The number of young people currently studying at Polish university-level schools exceeds 1.5 million. Of the total, every third student attends a private college. Over just 10 years, the number of students has increased four-fold: from 393,000 to 1,685,000. Poland's higher education has reported a quantitative leap in the past decade that no one could have predicted.

The act on higher education of September 1990 allowed for the establishment of private non-profit schools in Poland which provide education for paid tuition. Two years later there were 11 such schools, and their number continued to increased at an astonishing rate. In January 2001, Poland had 185 private and 107 state-run institutions of higher education, altogether 292-not counting branches and departments run in different locations, military academies and colleges subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration (MSWiA).

One decade was enough for a veritable revolution in the Polish education system. In 1990, Poland had 390,000 students at 112 state-run institutions of higher education attending various study and grade programs. At that time Poland ranked 22nd in Europe, just above Albania. Poland could not boast of its university-education ratio at just 6 percent of the population—the lowest in Europe-while the world's developed countries reported a ratio of over 20 percent and some even up to 40 percent. Five years later, the number of colleges increased to 179 with a total of 794,000 students, to reach as many as 266 schools, with 1,273,000 students in 1998. In the academic year 1999/2000, according to the Central Statistical Office (GUS), the number of these schools reached 287 with a total of 1,431,000 students. This steep increase was largely due to previously absent private colleges and an expansion of part-time and evening courses at state-run universities. Numerical growth to a large extent took place at the expense of educational standards, but this was probably unavoidable considering that the entire process occurred at an extremely rapid pace.

Education is an important catalyst for the continuous development of civilization, but at the same time education has to adapt to and catch up with, the continual expansion of knowledge. “The basic problem faced by the education system is the large-scale character of education at each and every level, which involves all the drawbacks of large-scale production, meaning that a large quantity is obtained at the expense of quality," says Prof. Andrzej Wiszniewski.

Large-scale production

The academic year 2000/01 started with about 1,685,000 students, or nearly 7 percent more than a year earlier. The university students-to-high school graduates ratio increased from 40.8 to 43.5 percent. These figures reveal that our country has achieved the standards characteristic of developed countries.

From a total of 1,685,00 students, nearly 1,196,000, or 71 percent, study at state-run institutions of higher education. Full-time students account for 53 percent of students at state-run universities, and only 19.3 percent at private ones.

Evening and part-time students account for less than half of the total number of students.

Increased demand for higher education stems from many factors, including better chances of getting a job. The proportion of young people taking up studies has been growing rapidly due to this very motivation. A young graduate of a four-year high school or a five-year technical school who has passed the “matura" final examination, can often become a student with little effort. Many private colleges recruit students without entrance exams, according to the order of applications. This is in one sense a fashion for studying and for obtaining a paper diploma."

The Ministry of Education estimates that the university students-to-high school graduates ratio should double in the next five to seven years.

The experiences of developed countries show that the greatest beneficiary of a high proportion of educated people is the state itself. A contemporary country which discounts citizens with higher education would be hard to imagine," said Aleksander Kołodziejczyk, rector of the Gdańsk University of Technology. “This is confirmed by a growing demand for workers with higher education, as exemplified by the MSWiA, which is educating employees for its own needs, but also needs experts in many other areas. I do not doubt that the police would be much more efficient if district police chiefs were college graduates. In countries suffering from high unemployment, college graduates account for only a small fraction of the unemployed. The problem of excessive employment in agriculture could also be solved through appropriate education of the rural population," he said.

Countries which recognized the role of education in stimulating development today constitute the elite of developed countries. Few countries in the civilized world fail to perceive the need to develop higher education. This group of states in Europe includes Greece, Turkey, and unfortunately Poland. Not only I, but many people would like to know why Poland ranks in the middle range among European countries in terms of the share of defense outlays in gross domestic product (GDP), while ranking at the bottom of the list in terms of outlays for education," said Kołodziejczyk. Allocating only 0.8 percent of GDP for higher education and 0.4 percent of GDP for science is sabotage against one's own nation, according to Prof. George Charpak, the Nobel Prize laureate for physics.

Long-distance learning

Every state-run university provides education free of charge at all levels for full-time study programs. Over 70 percent of students in Poland pay for a fraction or the total cost of their studies.
In the academic year 2001/02, Poland had 113 state-run university-level schools and 216 private ones, of which three are being shut down.

An auto factory can begin production in two years' time but it takes a long time and a highly qualified work force, in addition to considerable financial resources, to create an academic faculty and fill a generation gap. The later that higher education obtains the needed funds, the more difficult it will be to make up for the damage. The role of technical achievements, especially communications and information technology, in transforming the traditional vision of education should be stressed," says Wiszniewski. Just imagine the possibilities that would be provided by computer networks which facilitate the exchange of information, access to databases and libraries, or CD-ROMs that create unbelievable opportunities to use gigantic amounts of data. The world of education, if it is to develop at a pace matching the contemporary development of technology and production, should change extremely rapidly." Does the future of higher education in Poland lie in transmitters, satellite receivers, large screens, and PCs? So far, there is only one such institution, but many academics assert that advanced satellite technology and distance learning are the future of education. The student can approach the camera or ask a question. Our technique allows the screen to be split in half so that the student can converse with the professor and take an exam," said Prof. Wojciech Pomykało, rector of the Warsaw Socio-Economic School (WSSE).

Besides a technological revolution, a revolution in legislation and regulations is also indispensable," says Tadeusz Popłonkowski of the Ministry of Education. According to Popłonkowski, the present regulations do not provide for the kind of education that does not necessitate direct contact with an academic instructor. Modern technology can be used to assist the teaching process, but cannot replace a normal university and regular student-teacher contact." For the time being, the law is predictably lagging behind technology and the opportunities it offers. Students, however, do not want to be left behind.

Quality vs. quantity

The quantitative revolution in higher education should be followed as soon as possible by a qualitative revolution. Today a university diploma is often no more than a document attesting that its owner attended classes for five years, learned by heart a certain number of definitions, and wrote a dissertation or thesis, often in the form of compilation from several academic works. The graduation document does not guarantee that its holder has mastered and remembers the material covered or has the skills necessary to solve the problems they will encounter in their future profession. The discipline required by many study programs and the large number of examinations, forces students to “cram for the exam." Knowledge thus assimilated tends to vanish in a short time, raising the need to modernize the present didactic system and verify the traditional methods of teaching.

As a future member of the European Union, Poland has to be a country of educated people. University graduates should be prepared to work in new and ever changing conditions. They have to meet future challenges, understand the significance of advanced technologies, and know how to create and use them. This standard of graduates can only be achieved in the wake of a qualitative reform of higher education. A reform addressing quality requires incomparably more money from the state budget than is currently allocated.
The increased number of colleges has not overloaded the state budget, since the main financial burden was passed on to the students themselves, who pay for various study programs at private institutions as well as for part-time and evening courses at state-run schools.

The Main Council of Higher Education would like 1.5-2 percent of future GDP to be allocated to higher education in Poland, a proportion roughly equal to that in EU member countries. In light of current financial problems, it would be difficult to double the expenditure for higher education institutions, but without appropriate outlays it will be impossible to carry out any reasonable educational reform.

Unemployed graduates

The number of unemployed graduates increased from 30,000 to 70,000 during the past two years in Poland. “Perhaps we should think more often about what proportion of our students find a job in their profession," said Henryk Żaliński, rector of the Academy of Pedagogy in Cracow.

In terms of the number of university graduates, Poland is still at half of EU member countries' average level.

What is the reason behind the unprecedented boom on the education services market? The generation of the 1970s, which grew up in the first years of the systemic changes, was effectively persuaded that college education is the best path to professional and material success. A university diploma was the ticket to future opportunities that their parents had never had before. Most high-school graduates in Poland started to aspire to higher education. Those who had finished their high-school education several years earlier also sought a diploma. In 1998, there were as many as 3.8 million young people, or 10 percent of the population, in the 19-24 age bracket nor those with the most potential to study. Increased demand caused both an increase in paid part-time and evening studies in state-run universities, and the establishment of private university-level schools.

Every second student on average attends a part-time study program, with the largest proportion over 60 percent—in the field of economics. Part-time studies are more accessible, but they have little in common with classic academic life. Part-time education is conducted according to a system of courses, organized as a rule every two weeks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

While the number of students was growing rapidly, the development of academic staff nearly came to a standstill. In the early 1990s, there were about 60,000 academics and that number has increased by only 15,000.

The education boom will soon dwindle, both due to demographic changes and healthy competition on the education services market. According to estimates, the number of young people aged 19-24 will increase by 182,000 through 2005, to drop through 2020 by about 1.6 million. Competition for candidates will grow, a trend already apparent in traditional academic centers, where the largest number of private schools was established. This year, the places offered by colleges outnumbered high-school graduates. The weakest institutions, which do not prepare students for competition on the labor market, will attract fewer students and face bankruptcy. Tough market rules also apply in the sphere of higher education.

• The Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) has long topped rankings as the best economic university in Poland.

• The Leon KoĽmiński Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management in Warsaw is the unquestionable leader among private economic colleges.

• Warsaw University (UW) tops rankings in the departments of psychology, information technology and political science.

• UW shares first place with Jagiellonian University in sociology, and places second, after the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, in pedagogy. These three universities are the academic leaders in the social sciences.

• Jagiellonian University places first in law.
(From the Polityka weekly's ranking of Higher Education: Report 2001).


Number of higher education institutions in Poland:
Universities 16
Universities of technology 18
Academies of economics 5
Teacher's colleges 9
Academies of agriculture 7
Academies of physical education 6
Catholic and theological academies 3
Military academies 7
Art schools 12
Private technical colleges 95
Source: Ministry of Education