Budapesti Gépészeti Szakképzési Centrum Mechatronikai Szakközépiskolája

The Mechatronikai Szakközépiskola (Mechatronika Technical Secondary School) is situated in the 11th district, in the south-west of the Hungarian Capital. . It is close to the highway No. 1 and 7 (direction Lake Balaton and Vienna). The school was founded in 1990 as one of the first institution in Budapest and in Hungary which trains technicians for mechatronics by offering them up-to-date industrial knowledge. The site of the school is approximately 2 hectares and the building covers an area of 6300 m². We have 17 classrooms, 6 labs, 10 workshop rooms, 4 ICT rooms, 1 library, 1 canteen and a large gym (600 m²) where more groups can train at the same time. The school has 39 teachers and 370 pupils, only 7 of whom are girls. 60% of the students come from the agglomeration, about 20 % are disadvantaged and live in extended families with 3-4 children in small villages and communities. There are a lot of patchwork families, one parent families with low income. The parents generally have low or medium level of education and cultural background. The first objective of the school is to prepare students for the final examination, the second is to teach basics of the electronics and electrotechnics trade for those who would like to continue their studies, either at colleges or universities. We provide one year technical training after the final examination in the field of mechatronics, which enables those who do not continue their studies, to find workplaces easily. Training time is according to the Hungarian Basic Syllabus 4+1 years. Our technical secondary school students learn art, science and professional (electronics, electrotechnics) subjects and one foreign language (English or German). The Maturita exam includes 4 compulsory subjects: Hungarian Literature and Grammar, History, Maths, English/German and one optional. At the end of the 4th year students can get the General Certificate for Secondary Education (Final Examination or Maturita ) and can go on with their studies for one more year to prepare for the vocational examination at a technician level, which gives them the qualification of technicians for mechatronics. We offer this training for those who, besides being interested in computer technics, also go in for the latest achievements of electronics, automatics and robotics, pneumatics and PLC (Programmable Logic Controller), CNC (Computer Numeric Control), CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems. During the first four years of training they learn about the basics of the precision-mechanics, about how electronic and automatic equipment functions, how to repair them, about their measuring, maintenance and control and also about the microprocessor technology. This way the school enables its students to get to know all the top technologies of the 21st century and also the production technology of the age. During the fifth year the technician-trainees get a training on the function of all the electronic and mechanic systems controlled by computers, and learn how to maintain and repair them, and how to solve partial tasks independently. The task of the technicians for informatics and computer technology will be operation, maintenance and repairing data transmission equipment. Within this training they will learn about the basics of data processing, data transmission and data storage systems. They will also keep in touch with software needed for the operation and programming of computers. It is not a hard physical work, but needs much responsibility, lots of theoretical knowledge and reasoning. Besides teaching we try to help our students- especially the disadvantaged ones- develop not only their basic skills, but also social, cultural, problem solving skills, creativity, and what is very important for students from socially problematic layers, to gain more self-confidence and develop their personality.