School History

The ancient secondary school in Mezőtúr was founded by Wittenberg-educated students Lukács Túri Szabó known as Circulator and Jakab Túri Sánta in 1530. The following words were worded by their descendants: “Their time marks the beginning of the school’s upheaval which, at their deaths, was crowned by the foundation of an entire collegium”, the basis of which was provided by Márton Kálmáncsehi Sánta, a devotee and champion of the town’s reformation. It was also him that brought the great Hungarian reformer István Szegedi Kis to Mezőtúr to be the first rector (headmaster) known by name. Szegedi served here between 1551 and 1553 as preacher of the Protestant Church and the rector of the protestant secondary school.

The Alma Mater’s Latin school laws dating from 1734 indicate that our institution was a prospering school existing in orderly conditions during the 17th century with students from remote parts of the country, Transdanubia, Upper Hungary and Transylvania. The subjects taught in the school included Latin, Greek and Hebrew, History, Philosophy and Theology. Assisting the rector, praecepts taught in the school from 1743. From 1831, a permanent corrector served in the institution, teaching the Grammar, two Rhetoric and the Poetics classes together with the rector.

1864 saw the introduction of the 6-year secondary school training and the Protestant Parish later responsible for the maintenance of the school raised a new single-floor building with the assistance of the town leadership in 1889 on the plot of the former school. This building proved suitable for housing the 8-year secondary school training. In the autumn of 1894, Class VIII was established. Between 1907 and 1910, the gymnasium, the library wing and the Headmaster’s Lodgings, while in 1914 and 1915, a two-floor dormitory were built on the two adjacent plots purchased for the institution.

The Protestant Parish had been responsible for the maintenance of the Protestant Secondary School from its foundation until its nationalisation in 1948. From 1948 the school functioned as a state secondary schooling establishment and took the name of György Dózsa in 1951. As from the academic year of 1964/65, a vocational school training ran parallel with the traditional secondary grammar school training. The school took physical possession of the modern dormitory building in 1975.

Act No. XXXII of 1991 made reallocation of schools to the Established Churches possible. In Mezőtúr, by Municipal Decree of 23 April 1992 by the town representatives session, the Mezőtúr Protestant Parish regained control of its schools, the Secondary Grammar School included. In 1992, the Protestant Church was among the first churches to have been reallocated the Alma Mater of Túr, and the school took the name of its first rector, István Szegedi Kis. As of 2010, it transformed into today’s Mezőtúr Secondary School of the Protestant Church with five centrally-located institutional units: a secondary school, a vocational school, a kindergarten and a student hostel where 150 employees tend to the everyday educational and spiritual needs of some 800 students.

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