students. National minority self-governments are not only mandated to initiate the organisation of supplementary minority education, they may also establish an institution for this purpose. The Bulgarian, Greek and Polish national minority self-governments have already seized this opportunity and they have set up their own supplementary minority educational institutions in 2004. These broad educational rights are integral part of a generous cultural autonomy provided by the Hungarian state to its minorities. The Minority Act sets up the framework for taking over, establishing and maintaining institutions of public education by minority self-governments. The details of the transfer of the institution and its terms are set forth in the public education agreements concluded by the Minister for Education and the concerned local municipalities. A further guarantee for the sustainable operation of public education institutions handed over to minority self-governments is that the latter can request contributions, subsidies and supplementary appropriations under the same conditions as local municipalities. Furthermore, the minority self-government is entitled to supplementary assistance after each pupil under the Budget Act. In Hungary the central budget provides supplementary funding for the additional tasks of minority education. The extent of the subsidy varies, depending on the form of minority education; the largest amount of subsidy is provided to mother tongue and bilingual education. To treat special problems of minority institutions like low number of students and scarce local resources, the government has introduced the so called “small settlement norm”, making possible in addition to the support of mother tongue/bilingual minority schools the acquisition of minority textbooks, professional services, and the renovation of schools as well. Ladies and gentlemen, Besides adequate funding, the other essential element for high quality standards in minority education is the continuous training of minority teachers. Hungary provides comprehensive training from minority kindergarten teachers, to elementary school and secondary school teachers at the existing minority teacher training centres. In order to address increasing demand for bilingual education, we make every effort to train our future educators both in the mother tongue and in the majority language in every subject. In this context bilateral agreements with interested international partners are of crucial importance. In the framework of bilateral agreements, as well as via open tender, the Ministry supports minority children to spend a given time in a mother tongue environment and further expands the guest teachers’ programmes, which have also a significant role in assuring high quality mother tongue education for minority students. Thank you for your attention.