Quality assurance in accrediting language examinations in the Hungarian context
Quality assurance - under various pseudonyms - has a long past in the 40-year-old history of public FL examinations in Hungary. The state used to pay extra money for successful language examinations and operated a system called State Language Examinations. This monopoly was challenged both politically and professionally in the mid-90s. In a short reform-period, the old pattern was transformed into a market-oriented system of state-accredited language examination centres and systems. The accreditation process was carried out in harmony with some decrees and orders (state regulation), and followed the requirements of the Accreditation Manual published in 1999. The process was checked by the Hungarian Accreditation Board for Foreign Language Examinations, which is an independent body established by the Ministry of Education. This paper will describe the process of accreditation and identify some problems of a market-oriented but state-controlled system. The latest challenge for the exam-providers (as well as for the Accreditation Board) is to relate all the accredited examination systems to the CEF levels by force of a state decree. Unwilling partners (exam-providers) will lose their state accreditation, while willing partners will have to follow the processes described in the Manual (to relate FL examinations to CEF), but the rigour of the process will depend on the number of examinees thus creating three categories amongst the foreign languages offered by examination centres in Hungary.

Prof. Jenô Bárdos
Full professor of language pedagogy; applied linguist and translator; Head of the English Department at the University of Veszprém, Hungary.
As visiting Fulbright professor at Rutgers University (N.J.) in 1988-90, he founded and launched the Hungarian minor programme. Between 1990-98 he served as dean of the Faculty of Teacher Training (U. of Veszprém) and established 11 departments and 18 programmes. Main fields of research: history of LT, language assessment and language pedagogy in general; applied linguistics; Hungarian studies; American studies; management in higher education and EQA, etc. He lectured and attended projects in most countries of Europe, in the USA, Australia and South Africa.