Education and new challenges - Raport Polska 2030

Education and new challenges
Fig. 4.5. Number of students and people at the age of 19 in Poland (1990-2000)
(in thousands)
1600
Students
19 year olds
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Source: Analiza wpływu uwarunkowań demograficznych na rozwój szkolnictwa wyższego do
2020 roku [Impact analysis of demographic conditions on the development of higher education to
2020], Expert assessment of the Socrates Intellectual Capital Development Institute, p. 33, based on
the Central Statistical Office (GUS) data.
This situation is illustrated on Fig. 4.5, where it is possible to see the lack
of correlation between very dynamic increase in the number of students and very
moderate changes in the population aged 19. The number of students showed
snowballing increase from more than 404 000 in 1990 to 1 580 000 in 2000, i.e. by
291%, while the number of 19 year olds increased by about 19%. This means that not
only young people changed their educational status, and thus their life chances. Also
the educational level of parents of these young people was subject to change – and
thus the parents’ and their children’s life chances. The educational gap overcome
by the Polish society, including in particular the educational activity of women and
people living in the countryside, determines to a significant extent the new quality
of socialisation conditions in which the successive cohorts of young people were
(and are) brought up.
4.2. Young people in upper-secondary schools
Not only does the extension of the compulsory schooling period cause that the
enrolment rates are going up. On average, 81% of the young people aged 15-19 participate
in the education system in the OECD countries, 84% in the EU, and 92% in
Poland (Fig. 4.6). Such enormous expansion of education in our country is – on the
one hand – a result of the legal obligation to attend school up to the age of 18 years
old, and on the other hand, of the high status of education as a result of its noticeable
societal and life role.
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