Alternatív Közgazdasági Gimnázium ("Alternative Secondary School of Economics"), known as AKG by its students, is a six-year high school in Budapest, Hungary. The basic educational principle of the school is that a child is not preparing for life but is living it. The school has given up the traditional instruments of institutional regulation, including house rules, systems of punishment and reward. These have been replaced with the free flow of information and the freedom of choice, emphasising the individual personalities of students, and taking into account their personal needs and concerns. The nature of this freedom changes along with the different stages of the students' life in the school. Address AKG can be found at 1035, Raktár utca 1. History AKG has the distinction of being the first non-state school in Hungary (established in 1988). Hungary had no private education since the collectivization that followed the second World War. It was established as an independent teachers' workshop. Its founders and organizers were all practicing educators, who created and developed the curriculum over two years. Educational system In Hungary, students typically apply to a high school in either 6th or 8th grade. Hungarian students in public education are in high school for 6 and 4 years respectively, depending on when they started, with everybody graduating in 12th grade. AKG has 7-year and 5-year programs available for students, due to the language year, delaying graduation by a year. Years 7–10 The purpose of this period is to provide students with basic education in a wide variety of subjects, to ensure literacy and familiarity in any field they may go into later. Classes are organized into epochs with the epoch-system. Briefly summarized, the epoch system allows students to focus on specific subjects for extended periods of time. Students have two epoch classes every day, with each lasting 80 minutes. Each class "slot" has a dedicated subject. Epochs are cyclical, with small tests every week and epoch-ending tests after three weeks. Traditionally, there are no pop-quizzes in this system. Epoch slots shift after every end of unit test. For example, a student could have a mathematics and a history epoch. Every Monday, they would write a test in these subjects. After three weeks, they would write the end of unit test and move on to literature and science epochs. Once those are done, they go back to mathematics and history, until the school year