Education and new challenges - Raport Polska 2030

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4. Education and new challenges 4.1. Changes in the educational pattern 4.2. Young people in upper-secondary schools 4.3. Young people at universities 4.4. Life-long learning 4.5. Differentiation of young people’s school and life paths 4.6. Benefits of education 4.7. Competences acquired in school and their quality Summary
4. Education and new challenges Chapter Four Education is an area which is subject to very important developments bearing on the fate of Polish transformations. It is here that the major part of the intellectual capital, underlying our readiness to respond to the challenges generated by the modern times, is forged. It is also here that the fate of the young generation who sees education as an opportunity to fulfil their aspirations and life goals is determined. Today education is a factor which most intensely differentiates the level and quality of life, the style of functioning in the society, politics and culture as well as the health and psychological condition of people. Education is also a source of the lines of subsequent tensions and divisions stemming from the level of formal education. After 1989 the educational institutions became an object of pressure exerted by several parallel forces (processes), where the most significant ones were of socio-cultural nature and resulted from new developmental impulses. These impulses were generated by the political transformation: the system opened to global influences, the necessity to put the economy onto new track, to introduce a new system of social structures. These challenges met with the society lagging behind in higher and secondary education as well as the educational and status aspirations of the new generation. Under the pressure of social expectations the first changes in the education system were implemented, well before the system-wide reforms. The first and most prominent symptoms of these changes was to definitely reverse the proportion of schools offering vocational and general education which reflected the confidence of Poles in the magical power of education as a way of social advancement. Over the years the lesser importance of vocational schools has been paralleled by increasing significance of schools providing an opportunity to continue education. A non-gradual change occurred in the mid-1990s. Young people, already aspiring at university education and high social status at that time, started to enrol en masse to secondary schools providing general education. Basic vocational schools, perceived to offer poor preparation for the demands of the new labour market and socially degrading, began to disappear as a result of grassroots initiatives, then as a consequence of the reforms. They were replaced by general secondary schools which were to give as many young people as possible a possibility of university education and good social standing. At that time it was a daunting challenge – general secondary schools took in young people from social circles that lacked experience of investing in education, although deeply believing in the magical power of a diploma. The surveys show that such schools have mostly offered “mirages” from the outset: illusions of a good school and good investment for the future. 1 Also the results of external examinations, organised from 2002 based on the same rules in each school, helped to bring to light this situation. It appeared that many secondary schools were closer in the level of knowledge demonstrated by their students to basic vocational schools than “typical” general 1 J. Domalewski, P. Mikiewicz, Młodzież w zreformowanym systemie szkolnym [Young people in the reformed school system], Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development at the Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN), Warsaw 2004. 91
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Education and new challenges - Raport Polska 2030

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