Balázs Hankó, the minister for culture and innovation, said Hungary’s successful higher education reforms are being recognised on the international stage.

In connection with the ongoing Education World Forum in London on Tuesday, Hankó told MTI that the world is paying more and more attention to Hungarian higher education, noting that the country’s higher education reforms were the only topic to be featured in two presentations at the forum.

Hankó said the interest that the reforms had attracted had to do with the ascent of Hungarian universities in international rankings in recent years.

"Today, there are 12 Hungarian universities in the world’s top five percent, one of which is in the top one percent and three in the top two percent," Hankó said. "We have doubled our scientific performance, and the number of students admitted to technology, science, engineering, IT, agriculture and medicine programmes has increased by 44 percent."

The participants at the Education World Forum, which is being attended by the higher education ministers of 135 countries, were mainly interested in how Hungary’s higher education sector had succeeded in establishing close relations with economic players under the new foundation model, Hankó said.

Hankó said there are currently 46,000 international students studying in Hungary, and the aim is to increase their number to 80,000 over the coming years.