Poland

Partners situated in Poland

IAC member Prof. Wojciech Zielinski The Association of Academic E-learning, Poland and Vice Chancellor for Information Systems (CIO), Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz, Polish Virtual University

Poland in a nutshell

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres making it the 69th largest country in the world and 9th in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 33rd most populous country in the world.

The establishment of a Polish state is often identified with the adoption of Christianity by its ruler Mieszko I in 966, when the state covered territory similar to that of present-day Poland. Poland became a kingdom in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by uniting to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth collapsed in 1795, and its territory was partitioned among Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Poland regained its independence in 1918 after World War I but lost it again in World War II, occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Poland lost over six million citizens in World War II, and emerged several years later as a socialist republic within the Eastern Bloc under strong Soviet influence. In 1989 communist rule was overthrown and Poland became what is constitutionally known as the "Third Polish Republic". Poland is a unitary state made up of sixteen voivodeships. Poland is also a member of the European Union, NATO and OECD.

Poland education policy

The first ‘framework’ law of the post-communist regime, the Law onHigher Education of 1990, created the broad outline of tertiary education which still pertains today. It has been updated, and hence formally superseded, by the new Framework Law of 2005. However, not all of theprovisions of the 2005 Law had yet been put into practice. The key provisions of the 1990 Act were Academic freedom: academic freedom was guaranteed to each TEI in conducting and disseminating academic research (and also in teaching and artistic creativity)

Institutional autonomy: institutions were given financial autonomy.

Internal governance: requirements for elected collegiate bodies to participate in decision-making and opportunities for decentralisation to academic subunit.

The fall of Communism has brought about many changes in Poland’s higher education system, including increased academic freedom, curricular reform, the development of more market-oriented curricula, and the emergence of a private higher education sector.

Educational system in Poland

In Poland the compulsory education lasts from the age of seven to sixteen. Education in Poland is mostly free of charge and takes place in public, co-educational schools.

At first, children are sent to the primary school. It lasts six years. They are learnt such subjects as: languages, math, music, art, history and physical education. After graduating the sixth class they are supposed to take the first serious exam, but the results of this exam don't determine what type of junior high schools the students will attend to. Then children chose the junior high school and they attend there for three years.

Educational system in Poland

Before they graduate they have to pass the final exams which is consisted of two sections: a humanistic one and a science one. At the age of sixteen they leave school and if they would like to educate further they take the exam to the secondary school.

They choose among high school, technical school or vocational school. If they are going to study at the university, they start a high school or a technical school. If they don't want to go to university, they choose the vocational. After three or four year of attending to the secondary school, most of students take Matura-exam. Before they start to study, they have to pass the entrance exam. To study at the university you are required to get the good results of Matura-exam. You will receive the Bachelor's Degree after three years of studing and present your thesis. After next two years of complementary Master-level courses you will get the Master's Degree. Of course the Master thesis is necessary. You can also choose the five-year-study, but in this case you receive only the Master Degree, you don't get the Bachelor's Degree.

Related Document: "The System of Education in Poland (PDF)", 2008, the Polish EURYDICE Unit in consultation with the experts from Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Refernet (Co-operation Fund Foundation)

Higher education

Poland had 427 HEIs in 2004/5 – compared with 97 in 1989, of which two had religious affiliations. Of these, 126 were public and 301 private (14 with religious affiliations). In other words, the post-communist period has seen a roughly 30% increase in the number of public HEIs and the creation of a very large number of private, not-for-profit institutions. On average, however, the private HEIs are much smaller in size: in 2003/4 the public institutions enrolled approximately 70% of all students and the private 30%. There remain a number of public institutions which are ‘supervised’ by ministers other than the minister for higher education.

Institutions are classified as ‘academic’, simply defined by their possession of the right to award doctoral degrees in at least one field. In 2004/5 there were 181 vocational HEIs: the rest were academic. There are numerous specialist institutions in both sectors, with specialisms in the academic sector including medicine,theology, pedagogy, technical subjects and, by far the largest group, economics/business studies. The vocational sector includes a considerable number of highly specialist vocational institutions with, again, a predominance of business studies. Only a small number of private TEIs are classified as academic: in 2003 only 5 private institutions held doctoral degree awarding powers; and indeed only one quarter were licensed to award master’s degrees.

Polish Higher Education System

The HEIs in Poland offer several proggrames of study:

• first-cycle programmes (3-4 yrs): undergraduate programmes providing knowledge and skills in a specific area of study, preparing for work in a specific profession, and leading to the degree of professional licentiate (BA) or engineer (BSc/BEng);

• second-cycle programmes (4.5-6 yrs): graduate programmes providing specialist knowledge in a specific area of study as well as preparing for creative work in a specific profession, and leading to the degree of master (MA) or an equivalent degree

• third-cycle programmes (3-4 yrs) doctoral programmes open to applicants holding the degree of MA or an equivalent degree , providing advanced knowledge in a specific area or discipline of science, preparing for independent research and creative activity, and for the award of the academicdegree of doctor (PhD);

• non-degree prostgraduate programmes: programmes other than degree programmes or doctoral programmes which are designed for holders of a HE diploma.

The HE courses are run in a full-time or part-time mode.

There are two types of higher education institution:

• university-type HEIs offering studies in the humanities, sciences, medical sciences, economics, pedagogy, the arts, and military studies;
• professional HEIs which educate students in specific professional areas and prepare them for practicing a profession.

Professional Degrees Awarded to HEI Graduates in Poland

The following degrees are offer on completrion of the particular courses:

• licentiate (BA) – a degree obtained on completion of a professional higher education course lasting 3-3.5 years;
• engineer (BSc/BEng) - a degree obtained on completion of a professional higher education course in a field of engineering, agriculture or economics, lasting 3.5 – 4 years;
• master (MA) - and equivalent degrees: master of arts, master of engineering, master of engineering – architect, physician, dentist-physician, veterinary physician – awarded on completion of 5-6 years’ continuous master’s studies. Another way? to obtain a master’s degree is to complete a 2-2.5- year postgraduate master’s course for holders of a higher professional education diploma.

To obtain these professional degrees a student must pass performance assessment for each of the subjects and practical training assignments on his or her curriculum, present and defend his or her diploma dissertation and pass the diploma examination.

A HEI graduate receives a diploma of completion of studies in a given field of study, three copies of the diploma and – at his or her request – a copy of the diploma translated into a foreign language.

Graduates who continue education at doctoral courses or pursue research can work towards the following academic degrees:

• doctor (PhD) : a degree awarded to one who passed doctoral examinations and proposed and successfully defended a doctoral dissertation [project?]. Those wishing to work for the academic degree of doctor must hold a professional degree of master or an equivalent degree;
• habilitated doctor this degree is awarded to candidates who hold a doctor's degree, have important academic or artistic achievements, have proposed a habilitation dissertation and successfully completed the habilitation procedure.

Professor (Prof) is an academic degree awarded by the President of the Republic of Poland.

Study Course Structure and the Academic Year

The academic year consists of thirty weeks of study, with about thirty tuition hours per week, and is split between two semesters:

• the winter semester (from October 1st to around February 15th of the next calendar year) covers fifteen weeks of study and the winter examination period;
• the summer semester (from around February 16th to September 30th) covers fifteen weeks of study and the summer examination period;

Some courses require students to complete a placement, which normally takes place during the summer holidays.

Each HEI sets its own schedule of academic year. Tuition is conducted in the form of lectures, classes, seminars, laboratory classes and roundtable sessions. The student’s rights and duties with regard to the course of study are laid down in a given HEI’s Study Rules.

Assessment

Students sit examinations separately in each subject. A performance assessment period covers either one semester or one academic year. To successfully complete a semester (or a year) a student must receive 'pass' in all assessments and examinations in the subjects covered by his or her curriculum and to obtain performance assessment credits for all integrated placements on his or her curriculum.

Each HEI identifies its grading scale in its Study Rules. The most common is four-point system with '+' and '-' marks. The four grades are as follows:

• distinction (5)
• merit (4)
• pass(3)
• fail (2).

In addition to this grading scale Polish HEIs have been phasing in the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) under which a certain number of credits is allocated to a given subject, independently of marks awarded. Depending on a subject, passing a performance assessment can earn the student from 2 to 12-14 ECTS credits. On passing an examination the student should request that this be put on his or her record together with the credits awarded. To complete successfully a year or a semester a student must collect, respectively, 30 or 60 credits. With the ECTS system in place, more and more Polish students can do part of their studies at foreign higher education institutions. Also, ECTS credits allow foreign students’ periods of study at Polish HEIs to be recognized.

Present times in education

As of 2001 there were 1,224,600 students enrolled in the publicly funded universities and colleges. In the private universities and colleges there were 519,100 students. This number has quadrupled over previous enrollment figures. This rise in the rate of enrollment in higher education strongly influences the qualification level of the youngest age group making up the workforce.

Considering that an individual's active life lasts about forty years, more time is needed to raise the level of adult education. In a 1995 census 6.8% of the Polish population have higher education.

Future of Poland Education system

By 2010 Poland is hoping that the number of people enrolled in higher education should rise 35-40% and 40-45% in 2020. These increases will raise new challenges for higher education in regards to its accessibility, particularly for the inhabitants of villages and small towns. Ideally Poland wants to decrease the differences in the level of civilization between the country regions and the various social groups. With the spreading effects of the metropolises, the situating of universities and colleges in the medium-sized cities offers a chance to establish education centers of high quality and the possibility of creating innovative processes. The large well-equipped private higher education institutions with increasingly stable staffs are expected to prosper.

Higher education reform

The Bologna Process

The impact of the Bologna Declaration on education in Poland made the diploma supplement mandatory for all diplomas in Poland. Polish universities then pushed for the European Credit Transfer System which was a quality assessment and accreditation program. There had been no official national system of credit transfer and accumulation in Poland previously. Therefore; a credit-point system was introduced for particular specialization.

The promotion of mobility had a goal to reach 10 percent. The obstacle in student mobility is differences in the organization of the academic year in European countries. The number of students coming to Poland is about 10 times lower than other countries and the need for other European languages was evident. Warsaw had 300 students in English and in Technical University of Lodz there were 500 students in English and French.

Administration and finance

State funding is distributed to the Polish universities according to an algorithm that is closely related to enrolments. Internally, university administrators retain approximately 30 percent of their state grants for central system functions and distribute the remaining 70 percent to their various faculties for instructional and other costs,including the maintenance of facilities. In addition, most of the public universities earn approximately 25 percent of their total operating budgets from other external sources, including tuition from part-time and continuing education programs. External income is divided between the central administration and the relevant faculties at most universities by the same 30/70 basis. Under these circumstances, individual faculties and departments operate on one-line budgets and may carry forward savings from the current year to future years Research funding is awarded on a competitive basis.

Although the underlying legal guarantee of free education legal continues to constrain Polish universities in the diversification of revenue through the imposition of tuition and fees, there are exceptions and loopholes. Under the 1999 Act on Higher Education, a fee, not to exceed 10 percent of an average monthly salary, was authorized to pay for the verification of knowledge, the certification of qualifications, and for some “extra services.” In addition, the revised Framework Law allows State-owned higher education institutions, beginning in November 2000, to request tuition fees for selected study programs such as evening and extramural studies.

Quality assurance

On September 3, 1999, a revised higher education framework law was presented to the Executive Committee of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP).It also created a new body, the Academic Accreditation Committee (AAC), to set educational standards and assess the quality of education in all institutions. In particular, the AAC reviews applications for the establishment and operation of new HE institutions and applications for launching new study programs at existing institutions.

The European co-operation in quality assurance, Poland is trying to solve the problem of quality and accreditation in a highly professional way. The process of accreditation of study programs at Polish higher education institutions has been significantly accelerated. There are 2 faces: the state-controlled accreditation and the academic community-owned accreditation. For Poland, belonging to the European family is very important they do not want to be disseminated in Poland. For them, lifelong learning and promoting the European higher education area is their primary concern, they also believe that the European higher education area is best promoted by following the Bologna Declaration priorities and does not need any further comments.

Poland's HEIs in the information society

Towards the information society

E-learning training classes in Poland are steadily gaining in popularity. The willingness and necessity to raise qualifications are making this form of studying more appealing. In order to address those needs, many Polish universities have opened studies over the Internet. The current Higher Education Act allows conducting 70% of all the classes over the Internet

Currently more and more universities, both publicly owned and private ones adopted various e-learning models to support theirs education processes. There is a big variety in scope of the implementations and complexity of ICT used, starting from online repositories of education resources up to dedicated systems supporting education process at each level.

E-learning is also becoming popular with Polish managers. In early 2007, almost two thirds of them declared that this form of learning would be the most common form of raising qualifications in Polish companies. The main reasons for choosing e-Learning are the lower total cost, shorter course duration and savings associated with the elimination of travel costs.

Source: http://poland.gov.pl/e-Learning,2642.html

eLearning Policy in Poland The fact that eLearning is becoming more popular in Poland Higher Education Area is also reflected in different policy documents:

ePoland - Strategy on development of the Information Society in Poland for the years 2004-2006

Strategy on the development of continuing learning in Poland until 2010 (Ministry of National Education (Poland) Ministry of National Education and Sport). One of the priority areas of the document "improvement of the quality of continuing learning" provides for several tasks related to distance learning and eLearning, in particular the preparation of curricula and didactics for distance learning.

Sectoral strategy on development of eLearning proposed by the Ministry of National Education and Sport. Its content is based on the ePoland strategy as well as other sectoral programmes (eGovernment, eHealth and eCommerce) and basically mirrors its provisions.

The Sectoral Operational Programme - Improvement of the Competitiveness of Enterprises (SOP-ICE).

Information society strategy

The choice of VLE

a)Self-developed platforms – it was quite common a few years ago that universities started to develop own solutions instead of purchasing costly commercial ones. However due to the need for continuous investment in self-developed platform to follow new standards,decreasing prices of commercial solutions, appearance and popularization of open source platforms (e.g. Moodle) only few universities still continue to develop own platform.

b) Open source platforms – quite popular in Poland is Moodle, that can be easily adapted to theparticular needs of a university. Moodle implementations however are rarely integrated with other university systems and theirs usages lack standardization and coherence between various courses.

c) Commercial platforms – 2-3 years ago commercial e-learning solutions were in most cases to expensive for universities to be used. Certainly there were some universities that managed to negotiate favorable conditions and are using commercial ones. Since 2005 the Polish platform (WBTServer) offered by 4system (www.4system.com) gained wide popularity among Polish universities due to the low price and advanced functionality. Commercial platforms usually are integrated with other university systems and its usage seems to be the most professional compared to self-developed and open source platforms.

Another interesting aspect in case of e-learning activities in Poland is the way that the content is developed. Until now majority of institutions were developing own e-learning resources. Analysis of the quality of resources shows considerable differences between them. On the several institutions could be mentioned with e- learning resources in the form of text-based files without interactivity and multimedia components. On the other hand several universities developed high quality interactive and multimedia enriched courses with the use of professional tools and coherent design templates. One of the problems in popularizing e-learning initiatives in Poland is the lack of official standards which State Accreditation Committee (SAC) could apply to evaluate e-learning training programs in order to grant accreditation. The lack of standards and widespread evaluation results in a few bad practices which slows down e-learning development. Thanks to a few successful projects there are good practices of e-learning in Polish higher education which may be used by newcomers. In order to increase the quality of the e-learning contents used at universities, the Ministry of Education organized a tender at the beginning of 2006 to develop high quality e-learning programs in the area of economics and IT. As a result several offers were accepted from various institutions/consortiums. As a result a number of e-learning courses were developed covering the whole IT and economics curriculums. The courses will be freely available to all higher education institutions in Poland, thus leading to a major breakthrough in the widespread use of e-learning in Polish higher education sector.

Virtual Campuses in HE

Interesting Virtual Campuses initiatives

The Silesian University of Technology

Distance Learning Platform is based on modular objectoriented dynamic learning environment, represents LMS (Learning Management Systems) technology, a software package designed to help educators create quality online courses. Currently on Distance Learning Platform at Silesian University of Technology are available over 520 online courses created for students of twelve University’s faculties. Number of Distance Learning Platform users exceeds 12000. Distance Learning Platform works as typically asynchronous e-learning service, but in the future more synchronous e-learning services will be added. Distance Learning Platform has great potential to create a successful e-learning experience by providing a plethora of excellent tools that can be used to enhance conventional classroom instruction, in hybrid courses, or any distance learning arrangements.

The Silesian University of Technology is a big university teaching approximately 33 000 of students. The University consists of 12 faculties which are based in Gliwice, Katowice and Zabrze. It also includes a subsidiary Engineering Education Center in Rybnik.

The Polish Virtual University (PUW)

The first virtual studies were launched in 2002 in Lodz. In 2003, the Polish Virtual University (PUW) was jointly created by the Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz and the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. In March 2007, the total number of PUW students was approximately 1100 people, including 180 from abroad.

"The Polish Virtual University (PUW) is a joint project of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz.

They offer study programmes and extension courses over the Internet. The Polish Virtual University support traditional lectures and trainings as well as promote modern teaching methods.

Warsaw University Centre for Open and Multimedia Education (COME)

Center for Open and Multimedia Education is an independent unit of Warsaw University established in order to support, promote, and organize open and distance education.Its aim is broadening accessibility to academic education and overcoming the barriers of geography and time.

COME carries out research on the utilization of modern technology in education, increasing the efficiency of instruction and enhancing the motivation of all students from all geographic and socio-economic backgrounds. Specifically, COME focuses on devising more practical methods of teaching with particular emphasis on those that make use of new information technology.

The focus of the Center for Open and Multimedia Education is to create a learning community.

NBPortal.pl

NBPportal is an education portal run by Polish National Bank. It aims at improving economic knowledge of Polish society through the use of free-of-cost online courses, glossaries, educational games and discussion forums. Pedagogical model used is based on adult educational practices, particularly on Janina E. Karney methods.

Tools used at NBPortal.pl: • Decision games based on real life situations as case study and games activities.

• General discussion forum and specialized ones, moderated by experts as well chat sessions (frequently with recognized experts, policy makers) are facilitating online discussions and brainstorming.µ

E-learning contents are carefully developed by subject matter experts, not infrequently by well known experts and policy makers. Developers paid a lot of attention to make courses interactive and with easy navigation. As a result this initiative in the first year of existence attracted 700 thousands of unique users, with 30 thousands active participants of e-learning courses.

Law & ICT Shared Virtual Campus

Baltic Sea Virtual Campus

Presentation on Baltic Sea Virtual Campus [1]

Prof. Wojciech Zielinski also offered some examples of e-learning in Poland in his article on e-Learning in Poland: experiences from higher education (EN) by Wojciech Zielinski, 2005.

References

Web sites:

1. official web site of the Polish government (and in English)
2. Ministry of National Education
3. Ministry of Science and Higher Education
4. Ministry's list of Polish universities
5. Government's web page about e-learning in Poland
6. Wikipedia's page on Poland (> Science, technology and education)
7. Wikipedia's page on Education in Poland

Documents of Relevance:

1. OECD Country Background Report for Poland (PDF), 2007 and originally from OECD (PDF)
2. OECD Reviews of Tertiary Education - Poland 2007 (PDF), 2007
3. "The System of Education in Poland (PDF)", 2008, the Polish EURYDICE Unit in consultation with the experts from Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Refernet (Co-operation Fund Foundation)
4. Polands Educational Policy http://www.gse.buffalo.edu/org/inthigheredfinance/CountryProfiles/Europe/region_Europe_Poland.pdf
5. http://promitheas.iacm.forth.gr/fe-cone/docs/national%20reports/Poland.pdf
6. PUW web page on e-learning (in Polish)
7. Easy Project's Polands eLearning Landscape (PDF)
8. An "e-learning country brief on Poland" of the eUSER project is available at http://euser-eu.org/eUSER_eLearningCountryBrief.asp?CaseID=2259&CaseTitleID=1100&MenuID=117.
9. Distance Learning Platform at Silesian University of Technology: http://icee2007.dei.uc.pt/proceedings/papers/577.pdf
10. elearning country report of Poland http://www.4e-trainer.wsb-nlu.edu.pl/files/el-report-pl-en.pdf
11. Polish Virtual University (PUW)'s English home page

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