(1872-2017)
In Tokaj-Hegyalja, the history of grapes and wine has been united for centuries, and being a ‘wine grower’ was a popular occupation in the countryside. In Hungary, the first winemaking schools could not ignore the area of the hegyalja vineyards. Thanks to this, in 1872, in the town of Tarcal, the Experimetal Chemistry Station and Cellar Training Institute was founded. The Hungarian Royal Wine Grower of Tarcali was founded a year later, which is the legal predecessor of our school today. In three years the students learned the practical and theoretical material and then received a final certificate. Eight to ten people attended school annually.
The school worked for 20 years with this setup when the time of the training in 1891 was reduced to one year. The reason for this was that Philoxé was destroying the whole of Hegyalja. At that time, the institution’s most important task was to fight the phylloxera and the muddy drowsiness associated with it. The new director, Viktor Kosinsky (according to other sources, Kosinsky), renewed the vineyard of the school in Tarcal. American vineyards have been set up with his help, spreading furmint and hornlevel varieties, which today characterize the Hegyalja vineyards.
Under the leadership of Szilárd Egey and Sándor Hegedűs the school changed and was gived the name of Hungarian Royal Vine and Vineyard Vocational School. During the First World War, the school did not function in the absence of students. After 1918, emphasis was placed on teaching work, trying to build skilled vine growers, and no longer dealing with graft production. The world economic crisis (1929-1932) also had an impact on the functioning of the institution, and during the Second World War the number of pupils fell again, in 1944/1945 teaching stopped completely for a school year.
The restart was first a three-year cellar master training, where students spent the first year of which in Tarcal, the second year in Kecskemét, and the third year in Budafok. Returning to the old traditions occured in 1947/1948 when the school was remanted to State Gardening and Graduating School and continued its operation in the old building of the school, and even a year later, another floor was added to the building. Meanwhile, most of the farmyard areas of the institution were attached to the state. The school was transformed to Agricultural High School in 1949, and later a year later as continued to work as an Agricultural Technical School.
The changes did not cause stability in the life of the secondary school, because in 1953 the moved the school from Veszprém to Sátoraljaújhely to the St. Imre College, because at the border of Újhely the school was given a 150-hectare vineyard. In the beginning, there was a lot of trouble because of the “double teaching”, the teachers partly worked in Tarcal and partly educated students in Sátoraljaújhely. At that time each student had to stay in a dormitory, they lived in Zója or Kossuth Student Hostels. During this period the school maintenance tasks were carried out by the Directorate-General for Education of the Ministry of Agriculture. The training profile has included grape and fruit production during this period. In addition to the four year training, in 1957, the correspondent-class education was launched because of the high demand for the skilled professinal experts at that time. Within five years, the number of correspondent students grew up to 500.
A new shift in the image of the school has occurred in 1967, with the addition of agricultural training in the institution, which has become one of the foundations of the school to date. Since 1954 the II. Ferenc Rákóczi School of Food Industry Training also operated in the town, in 1971 in was megred with the agricultural school. The secondary food industry school from Miskolc was transferred to Sátoraljaújhely, where they taught meat and baking professions. After the merger, training was added to new courses, in addition to the above, the training of dairy and beer production professionals was started. The name of the school was changed to Agricultural secondary and vocational training school.
From 1976, a correspondent secondary school for vocational secondary school graduates was started, where students with vocational training were allowed to obtain a certificate of maturity in 3 years. At that time, 500 students in total studied in vocational secondary schools, vocational correspondents, evening and vocational training education. From 1978 onwards, the program was expanded with a vegetable-growing profession, and in 1981, the vocational secondary mechanical education was started. In these years, the maintainer of the school also changed because the Ministry of Culture was subordinated to the Ministry of Agriculture and then from the 1990s the school was governed by the Municipality of Sátoraljaújhely City.
On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the establishment, the school was renamed Szepsi Laczkó Máté Agricultural Vocational School, which was supplemented several years later by the addition of Student hotel to the name. Máté Laczkó of Szepsi was chosen as the institution’s name because, according to legend, he worked as the court clergyman of Zsuzsanna Lórántffy in the 17th century and he produced the first aszú wine in the middle of the 17th century. Although recent research has shown that aszú wine was made earlier in the Tokaj wine region, its real importance was that the steps of the production were also written down.
The maintainer of the institution was Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Council between 31 December 1997 and 31 December 2011. The school was continuously and independent institution until the decidion of the general meeting of , when it was merged with two educational institutions in Sátoraljaújhely with the Kossuth Lajos Grammar School and the Vocational Training School of Trefort Ágoston. From August 1, 2011 the school worked as a member institution of Kossuth Lajos High School and Vocational School in Sátoraljaújhely. From 2012, the maintenance tasks were carried out by the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Institution Maintenance Center. With the establishment of the Klebelsberg Institution Maintenance Center, from 1 April 2013, the collective maintenance of the schools in the Miskolc region was done by miskolci school district and the school was given a long name (Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Kossuth Lajos Secondary School, Vocational School and College Szepsi Laczkó Máté Vocational Training Member School)
One of the important points of the National Rural Strategy developed by the Ministry of Rural Development (NVS 2012-2020, Plan of Darányi Ignác) was the renewal of the vocational training system for rural development. As a first step, from 1 August 2013, the maintenance of 57 secondary education institutions (agricultural, food and environmental education), including our school, was given to the Ministry. Thanks to the decision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Fazekas Sándor, our school could unmergefrom the grammar school and could start the new 2013/2014 school year as an independent institution, Szepsi Laczkó Máté Agricultural and Food Vocational School.
According to an agreement between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Diocese of Miskolc, ASzF / 328/49/2016. , On 27 May 2016, the school maintainer’s right was taken over by the Diocese of the Diocese of Miskolc of the Greek Catholic Metropolia. According to the agreement, on August 30, 2016, Szepsi Laczkó Máté Agricultural and Food Vocational School and Dormitory ceased to exist. The new maintainer, the Diocese of Miskolc, established the Georgikon Greek Christian College Agricultural and Food Gymnasium, Vocational College and College, on August 31, 2016.
