The background and history of the network

In 2000, the principal of the school began to look for alternative teaching methods in order to boost pupils’ learning performance, which at the time was significantly lagging behind the national average. We were quite desperate because of the children’s behaviour; they were under-motivated and, in general, the situation seemed rather hopeless. While searching for alternative methods, they came across Complex Instruction (CI) and decided to add it to the school’s pedagogical repertoire. In the eyes of the Hejőkeresztúr teachers, a major share of the school’s success can be attributed to this specific instructional system. CI was developed by Cohen and Lotan at Stanford University, and we adapted the method to Hungarian conditions. It took three years to create the Hungarian version of CI, which, as an innovation, is called the Komplex Instrukciós Program (hereafter KIP). The basic idea of CI and KIP is the same, but there are many differences, especially regarding technology. In 2009, the dissemination of KIP began. At the moment nearly 200 schools, 30,000 pupils and 2000 teachers belong to the network.

Key pedagogical practice

KIP is a teaching program developed in the 1970s at Stanford University by Elizabeth G. Cohen and Rachel Lotan. Since its formulation, it has been practiced as a specific pedagogical approach in thousands of classrooms in the United States and worldwide (Cohen and Lotan 2014). It aims to create a more equitable classroom atmosphere in which status differences among pupils do not play a significant role or hinder their learning efforts. It also radically changes the teaching perspective: it allows for the appreciation and evaluation of a variety of forms of intelligence and capacities, and it makes children active participants in their own learning. This pedagogical practice is therefore successful in introducing high-quality education to diverse classrooms in which pupils’ social backgrounds and intellectual capacities differ substantially.

The program mainly builds on three methodological pillars: multiple-ability assignments, group work and status treatment.

1. multiple-ability assignments

Children are assigned tasks that are open-ended and require different approaches and skills in order to be completed successfully. These kinds of tasks offer a chance for success and recognition also to those pupils who are, for instance, more creative than precise, or more skilful with their hands than verbal – the latter qualities usually appreciated in the general school system. To provide an illustration, if a child has difficulty remembering grammar exceptions, but at the same time has a strong visual memory and likes drawing, then, upon completion of a task that requires creating a crossword from the problematic words, they can be praised for completing the task successfully and they get a chance to remember the grammar in a less conventional way.

1. group work

Most of the assignments are dealt with in groups of four or five pupils. Group work changes the atmosphere in the classroom from one of competition to one of collaboration, and it also alters power relations. It is no longer just the teacher who is a source of knowledge; the pupils become sources of knowledge for each other. As a consequence, the pupils begin to consult their classmates, they start to ask for help, but also to offer it, and communication increases (K. Nagy 2015). In this respect, KIP builds on the premise that the more children talk about the task and the more they collaborate, the more they learn. However, in order for the interaction to be productive, the group work has to follow certain rules. The key to the success of this program lies in the division of roles in the group – only when children know exactly what their responsibility is can they cooperate effectively. In this respect, KIP differs from other kinds of group work which, as other research shows, do not always guarantee success (Cohen and Lotan 2014).

1. status treatment

The open-ended tasks and group work are means leading to the third pillar, which is status treatment, or the suppression of status differences in the classroom. KIP builds on the presupposition that in any kind of classroom setting there are always children with higher and lower status. In this case, “status” does not refer solely to the socio-economic status of children and their families, but is rather understood as a sum of socio-economic circumstances (such as, e.g., class, ethnicity, family background…), peer status (mainly given by popularity) and the intellectual capacities of a particular child. Even though the status of a child may vary over time and across subjects, research data show that children are always aware of their internal ranking, and it is usually high-status pupils who get the most attention from their classmates as well as from the teachers. It has further been proven that status differences impede effective learning, as low-status students are cut out from the learning process (Cohen and Lotan 2014). Thus, the principal goal of KIP is to lessen status differences and allow all children to experience success in the classroom. This is done primarily through the inclusion of children with lower status into group work, appreciating their specific contributions, enhancing their self-confidence and, through all of this, strengthening their position in the classroom.

Practical implications of the program

Building on KIP’s methodology, there are three practical implications of the program. These relate to pupils’ intellectual abilities, their social competences and classroom management (Cohen and Lotan 2014; K. Nagy 2012, 2015, 2024).

First of all, during KIP lessons the children are required to cooperate, and they spend more time interacting with their peers than they would in a regular class setting. If we accept the premise that meaningful interaction over tasks helps to develop a deeper understanding of what is learned and enhances intellectual capacity, the following research results might be of interest. As part of research conducted at the Hejőkeresztúr school, the level of meaningful interaction during “normal” frontal classes and KIP classes was compared. If, during a frontal lesson, low-status pupils interacted 0.33 times and high-status pupils 0.9 times, then after introducing KIP the interaction of low-status children increased nine-fold and that of high-status ones six-fold. The level of interaction thus not only rose significantly in both groups but also became more even between low- and high-status students (K. Nagy 2005, 2015, 2024). This research therefore contradicts the popular argument that education in heterogeneous classrooms harms the intellectual gains of faster learners or “clever children.” Similar results have been proposed in other studies conducted in different contexts (see e.g. Boaler 2006).

Secondly, group work on open-ended tasks requires cooperation and communication. This interaction not only helps pupils intellectually; it also develops their social skills. When organized effectively, group work helps to build friendships across status groups and ethnicities, and strengthens empathy (Cohen and Lotan 2014, Lotan 2024). Through the development of communicative capacity and by bridging status groups, KIP enhances pupils’ social and cultural capital, the lack of which is often identified as a root cause of school underperformance (Bourdieu 1986).

Third, forming groups and assigning clear responsibilities to pupils helps teachers manage heterogeneous classrooms more efficiently. It is no longer just the teacher who can provide answers; these are found first among peers engaged in the discussion. Introducing the Complex Instruction Program into teaching methods can therefore help teachers address different learning needs and at least partially compensate for the lack of auxiliary staff members, such as teaching assistants. Given that missing capacities are often identified by teachers as a principal barrier to inclusive education (Gallová Kriglerová et al. 2015), this last contribution of KIP should not be underestimated.

Principles

• Make learning central and encourage engagement and awareness in students of their own learning strategies.
• Ensure that learning is social and often collaborative.
• Be highly attuned to the motivations and emotions involved in learning.
• Be acutely sensitive to individual differences, including prior knowledge.

Learner voice and learner agency in our main pedagogical approach

The main question for us is how we can create an equitable classroom where children work and learn together.

First, we have to clarify what an equitable classroom looks like and how we would recognize one. One of the features of an equitable classroom is that all students have access to a quality curriculum, intellectually challenging tasks, and equal-status interaction with their peers and teachers. A classroom in which students see one another as competent, contributing, learning colleagues and peers while engaging with serious content is the ideal. They solve problems similar to real-life problems, address dilemmas and explore interesting topics. The aim is that they do all this democratically and equitably.

Teachers sometimes mistake equity for “friendliness.” We must look for the answer in group work. We do see classrooms where group work creates a friendlier atmosphere because pupils know each other’s names and talk a little more, but this still does not mean equal-status interaction. They may be friendly, but they do not necessarily see particular classmates as competent, and therefore they do not view them as contributing to the group or the task.

We have to identify methods suited to treating heterogeneous classrooms. One of these is KIP, which uses a special form of cooperative work that addresses status. The theoretical basis for KIP comes particularly from expectation states theory. Status characteristics are features that society generally agrees are better to have in their high state rather than their low state.

In classrooms, especially in elementary settings, reading ability is such a status characteristic. If we ask children to rank one another and themselves on reading ability, they can do so accurately, and their rankings correspond closely to their teacher’s.

Status generalization means that when we enter a situation knowing only that someone is a good reader, we generalize this to other tasks—even if the task has nothing to do with reading. For example, if the task is to make a present for a friend, such as a model airplane from Lego bricks, we may still assume that a good reader is also competent at building.

Teachers should explain to pupils that the task requires multiple intellectual abilities. To complete a particular task, they need to ensure they understand the text; talk about the ideas; summarize them meaningfully; explain and synthesize them; create a visual representation of a poem they read; or paint a beautiful picture inspired by it. Such a task requires so many different skills that no single person can easily complete it alone during the lesson; the individual will need everyone’s expertise. There is no one person who is always successful at everything, which is a major challenge for children who are consistently successful at narrow school tasks. They succeed because the tasks are so limited. With broad, multidimensional, rich tasks, pupils need many different ways of being smart.

Howard Gardner speaks about multiple intelligences. The most important thing he did was to make intelligence plural—he introduced “intelligences,” not a single intelligence. It is important to make pupils aware that there are different capabilities, strengths and talents they can contribute, gained both in school and in outside experiences.

Children come to school with such rich repertoires that teachers often fail to notice or use; they do not provide opportunities for children to show how smart they are. When pupils work on tasks requiring multiple abilities, teachers can observe and give specific feedback to all students, especially to those who have never before been seen by peers as contributors or as intelligent. Teachers can change expectations by praising such students increasingly. As a result, when a student enters a new situation, he will not automatically assume: “This person will solve the problem, and I can sit back.” Instead, all pupils will need to perform and contribute to producing the task.

The message we are trying to convey is counter-normative for schools where everything is narrow, counter-normative for teachers and, in many ways, counter-cultural. Teachers traditionally aim to find the “best” person at everything. In KIP, however, the focus shifts to appreciating richness. The advantage is that in the end pupils acquire reading, writing and test-taking skills as well. If teachers use rich tasks and teach higher-order thinking and deep conversation skills, pupils will perform well on tests too.

In an equitable classroom, children have access to a quality curriculum. All pupils understand that they will have opportunities to demonstrate their intelligence in different ways, by different means, and on different occasions. They understand that being smart can be learned, and that it is incremental and multidimensional. In an equitable classroom—and teachers know this is where they face the most resistance and misunderstanding—achievement clusters around a narrow, acceptable mean, meaning that very few pupils are just below and some are above. It is not a normal curve. Achievement in an equitable classroom does not follow a normal distribution, because in a normal curve only about 60 percent of the class is near the acceptable mean. We speak about achievement by showing what students know—what all students know. KIP produces this result.

Particular subjects

Note: During the school term, only 1/6 of lessons is organized according to KIP, and this applies to every subject.

The program features multiple-ability curricula designed to foster the development of higher-order thinking skills through group-work activities organized around a central concept. The tasks are open-ended, requiring students to work interdependently to solve problems. Most importantly, the tasks demand a wide range of intellectual abilities, enabling students from diverse backgrounds and different levels of academic proficiency to make meaningful contributions to the group task.

21st century competences

Our aim is to establish problem-based learning that incorporates principles of construction, interaction, and both cognitive and metacognitive organization. The goal of KIP is to encourage constructive and appropriate criticism, as well as to cultivate self-critical thinking.

In recent decades, labour has received significant attention; however, in modern societies every citizen needs well-developed basic skills and broad education to fulfil their responsibilities both in the labour market and in private life. The main aim of our programmes is to develop these basic skills and competences. Healthy success orientation and purposefulness—without degenerating into careerism—help children tolerate failure, learn from negative experiences, and gain the courage to achieve new results.

We do not prepare them for a single workplace; instead, we educate individuals for innovation, who are able to develop and adapt to a rapidly changing world.

We apply teaching methods that make knowledge magnetic and attractive. We aim to ensure that disadvantaged children receive proper education, knowledge and skills, and that they remain motivated to learn.

We place emphasis on learning organization rather than learning centralization, in order to create an efficient institution where situations adapt to necessities. Efficiency means developing cooperative abilities and skills, including adaptability, division of labour, attentiveness to others, responsibility, debate skills, conflict resolution, and self-knowledge.

Technology

KIP appears as a technology on the surface, but as mentioned earlier, it is in essence a status-treatment program underneath.

According to the program methodology, there are three key aspects of KIP—open-ended differentiated tasks, group work with strictly divided roles and status mitigation. All must be present during a KIP class. Over the years, teachers have established a stable class structure. The teacher begins with an introduction of the activities prepared for the lesson, which is important as it helps children understand the process and what to expect. After the introduction comes a short group warm-up activity that helps pupils mentally return to the classroom after the break. The most important part of the KIP lesson is group work, which occupies most of the time. During this period, groups work individually on their tasks and are allowed to move around the classroom as needed. They follow their group roles, each pupil having a specific responsibility. Greater noise is tolerated, as dialogue among pupils is expected.

When the group-work time is over, the reporters from each group present the group’s work in front of the class. This is an important moment, as speaking in front of the group requires courage. At the end of the class, if time remains, children also receive individual tasks. If needed, however, they may still consult their peers. Further details on the exact class structure and sample exercises will be presented in the following chapter.

Our motto is “Everyone is good at something.” Following this idea, teachers strive to recognize special skills in all pupils and support them. Recognizing special skills provides a basis for enhancing status within the peer group.

KIP is supported by ICT tools. In an equitable classroom, children have access to a quality curriculum through digital devices as well. They understand that being familiar with ICT and being smart can be learned, and that both are incremental and multidimensional. Using ICT makes children experts in certain areas and allows them to show their talents, abilities and skills. They use ICT in various ways, which enhances their innovative thinking.

In 2015, to support the use of ICT, each KIP school received tablets from the Vodafone Hungary Foundation to promote successful learning. A total of 1,400 tablets are available for the 42 KIP schools.

KIP online programs include:

• Digitalized competency tests: A system that automatically assigns the appropriate level of tasks to each student based on collected data. This way, grade level becomes irrelevant, and personal learning routes are available for practice.
• Geomatech program: Developed with the participation of the Hejőkeresztúr school, this program supports the modernization of teaching and learning. Since 2014, experience-based and playful online learning tasks have been developed using GeoGebra software. A free online task database is available for all 12 grades in mathematics. Ten percent of the tasks are KIP lesson plans developed by Hejőkeresztúr.
• English and German language learning program: Developed jointly with the University of Miskolc and made available through Eszterházy Károly College starting in 2016. Fifteen percent of the tasks are KIP lesson plans.
• Screenager program: An online learning platform with excellent structure and content provision. It was offered to the school by an association, and the school staff adapted and filled it with content to meet their needs.
• Teacher education: The University of Technical Sciences in Budapest, which has a Centre for Educating Technical Teachers, organized blended training for teachers in cooperation with the Hejőkeresztúr School. Teachers learn how to manage academically and socially diverse classrooms in secondary schools.

Assessment

Assessment of students in a KIP class is exclusively verbal and always positive. The main aim is to encourage students and praise the variety of skills each student possesses as an important and necessary part of the group. This directly challenges the idea that only students who excel in Languages and Mathematics deserve appreciation and opens space to acknowledge a wide range of skills (e.g., constructing, drawing, team management, empathy, kindness, presenting). Special appreciation is given to students who helped others during group work. Therefore, the five-minute reflection time at the end of the class is crucial for evaluating these special skills and, among other things, for elevating the status of students who might be under-appreciated by their classmates but possess valuable individual talents.

Note: Only 1/6 of the lessons are organized according to KIP.

Professional learning

At the beginning of using KIP, teachers’ attitudes toward the new program were varied: about one-third were enthusiastic, one-third waited to see how it would work, and one-third believed there was no need for the program. After some time, however, teachers began to talk to one another and shared their views on changes in behaviour and learning, and they recognized the progress. It took about three years to get all teachers on board. Seventeen years later, all teachers use and advocate for KIP. Some have become experts on the program and provide advice and mentoring to new teachers interested in KIP or to other schools in Hungary.

KIP is not only a methodological program of teaching—it presupposes a paradigm shift in how we view pupils, especially the most disadvantaged ones, such as Roma pupils from poor socio-economic backgrounds. KIP philosophy regards every child as capable of learning, aiming high and possessing intrinsic strengths; it is the teacher’s role to guide these special skills into practice. This ideological shift in how we perceive pupils may be the most challenging aspect for many schools to adopt.

Organisational demands of widespread adoption

KIP clearly shows that one of the strongest assets of the program is its transferability to different cultural and institutional contexts. This capacity to adapt the exact “know-how” of the program, while still remaining firm in its philosophy and main methodological principles, makes it a powerful method applicable in a wide range of schools across different educational environments.

KIP can be applied in any school without major changes in its organizational structure, funding or even teaching curricula.

The two main preconditions for the successful adaptation of the program are participation in KIP teacher training and a willingness to change the teaching philosophy from one focused on achievement alone to one that acknowledges multiple abilities. In the following lines, we elaborate on both of these points in more detail. When discussing KIP as a good practice to be implemented in another school, we identify an additional important factor: wider institutional cooperation.

We had been using KIP for nine years when we began its dissemination.

Teacher trainings

The programme is well established. The first part is a 30- or 60-hour training—usually for larger staff groups from a single school—during which teachers become familiar with the KIP methodology. The training material was developed by the school head in cooperation with the University of Miskolc and Eszterházy Károly University in Eger, where she has also been teaching KIP methodology to future teachers. The programme enables participants to apply KIP in heterogeneous student groups in order to support talented pupils, underachieving talented pupils and those who are lagging behind, and to address social status problems while creating a dynamic learning community where everybody is appreciated and all members improve. We have been shaping the program according to experience, and nowadays we also involve learners in the process, which makes the training even more convincing and valid.

On the basis of this training, participants who are convinced and motivated begin to apply KIP in their daily routines. Mentoring is provided by KIP trainers for a whole academic year. Newly trained teachers can decide when and with which topic they want to use the method. When a lesson plan is prepared, they discuss it with their mentors online in an interactive process.

Mentoring also involves bilateral visits: new KIP teachers can visit lessons at Hejőkeresztúr or other KIP schools, and mentors go to observe lessons at the joining schools once a month. When the academic year is over and the new school decides to continue applying the methodology, there is a further four-year cycle during which support is provided by the trainers. It is a slow process, but changing the pedagogical culture takes time.

In 2016, the KIP network presented its work at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

As a result of network building and active participation in various national projects, the KIP programme has become well known. Because of our success with socially disadvantaged children, some key actors in government and in the business sector have taken notice of the school and shown interest in disseminating the KIP methodology.

The University of Technical Sciences in Budapest – which has a Centre for Educating Technical Teachers – has organized trainings for teachers in cooperation with the Hejőkeresztúr School.

An EU-funded project on mathematics and sciences (Geomatech) invited the school to take part in modernizing the teaching and learning of these subjects. Experience-based and playful online learning tasks have been developed since 2014 using GeoGebra software. An online task database has been created for all 12 grades of public education.
Vodafone Hungary Foundation has donated tablets to each KIP school to promote successful learning.

I, besides working at the Hejőkeresztúr Primary School, am/was a part-time lecturer at several universities (University of Miskolc, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Eszterházy University in Eger). I use the KIP method in the initial phase of teacher education; my students encounter this method in both practice and theory. As part of their initial teacher education, students can visit the Hejőkeresztúr School and thus take part in experiential learning.

A Regional Methodological Centre of the Hejőkeresztúr model was established at the University of Miskolc at the end of 2015 within the framework of the Social Renewal Operational Programme. The centre serves groups of teachers working with multiply disadvantaged children who are ready to use the KIP method. The centre hosts trainings and further network-building activities.

The KIP program is also the basis of a large-scale school development initiative called the Complex Basic Program, which aims to decrease early school leaving by training teachers in endangered schools.

A crucial element in the successful dissemination of the program is that the training includes follow-up mentorship. This is done by pairing one teacher from Hejőkeresztúr with one of the new KIP schools. This practice helps teachers adapt to the new method, consult on activities designed for KIP lessons and seek support in case of difficulties.

I also emphasize the necessity of the school’s own motivation in entering the program. We have also trained schools that were compelled to participate in the training through a project of the Miskolc authority, and that did not result in a positive experience. When teachers are not genuinely willing to change the way they teach, training them in KIP is not really useful. What, then, can motivate other schools to join the program? The strongest motivation usually lies in local problems. Pupils may not want to learn, may not be motivated, or may behave in problematic ways… such reasons typically lead a school to enrol in the training cycle. As the Hejőkeresztúr case shows, KIP can help schools address these issues more effectively.

For the successful implementation of KIP, teachers’ willingness to change their educational perspective is essential. Working with KIP requires a shift in teachers’ understanding of their role, as well as a different approach to assessing pupils’ capacities and abilities. Qualities recognized in the general school system are typically performance-oriented; a successful pupil is the one who can meet the criteria set by the curriculum and perform well in tests. In contrast, KIP calls for the acknowledgment of multiple talents and abilities. Such a perspective requires teachers, first of all, to create a working environment in which multiple talents can be expressed. It requires them to recognize these talents and to provide positive feedback. Teachers are expected to step back and allow more space for creative solutions. Consequently, in order to start working with KIP, many mental shifts have to occur on the side of the teachers.

The official page of the program: www.komplexinstrukcio.hu    

Specific aspects that must be practised for the approach to be effective

An important point to highlight is that the whole school team has to take part in the training, not just one or two teachers. Adopting KIP requires a change in teaching perspective, attitude and culture, and this can only happen when the training experience is shared. Isolated visionaries are usually not successful in spreading the message, and in those cases schools’ attempts to implement KIP tend to end in partial or no success.

Teachers have to learn their new role during lessons: positive reinforcement and praise are vital. A key aspect of a KIP class is to encourage students and praise the different skills each student has, as an important and necessary part of the group.

The operation of the network

In spreading KIP as a good practice, wider institutional cooperation plays a major role. It is no longer just the school itself that follows the program and is open to sharing it. The involvement of scholars and civic actors makes the program accessible to future teachers through university courses, to current teachers through training, and to other stakeholders through dissemination and advocacy activities. In this sense, cooperation between three types of institutions—the school, the university and non-governmental organizations—is vital and creates an effective platform for spreading KIP to different schools.

Our website is www.komplexinstrukcio.hu.

There are four books and several video films through which one can learn more about KIP.

We have an annual meeting; this year it took place in March.

Evaluation

In the case of Hejőkeresztúr, KIP has proved its effectiveness. Due to this approach, every child at the Hejőkeresztúr Primary School completes primary education and is able to continue in secondary education (starting at grade 9 in Hungary). Almost 70% of graduates enrol in a type of secondary school that leads to a high-school graduation certificate, while the others enrol in lower-level vocational education.

The school’s results in national competence tests are at the national average, despite a very high proportion of socio-economically disadvantaged children and children with learning and behavioural difficulties. They achieve 10–15% higher scores than other schools with a similar socio-cultural background. There is no aggressive behaviour and no unauthorized absence. The school climate is peaceful; there is no dropout or failure, and no pupil is expected to repeat a grade, as frequently happened before, according to the school head.

Data are available for the last ten years, during which the programme has been in full operation. There is no recent data on further increases in achievement levels, since this is a program that has been running for more than 17 years, and in recent years we have “only” been sustaining the results that had already been achieved.

The school has become a learning community over the years, and we have also learned how to teach other teachers and how to disseminate our philosophy and methodology. We have created two kinds of professional networks:

• one to make the dissemination process more effective (partnerships with universities, teaching the method in initial teacher training, organizing joint trainings);
• one for the 71 schools that have already been trained and that have started working according to the methodology.

The greatest achievement is that the children are “teachable” and cooperative. It is also worth mentioning that there is a young teacher on the staff who was taught the program by the school headmistress at the university, completed her compulsory field practice at the school, and is now doing her PhD on KIP.

The principal started as an average PE and engineering teacher and, over the years, has become a teacher-researcher, completed a PhD and a secondary doctorate, and written books on the methodology.

In the schools of the network, implementation and monitoring have also become more conscious. We have several close monitoring methods to follow each individual student and see how absence and failure rates change, and what type of secondary education they move on to. Our in-school monitoring process also focuses on different aspects of KIP lessons compared to traditional ones, such as:

• teacher and student activities and the way they influence one another;
• frequency of speech and activity among children with low and high social status;
• the effect of social status on pupil performance;
• dissolving original social status/raising status within the group through ever-changing KIP roles in group activities;
• sociometry to trace changes in central and marginal positions, etc.

In Hejőkeresztúr, the following programs reinforce the results of KIP:

• When we encounter a new phenomenon, we try to find solutions and work on them. One example is the low achievement level in reading tests. We introduced a special reading program for the elementary grades (1–4). Pupils regularly read aloud to each other in pairs, first switching after each sentence, later after each paragraph, and finally retelling to each other what they have read (in a slightly more complex way).
• We were also dissatisfied (in 2005) with low parental engagement and introduced the “Dialogue between generations” program. Children draw their family trees and label each member with a special skill. As a class, they select five family members and invite them to a learning event. There are five groups in the class, and each adult speaks about their skill to one group. The children prepare questions in advance to make the conversation more vivid. Afterwards, they report to the other groups what they learned from the guest and then search the internet for a suitable gift for the adult, such as a trick or a recipe related to the skill they presented.
• A state initiative was launched in 2004 to introduce playful learning, through which school staff could learn how board games can raise motivation, support talented pupils and develop logical and social competences. Hejőkeresztúr School found that this approach suited our philosophy and has been using board games in classes and as extracurricular activities for years. This has provided an additional opportunity for more pupils to succeed.
• A teacher trainee from the University of Miskolc carried out research on the effects of KIP on other lessons and arrived at the expected result that other lessons are also mostly cooperative and that several elements of KIP methodology appear unintentionally in non-KIP lessons.

And the last one: mainstreaming innovation in school education

Facilitating

KIP methodology is about to be rolled out within the framework of a five-year, EU-funded project called the Complex Basic Program, which aims to decrease early school leaving by training teachers in endangered schools. All teacher-training centres (universities and colleges), the central Education Office and the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research and Development participate. The program is planned to run for five years from 2017, with a budget of 9.86 billion HUF (more than 30 million euros). Over five years, 1,500 primary schools are expected to join the program, mostly schools where underprivileged pupils are over-represented and academic achievement is below the expected level. Universities are currently planning the exact content and process.

Hopes concerning this project are high, but so is scepticism. As a positive thinker, I believe this initiative could be what activates underachieving schools to change their outdated and failing methodologies. At the same time:

• project mechanisms in general are not ideal for sustainable development, mostly because the preparation period always takes longer than planned, real field activities start late, and there is too little time before the end of the project to achieve real results;
• genuine school improvement projects and innovation processes need at least eight years;
• 1,500 schools cannot receive the close attention that has proven absolutely necessary for success;
• when the project ends and subsidies stop, schools will find themselves without help and resources; as a consequence, many will lose their motivation.

A pilot project was run in the previous school year in a smaller region with eight schools. Planning the exact implementation and a larger pilot with 100 schools takes two years.

It is relatively easy to learn the technology, but vision, beliefs, pedagogical concepts, culture and attitudes are hard to change. Even when they do change, it happens very slowly and only with continuous reinforcement. The focus group of teachers say that, based on their dissemination experience, the very first step is the hardest: recognizing the need and the possibility for change, and accepting the burden of learning and working much more than usual, despite already being overloaded. They say that success is the most powerful motivator, and it appears right from the beginning.

When there is governmental support, an organisational framework and financial resources, good practices are more likely to spread and take root, but the end of a project always poses a serious threat. Participants tend to stop making efforts when financial and professional support ceases. Only a change in mindset can sustain new methods, and this is the hardest to achieve.

Planning resources for the period after the project ends is always missing at all levels. As for KIP methodology, there is a strong governmental intention behind mainstreaming it in a complemented and modified form. The Complex Basic Program also includes the previously elaborated Whole Day School concept and is connected to the School Centres project, which aims at centralising small rural schools where teachers are scarce. A long follow-up phase is planned, but the mentoring process is very costly.

KIP methodology is supposed to take root in initial teacher training; this is why the call for proposals was designed to ensure the participation of teacher-training institutes at all universities. At present, not all centres are convinced that this is the only methodology worth promoting. The countrywide roll-out focuses mainly on the methodology, whereas the heart of innovation should be changing the culture of pedagogy. Project mechanisms are not favourable for creating sustainable change. Universities tend to believe more in micro-networks.

KIP was chosen for mainstreaming because it is relatively inexpensive and there are more experts available than in other programs capable of providing teacher training and mentoring. KIP methodology provided the basis for this new Complex Basic Program, but it is not named explicitly in the call for proposals. The Ministry of Human Resources took part in defining the goals and expectations of this project, and a government decree decided on the chosen model.

Bibliography

Boaler, Jo. 2006. ““Opening our Ideas”: How a detracted Mathematics approach promoted respect, responsibility and high achievement.” Theory into practice, 45(1).

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. „The Forms of Capital." Pp. 241-58 in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Cohen, G. E. – Lotan, A. R. (2014): Designing Groupwork Strategies for heterogeneous classrooms. Teachers College, Columbia University. New York – London.

Gallová Kriglerová, Elena, Katarína Medľová, Ivana Rapošová, and Michaela Šedovičová. 2015. Kľukaté cesty k inkluzívnemu vzdelávaniu na Slovensku. Bratislava: Centrum pre výskum etnicity a kultúry.

Hunya, M. (2016): North-Hungary. Case Study

Nagy, E. (2012): Több mint csoportmunka, Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, 2012.

Nagy, E. (2015): KIP-könyv. Miskolc-Egyetemváros: Miskolci Egyetemi Kiadó.

K. Nagy Emese (2025). The Impact of iSTEP on Practice-Oriented Teacher Education in Hungary. In: Gerald, LeTendre; Ira, Lit; Rachel, A. Lotan (szerk.) Transforming Teacher Preparation Across Nations : Principles Travel. Context Matters. New York, Amerikai Egyesült Államok : Teachers College Press (2025) 272 p. pp. 78-97. , 20 p.

UNESCO. 2005. Guidelines for Inclusion: ensuring access to education for all. Paris.

The summarize is based on Hunya, M. (2016): North-Hungary Case Study
Given that the school does not follow a different instructional program which would be contradictory to KIP principles, such as e.g. ability grouping.

Limited content is also available in English: http://www.komplexinstrukcio.hu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=152&Itemid=182

From 2016 she teaches part time at another university, which is the consortium leader of the project aiming at rolling out the CIP.

The tender is EFOP-3.1.2-16

For more information see 3.1.

KIP is supposed to be used in 20% of all classes in each subject.

The tender is EFOP-3.1.2-16

There has already been delay, the tender for schools should have been out in February.

Oldal elejére