The relations between secondary vocational wildlife management training and the labor market in the dual education system

Abstract

Hungary has a long history of training professional hunters and the quality of wildlife management is world-renowned. In my work, I used databases of professional organisations and questionnaire surveys to investigate the factors determining the training of professional hunters at the secondary level and the labour market conditions. Comparing the training conditions of neighbouring countries and Germany, it is clear that the training of professional hunters takes place in the highest number of institutions, with the longest, 5-year training period in Hungary. In the previous decades, Hungary has seen an increase in the number of training institutions, which has clearly led to an overeducation compared to the number of workplaces. The age distribution of active professional hunters shows that graduated professionals do not appear in the labour market. This is mainly due to the poor financial and moral standing of professionals. The feedback from those exercising the hunting rights is that it is difficult to find suitable professionals, while they are open to providing internships and participating in vocational training. The intention of employers and employees, the framework curriculum introduced in 2020, and the government's Vocational Training 4.0 strategy open up a new dimension in quality, dual secondary vocational training in wildlife management.