Slovakia’s education minister has said he sees no problem with Hungarian place names appearing in a glossary in Hungarian-language school textbooks, rather than in the main body of the text.
New textbooks recently distributed to schools which teach in the minority Hungarian language in Slovakia use Slovak place names in the text, with their Hungarian equivalents in a glossary at the back of the book. The textbooks have been widely rejected by teachers and parents.
Education Minister Ján Mikolaj said he does not want to withdraw them but that he does not care in what form the names in Slovak and Hungarian are printed, and that it is up to publishing houses where they choose to print the place names, the SITA newswire reported.
Mikolaj said that the publishing house Orbis Pictus and the author of the textbook decided to include a glossary at the end. "For us, it is important that there is a glossary. The publishing house decided it this way. We cannot micro-manage these details, as a central body of the state administration," added the minister. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
