It is visible that nowadays, young people’s social and civic activity and social sensitivity is very low. Public education is taken into account this problem, and introduced community service program in secondary schools in 2011 in Hungary. This community service is compulsory for those secondary school children who want to gets the certificate of final examination.The first students in this system will graduate from high school in 2016. The students have to spend 50 hours in community service and they can choose from 6 main fields (education, health, social, nature and environmental protection, disaster management) where they can do their community service. In my research I examine the realization of the community service’s five aims. These are the following: the growth of civic awareness, the growth of the future volunteering of young people, the help of development of tolerance, the help of improve networking and the realization of the field orientation due to the program. The program other aims to give some real life experience for students and this is a possibility to meet disadvantaged people and they can help them.  The community service improves a lot of skills and competences (Astin & Sax 1998; Billing et al 2005; Kimberley et al 2008; Billing 2009; Conway et al., 2009) for example: empathy, cooperative and problem solving skills, democratic skills, emotional intelligence, communication skills, decision making, critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving, leadership skills etc.  

Astin and collages researched how service learning affected students. According to their results service participation shows significant positive effects on 11 outcome measures: academic performance (writing skills, critical thinking skills), values (commitment to activism and to promoting racial understanding), self-efficacy, leadership (leadership activities, self-rated leadership ability, interpersonal skills), choice of a service career, and plans to participate in service after college (Astin et al 2000).

The community service is quite similar service learning. The community service’s history goes back to Alexis de Tocquevielle who though Americans should be encouraged to help others and be willing to spend their free time or money for welfare state. So in this area developed a well functioning service-learning system which is a sample for European countries (Furco 1996).

The European countries are also acknowledged from community service. For example Germany where the service-learning has two major goals: to increase democracy as a way of life where everybody has to participate in order to bring democratic values to life and second is the idea of learning from experience. The service-learning was introduced in 2001 in Germany and now volunteer agencies and private foundations offer counseling at currently regional service-learning centers. Service learning has become part of the official teacher education and training programs or is sponsored by the ministry of education  (Zentner 2011).

From pedagogy aspect the community service is a new teaching method because it is incorporated to the curriculum. The students discuss their experience with the teachers after the service. This is a kind of feedback where they can realize those skills and competences are improved during the service. We can find other appellations as experiential education or learning by doing (Zlokowski 1996). The community service can also lead to improved academic achievement (Billing 2009; Harwood & Radoff 2009).

My research questions are: Does the community service in Hungary reach their goals in this form? Will the students become more active citizens due to the community service? Are they committed to do for the society? Does the community service increase the students' knowledge about volunteering? Are they willing to work as volunteer in the future? Can they connect community service with their specialization? Are student trying to connect the community service with their own carrier plan?

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