Has educational sector any impact on school effectiveness in Hungary?: A comparison of the public and the newly established religious grammar schools

The aim of the paper is to test whether the pupils of religious gymnasiums in Hungary have higher grades and a better opportunity to enter vocational college or university than comparable pupils of public gymnasiums have. For the first time the effectiveness of public and religious schools is compared in one of the former communist societies. Data are from a self-administered survey among 4th grade secondary school students in spring of 1998. Our results show clearly that pupils at religious gymnasiums in Hungary get higher grades and that they have more success in entering tertiary education and university. This is especially true for pupils at Catholic gymnasiums but there are clear indications that the Calvinist and Lutheran gymnasiums might catch up Catholic gymnasiums in the near future, if they get the time to develop themselves. A more selective social composition of these schools, higher earlier school achievements or a higher academic ambition of religious pupils cannot explain these better results of pupils in religious gymnasiums. We conclude from these results that the religious grammar schools in a post-communist country like Hungary are on average more effective than public grammar schools. This does not hold only for Catholic schools but also for Protestant schools, just as in other European societies.