Building a New Society and Economy: High Participation Higher Education in Poland

Abstract

This chapter provides a detailed and extensive assessment of Poland’s high participation system (HPS) of higher education. In contrast with other country cases, Poland’s leap from elite to mass to HPS higher education occurred very quickly, in two decades, after the breakdown of the socialist bloc. The Polish system first experienced both expansion and privatization, which then gave way to the opposite trends of contraction and de-privatization, due to the demographic decline and strengthened governmental regulation. The chapter uses the seventeen HPS propositions to discuss this history and the drivers of massification, governance, horizontal diversity, vertical stratification, and equity issues. The propositions generally fit very well with the country case.

Students’ views about the purpose of higher education: a comparative analysis of six European countries

“…Indeed, 34.3 per cent of young people were unemployed, compared with 13.8 in the country in our sample that had the next highest rate (Ireland) (Eurostat, 2019). In Poland, such comments accorded with a more general senseevident in other parts of our datasetthat because the rate of HE participation had increased so sharply over recent years (from 10 per cent of each age cohort in 1989 to around 50 per cent currently) (Kwiek, 2018), the previously close relationship between HE and the labour market had been disrupted. We suggest that this may have informed the comments made by our focus group participants.…”

“…While European universities have traditionally served a variety of ends, some related to distinct national characteristics and priorities (Sam & van der Sijde, 2014), Slaughter and Cantwell (2012) have argued that, increasingly, the distinctiveness of national HE systems has been lost, as universities are 'reverse-engineered' around an Anglo-American model. Moreover, Moutsios (2013) has asserted that students are now positioned as consumers because of the substantive content of policies across Europefor example, that introduce high fees (Kwiek, 2018) as well as the specific ways in which students are discursively constructed within policy texts. Implicit, and sometimes explicit, in this work on changes to European higher education is the view that studentsbecause of their positioning as consumershave come to view the purpose of higher education in largely instrumental terms, concerned primarily with labour market reward.…”

European Higher Education Students: Contested Constructions

“…Our analyses of HE policies across Europe have indicated how the construction of student as 'future worker' is often dominant (Brooks, 2019), and that of student as learner frequently marginal or not evident at all (Brooks, 2018b). There are also clear contrasts with the ways in which students are often discussed in the literature, with some scholars presenting them as, first and foremost, consumers aware of their rights (Kwiek, 2018;Molesworth et al, 2009;Moutsios, 2013). The emphasis on the value of knowledge and truth, even in supposedly 'post-truth' times, evident within the students' narratives, diverges quite considerably from Williams' (2013) argument that, with respect to the UK in particular, the liberal purpose of HE (i.e.…”

“…In Estonia, Beerkens et al (2011) have argued that paid work is much more significant to students than their HE studies -largely because they believe employers view it as a more important marker of their abilities than their degree result. Although the level of student employment in Poland is similar to that in some of our other countries (Eurostudent, n.d.), the apparent belief among the population at large that a degree has low labour market value (Kwiek, 2018) may encourage students to foreground their worker identity rather than that associated with their studies. Indeed, research that has asked students (who have engaged in paid work during their studies) whether they identify primarily as a student or worker has indicated that percentage choosing the latter is high in Poland (48.4%, compared with 25% in Ireland and only 9% in Denmark) (Eurostudent, n.d.).…”

Globalny system akademicki i stratyfikująca rola badań naukowych

“…Najnowsze trendy w umasowieniu szkolnictwa wyższego i ich racjonalne uzasadnienia najlepiej pokazuje seria badań przedstawionych przez Simona Marginsona i współpracowników w ciągu ostatnich kilku lat, pozwalając globalnej społeczności badawczej zajmującej się szkolnictwem wyższym wyjść poza zarówno teoretyczny trójpodział systemów szkolnictwa wyższego Martina Trowa (1973) na systemy elitarne, masowe i powszechne (Cantwell, Marginson i Smolentseva, 2018;Marginson, 2016b;2016c), jak i inne wpływowe wyjaśnienia wzrostu i umasowienia szkolnictwa wyższego, zwłaszcza poza teorię instytucjonalną zaproponowaną przez Evana Schofera i Johna W. Meyera (2005). Światowe trendy ekspansji są badane pod kątem zarządzania, zróżnicowania poziomego, sprawiedliwości, społeczeństwa o wysokim poziomie uczestnictwa i stratyfikacji pionowej (Cantwell, Marginson i Smolentseva, 2018;Kwiek, 2018a), a przypadki konkretnych krajów obejmują Australię, Kanadę, Finlandię, Japonię, Norwegię, Polskę, Rosję i Stany Zjednoczone. Globalna ekspansja szkolnictwa wyższego, prowadząca do powstawania "systemów szkolnictwa wyższego o wysokim stopniu partycypacji" (High Participation Systems -HPS), jest w tych badaniach powiązana z rosnącym społecznym zapotrzebowaniem na pozycję społeczną.…”