Some Problems of Vocational Higher Education in Poland

Abstract

The author - who holds the position of the Director of The Department of Science and Higher Education in the Ministry of National Education - derives the assumptions certifying the concept of the higher vocational education sector establishing, out of the generally depicted situation of the higher education in Poland and the assumptions of the Ministerial program, which has been implemented since 1990. Also, he analyses the rationality of the concerns and objections of the faction of the academic community, reluctant toward this concept. The unique demographic situation in Poland, which is characterized by the positive value of the demographic rate, until 2003 constitutes the ground for the statement, that meeting of the assumed pace of the schooling ratio growth, through developing of one only sector of the higher education-i.e. academic, is not possible, due to, among others, the number of teaching staff and the quantity as well as quality of the material facilities of the higher education institutions. The economic aspect of the problem is determined by yearly expenditures per one student, these expenditures are proportional to the length of the schooling cycle. The article is closed by the presentation of the principal assumptions directing the work of the Ministry on the project of the law on the higher vocational education. According to the author, the tendency for widening - as compared with the present law - the autonomy and flexibility of higher education institutions, with regard to organization and financial activities, accompanied by the enhanced elements of control over the quality and appropriateness of the education process, is reflected by the proposed law.