the 145 was rather high so I heard. She never really fit in anywhere and was always a bit unhappy in personal relationships.being too smart for your own good is horrible really.
Of course with the pollution, wifi, chems in all the food and water I wouldn't be surprised if my IQ is 60 right about now!

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Being a legal resident is good enough for most people.
Honestly I would not worry too much about education for your kids , it will all come together no matter what......They might just be better off taking a time out from school and just learning to speak Hungarian.
....Let your kids have a school break and learn the local language, in the long run they will catch up or not.
....!

That is a nice idea but attending school (even home school) is legal requirement here.  Basically you HAVE to educate them.  Even an absence of a couple days has to be explained.  Taking them out of school for say 3 days will probably be permitted but you need to be on good terms with the Director of the school.

Dear Marylin Tassy,

"Just 3 years of private schooling and he got very good grades and had zero issues with his teachers."

So I would love to know from where you did your son's "private schooling"
As I'm really SORRY.. if the situation is that bad in Hungary.. by no acceptance of expats or they have No Tolerance and ZERO Patience... then why should I waste my time by sending them school (just to get bullied by their kids)
Yes, I'm planning to join Hungarian classes along with my kids.. So like this they will learn the language!

So if anyone can tell me the procedure of private schooling Plzzzz??

Do I have to enroll my kids name in 1 of the private or International School in Hungary?? Or is it ok to visit off and on to my country during my kids exams and return to stay in Hungary??
Which 1 will be more suitable for us? Which 1 will cost me less expensive??

So even if a child is giving only exams in 1 of the private school in Hungary.. will it cost the same amount of fees?

Our son went to  private jr. high school in S. Ca.
They only had grades 7 thru 9 .
It was a "Christian "based school that was not too far away from our home and was recommended to me by another parent.
They only had 8 to 12 kids per class and even the principle taught classes there.
This was a long awhile ago, he was 12 to 15 then, now he is 41.
They held the kids to a high moral standard, he had to take a one hour per week religious thing.
We are not following any religion but I had to take a short course before enrolling him to learn about what exactly their beliefs were.
Not too out there with any odd rituals etc.
They just expected him to be kind and they would not put up with any rude behavior from anyone.
I felt very comfortable sending him there, they were all very good teachers and again more then kind with the kids.
Once a week they had to dress up for the church class otherwise they had a more casual dress code, nothing sloppy, collars on the boys shirts no short skirts on the girls. Everything clean and pressed.
He needed a bit of control by kind people because in public school it was bad. His arm was broken in the 6th grade in a fight with 3 boys, they school acted like nothing happened, they were afraid to be sued.
I'm the wrong person to ask about schools because most get a F from me.
Most are more geared in the US to just make little robots out of kids and they don't know what to do with children who are more creative.
They try to kill that trait.

My husband said they have all sorts of private schools in Hungary some focus on English more then others. Some are more musical and other focus more on languages. Maybe a internet search of schools could help you find a affordable private school in HU.?
I have no kids in school here so I don't know anything really.
Maybe the embassy has a list of schools that are private but not as pricey as say the American, English or French schools.
I know my Ca. friend here sent her son to a Jewish school after they could no longer afford the American school. He didn't speak Hebrew though and was lost and confused, one big reason they left Hu.
maybe they have some sort of "religious" private schools in HU that are not overly religious one way or the other and have small classes with caring teachers.
I got lucky finding that school for our son, it wasn't cheap but still a bit less then many big name private schools were. Think it cost us just under $400. a month back in the mid is 80's.
Yes, that could of been a nice car payment but we wanted peace with our son more then a new car.
It was a Lutheran school. The next school would of been a private Baptist High School.
Again, they didn't overly push the religion on the kids, only one hour per week.
Our first choice might not of been to send him to a religious school but money is always an issue and that was the best of two evils.
Public school in the US is bad, really bad.
There are of course a few good public schools in the US but those are usually in wealthy neighborhoods where the taxes for home owners are sky high.
When I was 17 and finishing up my last year of school, I moved in with my sister and her husband to Hollywood, they soon broke up but I stayed for the school years with my sis.
I was suppose to attend Hollywood HS, a good school, my sis didn't see the cut off correctly for her neighborhood to go to that good HS.
I had to go to another school for the district.
Oh, man, one of the worst roughest ones in S. Ca.
There is a old movie from the 1950's called," The Blackboard Jungle" it was filmed at the school! Marshall High School.
I only went for 2 weeks because I was fearing I would be cut or sliced up any day once the novelty of me being new wore off.
1973 and things are not much better with US public schools.
It was and still is all about gangs and being in a group, loners are a target.
We figured if our son had to be in school at least being around strict teachers who cared and kids who's parents also wanted a good education for them and were willing to pay for it was better then going to school with kids who's parents were sometimes worst then the kids were.
I quit school early and made it up later, my safety was no. one for me.

Om Muhammad wrote:

...

So if anyone can tell me the procedure of private schooling Plzzzz??

....

The only way to find out is to look at the web sites of the schools themselves.   They all have web sites as they are commercial businesses.

There's no central information source or standardised method of applying.  The only way forward is own research or asking perhaps through the relocation services of your employer.

Hi everyone,

Please note that some inappropriate posts have been removed from this thread.

Thanks,

Priscilla
Expat.com team

klsallee wrote:

.....There is a concept: English as a second language. But German is more commonly supported by the state.

I think there's also money provided externally by the German and Austria governments but I've never actually confirmed that.

klsallee wrote:

Also note that the EU only has two members that speak "national" English, the UK and Ireland. And will only have one after Brexit.

Not quite. 

Surprisingly there are two more -  Malta and Cyprus.    While that seems a bit odd,  in the former case English is a national language although Maltese is obviously used too.   

In the latter case, English is also a national language with status the same as Greek and Turkish in order to maintain neutrality of North and South.  It's compulsory for civil servants to speak English.  UK maintains a couple of very large  military areas there which are basically independently run of the national governments.  These are the SBAs or Sovereign Base Areas.

klsallee wrote:

And English is only an "international" language due to colonialism. Same could be said for French (SE Asia or West Africa) or Spanish (Central/South America). An issue that Hungary was not party to historically. So insisting Hungary now bow to linguistic requirement as the default language for education is a very questionable, even if it is reasonable to learn English as a second language as a nod to geo-linguistic realities. But, then again.... with current global tendencies, Mandarin may eventually supplant English, so maybe young people should keep their options open.....

True but don't forget Portuguese (and Spanish -  Equatorial Guinea!) as well in Africa and even in China (Macau).   Portuguese is also in Brazil too.

Some African countries are encouraging bilingualism - Burundi is changing to English from French.  Certainly my experience in Africa is that Francophone, Anglophone and Lusophone worlds do not meet much.

I worked with a ex-colonial  government guy from Macau once and he spoke Chinese (maybe Cantonese - don't remember),  Portuguese of course and English.  He said it was because Chinese was in school, Portuguese was his native language  and English because of the commercial proximity to Hong Kong.

When I worked in The Netherlands it was explained that English was the language of commerce and Dutch was the language of culture.  Worked pretty well there.

None of this will persuade the Hungarian government of course.

fluffy2560 wrote:

klsallee wrote:

Also note that the EU only has two members that speak "national" English, the UK and Ireland. And will only have one after Brexit.

Not quite. 

Surprisingly there are two more -  Malta and Cyprus.    While that seems a bit odd,  in the former case English is a national language although Maltese is obviously used too.

I said "national" languages. As in the primary "official" language of the nations. Not just languages commonly used because of historical reasons.

According to Wikipedia, Maltese is the official constitutional language of Malta, and even if English is also technially official, if there is any issue, Maltese take precedence. Which, IMHO, make English a secondary language, and thus not so much a "national" language (we can disagree on that point of course). Meanwhile Turkish and Greek are the official languages in Cyprus. English is not mentioned as having official status.

There is no such thing as english public school. The state only provides education the language of the majority, and in the languages of the ancient minorities (romanian, slovak, german, rusyn, serbian, etc). Other minorities are not eligible for education in languages other than hungarian.

The assumption is that those who move here should assimilate. English is available as secondary (foreign) language.

Private schools are exceptions, since they are not funded by the state. Hence, your only choice is a private school.

klsallee wrote:

....According to Wikipedia, Maltese is the official constitutional language of Malta, and even if English is also technially official, if there is any issue, Maltese take precedence. Which, IMHO, make English a secondary language, and thus not so much a "national" language (we can disagree on that point of course). Meanwhile Turkish and Greek are the official languages in Cyprus. English is not mentioned as having official status.

When I was working in Cyprus (admittedly more than 10 years ago),  one of the laws I read described quite clearly that English was a necessary skill and that English was to be used in public administration. I was in Turkish North Cyprus. It could be that they were operating on the pre-invasion laws and never updated them.  But in any case,   I never met anyone there who couldn't speak English to an extremely high level.   

I believe in Malta you can do official stuff admin-wise in English - when I was there (I was a tourist) it was no problem and professionally I've read a few public service descriptions from there and all their work was to be done in English.

Just a quickie on terminology to confuse people who might be looking at British style education system available here in Hungary. 

In the UK a public school is actually a private school.

To distinguish, we use the term "state funded" or "public funded" for government schools.

The UK government classifies the following overseas countries as majority native English speaking:

Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
The Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Canada
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana
Ireland
Jamaica
New Zealand
St Kitts and Nevis
St Lucia
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Trinidad and Tobago
United Kingdom
United States of America

Wow Fluffy!
That's great to hear that Maltese do recognise the importance of ENGLISH.... which is really new info. to me!

Fluffy... So is there something like UK in Hungary as well like "state funded or Public funded" type??? especially for foreigners? i wish i can find something reasonable and suitable in my situation!

Now i think i must mention here that i'm looking for some "ENGLISH MEDIUM" Schools!
Those who have all subjects in ENGLISH in Hungary.... Coz this thing is tiring me now so i can't imagine what will happen later!

Om Muhammad wrote:

Now i think i must mention here that i'm looking for some "ENGLISH MEDIUM" Schools!
Those who have all subjects in ENGLISH in Hungary.... Coz this thing is tiring me now so i can't imagine what will happen later!

We know what you want but you won't find a school here paid for by the state which teaches in English.

Look at these links and do some of your own research (there are others but these are the ones I know about):

SEK School Budapest (British curriculum)

Britannica School Budapest (British obviously)

Greater Grace School Budapest (religiously oriented)

American School Budapest (megabucks)

ISB (international)

BME (British oriented)

Whatever happens it's going to cost you, ~10K EUR per child per year before any discounts. The American school is fantastically expensive. Think seriously about it before committing here. Your kids are quite young and school until ~16+ is compulsory in Hungary.   It's a long term financial commitment but that's kids for you.

The closest you can get to what you want in a state-funded school is a bilingual school. But even there, hungarian is a must.

Rawlee wrote:

The closest you can get to what you want in a state-funded school is a bilingual school. But even there, hungarian is a must.

There's this state funded one:

Szabó Lőrinc School

According to reports this is not a very good school (so I didn't include it) and the foreign language teaching is relatively small - few hours a week otherwise it's all Hungarian. 

Notice they don't even have an English language page for their web site.  They used to have some pages but they disappeared.

The primary school is in Fényes utca which is some distance from the main building.

I attended Egressy Gábor Bilingual Technical Secondary School, studied electronics and electrotechnics there.
http://www.egressy.info/
Half of my classes were in english.

Rawlee wrote:

I attended Egressy Gábor Bilingual Technical Secondary School, studied electronics and electrotechnics there.
http://www.egressy.info/
Half of my classes were in english.

Cool. 
The OPs kids are somewhat younger so his options are rather limited.

I think we are going round in circles here. Unless you pay, you won't get lessons taught in English.

Why would a country educate their children in a language other than their native tongue?

Think about that. Just really, really think about it. Please.

If ANY country did this, they'd cease to be a country in 40-50 years, and also their native tongue would go the way of Latin or Aramaic.

jesperss wrote:

Why would a country educate their children in a language other than their native tongue?

Think about that. Just really, really think about it. Please.

If ANY country did this, they'd cease to be a country in 40-50 years, and also their native tongue would go the way of Latin or Aramaic.

Latin maybe but that's not a universal statement.

I used to live in Syria - before the war. Aramaic was still being used.  There's a town there called Ma'loula where they speak Aramaic. Like so many places in Syria, it's an interesting place if you like (religious) history. 

In Hungary, obviously other languages are being used on a day to day basis - Romanian is used by some people down towards the border in places like Gyula and German used in a fair number of places too.  We should not forget our Hungarian friends in Székely and their use of Hungarian.

In my own country (UK), the government(s) pay for Welsh and Scots Gaelic schools and funds TV and radio in these national languages.  It actually does that to maintain cohesiveness.  Language oppression has been used for years and years as a tool by authoritarian governments.

But apart from all that....in any case, the OP does have options but has problems reconciling the situation here and the costs.  I agree that we've run out of any way to assist him.

jesperss wrote:

Why would a country educate their children in a language other than their native tongue?

Think about that. Just really, really think about it. Please.

If ANY country did this, they'd cease to be a country in 40-50 years,

By a "native tongue", do you mean a single national language?

Switzerland has four national languages: German, Italian, French and Romansh.

And yet, despite not having a single national language, Switzerland has existed for..... well far more than 40-50 years.

One does not have to "think about it", but only open their eyes to reality: In other words, language alone does not define a nation.

Very true, language isn't everything that makes a country.
Just look at the USA for example.
In New Mexico we had Navajo's bring in their grandkids into our salon for haircuts.The elders didn't speak a word of English even to this day.
Many years after the white took over.
Both of my US both grandfathers learned English as a second language although both were born in the USA.
German was spoken in one home and Ruysn/ Slav in the other.
They were still Americans.
But when they went to public schools they both had to know English even if it wasn't spoken in the home.

I find this all quite confusing. In England a public school is one where the parents pay a fee, as opposed to state schools which are where the vast majority of children go. I gather in this case the enquiry is about state schools?  Clearly it would be ridiculous for a state school to conduct lessons in English, apart from those to learn English as a foreign language.