After many changes the present University of West Hungary, located in Sopron, started functioning with seven faculties on January 1st, 2000, as a merger of former Sopron University, Benedek Elek College of Pedagogy, the former Mosonmagyaróvár Faculty of Agriculture of Pannon University of Agriculture and Apáczai Csere János Teacher Training College.

The University of Forestry and Wood Sciences, (the legal predecessor of Sopron University) began as a school, training mining officials and was founded in Selmecbánya by King Charles III, (Emperor Charles IV) in 1735. Queen Maria Theresa raised the institution to the rank of an Academy in 1762. It became famous as the Mining Academy. The Court’s Mint decided to establish a Forestry School in 1807. Then, the new school was raised to the rank of an independent academy. After an education reform in 1846, the school became The Mining and Forestry Academy.

In 1919, Selmecbánya became part of the newly established Czechoslovakia. The academy moved to Sopron into the building of the existing Military School with the help of Mayor Frigyes Thurner. Thanks to his decision, Sopron joined the rank of university towns and the Academy conserved its Hungarian national features. The students who had fled into the town played a great role with their armed resistance and due to their brave behaviour during the referendum, the town could not be separated from Hungary by the Treaty of Peace.

In 1922 the academy was converted to The College of Mining and Forestry Engineering. In 1934 it was renamed as ”The Faculty of Mining, Metallurgy and Forestry” of the newly established Jozsef Nádor University of Technical and Economic Sciences. In 1949 an independent training of land surveyors started. Later the faculties of mining and metallurgy were moved to Miskolc and the surveyors went to Budapest.

In 1952 instruction in forestry engineering became independent at the College of Forestry Engineering.

After the defeat of the revolution in 1956, many teachers and students emigrated. A significant number settled in Vancouver, Canada, where they developed a Hungarian division of the Forestry Faculty at The University of British Columbia.

Others went to the USA, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

The conditions under which education could be continued at Sopron were hard, though the losses were somewhat compensated with new opportunities for institutional development. In 1957, the education of engineers for the wood industry was introduced. In 1962 the University of Forestry and Wood Sciences was established, including the faculties of Forestry Engineering, Wood Sciences Engineering and in 1972, a faculty of Land Surveying and Mapping began at Székesfehérvár. The latter as the legal successor of College of Land Surveying was founded in 1962.today it is the only college in Hungary where land surveyors have been trained on such a high level.

After the political changes in the country since 1989, many new courses have been introduced and new institutes established, including a Faculty of Economics has started education. Today, research is done in three principle fields, and there are a dozen foundation and two dozen special courses.

As a result of the above widened range of scientific activity, the university was renamed as ”Sopron University” in 1996. A new educational policy to rationalise Hungarian higher education, in cooperation with the town and region have all led to the formation of the universitas of the region, with its headquarters in Sopron, under the name of ” University of West Hungary.”

With the integration, the Institute of Economics (one of the faculties of former Sopron University) became an independent faculty, while the Székesfehérvár College Faculty has developed into College of Geoinformatics, offering a new course, Real Estate and Property Registration and Management, approved in 2001.

The faculties integrated into Sopron University also have a long historical past.

The legal predecessor of the Faculty of Apáczai Csere János Teacher Training College originates in a school master-training course, opened 226 years ago, and was the second one in historical Hungary to educate schoolmasters. Starting in 1847, it assured regular and post-graduate training of teachers as an independent Masters’ Training Institution. The curricula of teacher training covered two years. From the 1869-1870 academic year, the school continued its activity as a three-year time elementary school teachers’ training establishment, with its own school for the would-be teachers to practise. The training was increased in 1893 to four-year curricula, and to six years in the academic year of 1920-21:The syllabus was modified to a five- year education time in 1923-24. The school was reorganised in 1938 into a four-year lyceum and a two-year terms teacher-training academy. The next change came in 1948 when it was transformed into a Secondary School of Pedagogy and a year later it returned to its traditional 4+1 educational schedule. The rank of higher education for teacher training (for children of 6-10 years) was obtained in 1959. The institution was called a College of Higher Education from 1975 onward. Its name changed to ”Apáczai Csere János” in 1978. Gyor has been a primary school teacher- training centre with a long tradition in Western Hungary. It has also has taken a significant part in provided refresher and postgraduate courses for teachers.

The Benedek Elek College of Pedagogy originates from the Sopron Kindergarden Society, which started its first kindergarten teachers’ course in 1875. Education was extended to a two-year (4 semesters) training and the society owned two schools for practice.

The first nursery school teachers’ training institute began functioning under the same roof with elementary school teachers’ training in 1891-92, in the Ferenczi János street building of the Congregation of Sisters named after the Devine Redeemer.

After nationalisation the establishment went through several changes and finally it opened its gates again in September 1959, offering a two-year course, as a Kindergarden Teachers’ Training Institute.

An experimental college curriculum was introduced in 1987 and approved in 1989-90. The present faculty became Sopron Kindergarden Teacher Training College. It was named Benedek Elek in 1992. Owing to a course on Social Pedagogy, introduced in 1994 and to an Act on Higher Education it was converted to College of Pedagogy.

The faculty guarantees highly qualified specialists for kindergardens and social institutions not only for the Transdanubien region but also for the whole country and the over- the- border territories dwelled by ethnic Hungarians to advance and promote education it provides up-to-date refresher and postgraduate courses.

The Magyaróvár Private Institute of Farming (Agricultural Higher Educational Private Institution), the legal predecessor of present Mosonmagyaróvár Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, was established on October 25th, 1818 by Duke of Saxon-Teschen, Albert Casimir, on the advice of Wittmann Antal, his farm-bailiff. From 1850 it functioned as a state-owned high school of agriculture. In 1869 it was converted to a Royal Hungarian Academy.

In 1872 the Vienna College of Agriculture was separated from the Mosonmagyaróvár Faculty (Today it is the Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, Universität des Lebens). With the academic title of Royal Academy of Agriculture, granted to the school in 1874, it continued functioning on the highest level. Similarly to other faculties of the present universitas, teaching at the famous Óvár has gone through several changes. In 1970 it merged with the Keszthely Faculty of Agriculture, (the former Keszthely Institute of Agrarian Higher Education) to form the Agricultural University of Keszthely. In 1989 with the Kaposvár faculty affiliated, the Pannon Agricultural University was established.

Its present operation can be featured as a multi-educational system comprising the whole scale of agrobusiness. Advisory role and activity of the faculty is becoming more and more important by providing consultative assistance to farms in Northern Transdanubia, and it also runs an advisory service on some special problems concerning the whole country.

The University of West Hungary considers itself as ” green university” that endeavours to create skills to conserve and improve ecologically, economically and socially adaptable methods to provide sustainable development of life quality for nature and mankind. It cultivates moral and human values, never losing sight of traditions. Its ’regional centre’ consciousness is determined by its position as a Euro- region centre and by the needs of the over-the –border Hungarian nationality. The NYME (University of West Hungary) is an open-minded institution, inclined to cooperate with anyone that could agree on its objectives and targets and would serve the intellectual progress and development of the region as well as the whole country.

(source: www.uniwest.hu)