History

About the establishment of the Museum Education and Methodology Centre (MEMC)

The Hungarian Open Air Museum is a non-profit institute, open for the public, and also a renowned professional research centre and a high level spiritual workshop of knowledge transfer.

The basic task of the museum is to research interiors and the way of life of the people who once lived there, to collect and protect tangible and intangible heritage, and also to present collections and provide access to the general public.

Due to the pioneering and exemplary activities of the museum in the past 30 years, in 2006 the Skanzen was invited by the cultural government to set up and operate a museum education and methodology centre, the MEMC for the benefit of public education and public collections professionals.

The museum is visited by more than 200 000 visitors per annum, the 50 % of whom are school children and students, who take part in all kinds of competence developing educational programmes.

Besides school children, providing training courses for adults is also regarded essential. When launching adult education programmes the MEMC set high standards for itself also for the participants. The accreditation of the museum for adult education served this end, as a result of which the Skanzen became the first museum in Hungary that receive adult education accreditation.

The educational programmes of the MEMC do not only serve museum professionals and teachers, but the circle of adult visitors shaping around the museum is also becoming more and more extensive, by which the museum is fulfilling its role of being a venue of lifelong learning. The museum also takes care for the continuous training of its own staff in the issues of museum theory and methodological issues.