Quality education should be as natural as having a roof over one's head

"A debate is based on critical thinking: no matter what the topic, whether it's gun control or abortion, even if you disagree with the other person, you are forced to consider their point of view, to examine it in the sea of arguments. I think it's a huge problem that there are no such debates in the political arena today," said Balázs Kondor from Mosonmagyaróvár, who is currently studying at the University of Cambridge on a scholarship and who has previously won almost every debate and oratory competition in Hungary. In America he researched whether electric cars could bring the US car industry to a halt, and now, in addition to his studies, he is preparing Hungarian students for universities abroad.

"In everyday life, debates are different: while in a competition the most important thing is to use logical arguments to tear down the other person's point of view, in everyday life we are not guided by these principles, because we are emotion-oriented people" he said. According to him, even if something is logical, the other person often does not accept it.

After the fourth grade of primary school, Balázs Kondor went to Kazinczy High School in Győr, and enrolled in the Milestone Institute in Budapest on a friend's recommendation. His participation in the debate club there took him straight to competitions and he soon qualified for the Oxford World Championships, where he represented Hungary and debated against the world's best 15-year old debaters.

"This international world drew me in", he recalled. Soon afterwards, he won almost every debating and oratory competition in Hungary, helping several of his classmates at Kazinczy prepare for a competition.

Before graduation, he participated in the Assist Scholarship Program, and was then "placed "in the US private schools' market, from where American institutions select some of their students. The programme took him to the United States, where the Californian Cate School paid his tuition fees of $70,000 (26.5 million forints at today's exchange rate), as well as his airfare and health insurance. Universities outside of Hungary love debate competitions (and those that are the best at them) because the structure of the reasoning process does a lot for developing the way one thinks," Kondor said.

He was the only Hungarian to be accepted to the American Pioneer Research Program. This allowed him to work with a professor in a research program between February and September 2022. The study he worked on examined whether electric cars will lead to the demise of the US automotive industry in the next ten years, and their study ended up being ranked in the top nine percent. The answer to the question they posed was 'probably not', but the research did identify concerns about the production of electric cars.

Kondor had big plans for the future and was considering continuing his studies in England, but, as he says, after Brexit, "I panicked because students no longer had the option of paying reduced tuition fees in England", which made this option seem more uncertain. He felt that he needed to focus on the US again, especially as ten of his matriculation subjects – maths, English, SAT and ACT (both are a combination of maths and English) – were American. While looking for scholarship opportunities, – and being put on a "waiting list" at Harvard – he gave Oxford and Cambridge (which is consistently ranked among the best universities in the world) a chance. In the end, the latter offered him a partial scholarship. At Cambridge, the three-year course is made up of nine trimesters, and he is currently at the end of his second one.

Balázs is now helping young Hungarians who want to study at a prestigious foreign university prepare for their future with his initiative GoUni. His openness to young people who are about to enter university is logical, given his familiarity with the admissions process in the US, the UK and the Netherlands, as well as the various scholarship opportunities and the many things involved in moving abroad to study. In Western Europe or overseas, this preparation is part of the education system, but not in Hungary, where there is hardly anyone informing graduating youth about their opportunities abroad," he said.

As far as the education system in Hungary is concerned, Balázs Kondor said it provides a solid lexical background and covers much more material than they do abroad, especially when it comes to science and history. This is a great advantage, he says, but he believes that the Hungarian education system does not put enough emphasis on skill development, on how to debate, think and communicate. If these could be developed, he believes only the sky would be the limit for Hungarian students. He stressed that education is a fundamental right and that quality education should be as natural as having a roof over one's head.