The committee will function as a forum for continuous coordination. A three-year cooperation agreement between the Russian and Hungarian education ministries, to expire this year, will be renewed for another three years and details will be prepared in line with the latest cooperation plans.
At the end of his two-day official visit in Moscow, Hiller said he had held talks with Minister of Education and Science Andrey Fursenko and head of Russia's federal cultural agency Mikhail Shvydkoi and both expressed great interest in Hungarian relations. Among the subjects discussed were maintaining links between Finno-Ugric peoples and a Finno-Ugric meeting - to which Hiller has been invited - that will take place in Hanti-Mansiisk. Agreements were reached on developing a network of Hungarian Points, on starting cooperation between music academies and on the publication of Hungarian literature in Russian.
Hiller said the Hungarian cultural institute was a bridgehead for Hungarian culture in Russia and he expressed great appreciation of the institute's activities. He said plans to expand these activities are currently being considered.
Hiller said he had discussed with Fursenko a new scholarship system focusing on master classes as well as developing new levels of cooperation. He said the ministry could do no more than set the necessary conditions for autonomous universities. Both Russia and Hungary are participants in the Bologna programme and are building cooperation in the area of education. In this respect, Hungary wants to play a pioneering role in the European Union, he said.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
