According to State Secretary Bence Rétvári, this year, 18,845 people applied for teacher training, of which 10,514 were admitted, of whom 9,674 will study on a government scholarship. The number of admitted students has not been this high in the past six years, he stressed.

Since its inception, the left has seen the school as an important means of ‘enlightening’ people and creating a new world. The anti-school, anti-knowledge, and anti-teacher sentiments of former Chairman of the Communist Party of China Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution and of its Western importers, the ‘68ers have spread everywhere before our eyes over the last two decades.

Given the resurgence of the concept of central planning, it is vital to recall that even 20th century scholars recognised the profound flaws inherent in such a techno-optimistic approach. One of the intellectuals opposing this mindset was Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian British polymath, whose ingenuity brought about important discoveries in physical chemistry, philosophy and economics.