Facing the prospects of rapid aging anddemographic decline over the coming decades, Hungary needs ahighly skilled workforce to help generate the productivitygrowth that it needs to continue fueling a convergence ofits living standards with those of its West Europeanneighbors. Skilling up Hungary’s workforce should start byequipping youth with the right cognitive andsocial-emotional foundation skills. International researchhas identified three dimensions of skills that matter forgood employment outcomes and economic growth: cognitiveskills, such as literacy, numeracy, creative and criticalthinking, and problem-solving; social-emotional skills andbehavioral traits, such as conscientiousness, grit, andopenness to experience; and job- or occupation-specifictechnical skills, such as the ability to work as anengineer. Hungary can do significantly better in preparingits next generation with the right cognitive foundationskills. This report focuses on cognitive skills and examinesresults for Hungary from the program for internationalstudent assessment (PISA), which assesses the mathematics,reading, and science competencies of 15-year-olds. Thisreport lays out a policy agenda consisting of two parallelelements: first, improving socioeconomic conditions forchildren and youth in general and in school through policiestargeted to the poor and disadvantaged such as welfare andemployment policies for parents and education support forchildren. Second, promoting equity and reducingsocioeconomic segregation in basic education throughinclusive education policies.
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