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March 04, 2007
Polish Universities Finally Getting With The Programme
Pay attention class. Up till now the primary degree in Poland was not a BA but an MA. This takes five years of study and is awarded on submission of an MA thesis. After the MA you can go on to do a PhD – also by research – and then a “habilitacja.” The consequences of this appalling system of education are to be seen at every step in Poland. Buildings fall down, doctors cut off the wrong leg, historians mix up dates, lawyers become ministers for justice… You can’t get a decent plumber for love or money. But all that is to change. The Polish higher educational system is about to be overhauled in order to – all together now – “bring it into line with Europe.” Dziennik (March 2nd) explains. From now on you will start with a three-year primary degree – just like in the west – and go on to do a two-year MA, if you want (read: if you can afford it). “As a result,” the (unnamed) reporter observes, “diplomas awarded by Polish universities will be accepted in all of Europe.” This no doubt will come as a great relief to Leszek Kołakowski (Berkeley, Oxford, Chicago), Zygmunt Bauman (University of Leeds) and maybe even Stanisław Barańczak over in Harvard.
As a matter of fact, in recent years something called a “licencjat” has crept in to Poland under cover of the Bologna treaty. This takes three years (often part-time, by some miracle of accelerated learning) and is supposed to correspond to a BA. Well sometimes, perhaps, it does. As the Poles say: “różnie bywa.”
The newspaper article suggests that the thesis requirement will disappear altogether and that Poland will no longer offer MAs by research (known sometimes by fuddy-duddies as “real” MAs). Why do away with independent research and presentation of one’s results at the lower levels of university education? Former minister for education, Krystyna Łybacka is disarmingly frank: because it’s too easy now to cog your MA thesis off the internet or pay someone to write it for you. In other words: we surrender. The cheats have won.
Another exciting development in the proposed overhaul is more input from employers. They will be able to order certain courses of study from the state – theology, one supposes, Latin, morphology, Semitic languages – that kind of thing. Andrzej Malinowski, of the Confederation of Polish Employers says: “Up until now our universities have been producing the unemployed.” He is entitled to his peculiar views on the causes of unemployment but it becomes alarming when the newspaper appears to accept them uncritically. On page one we read: “Thanks to this [employers ordering state-funded university courses to suit their desire for profits] the problem of finding workers will disappear and graduates will not be forced to spend month after month searching for work.”
It need hardly be said that universities will be forced to compete with each other for state funding. One of the criteria for gaining money at the expense of other universities is adjusting courses of study to the needs of the intellect -- sorry, that should read "market."
Posted by hgrodsk at March 4, 2007 12:20 PM
Comments
Not sure what you mean when you say that there will no longer be MAs by research. Polish postgrad studies have always traditionally merged coursework and research, and there have never (or at least not in the recent past) been MAs purely by research. In this sense, the increasing scarcity - though not obliteration - of such MAs in countries like Britain and Ireland represents a move closer to the Polish system. It would be unusual if more MAs in Poland were to totally abandon elements of research, but perhaps not inappropriate in certain fields (e.g. clinical psychology, where even professional doctorates are now the order of the day in western Europe. And speaking of professional doctorates, check out the new PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester for one of the more radical examples of innovation at postgrad level: http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/cnw/postgraduatestudy/research/. Coo, imagine having Martin Amis as your supervisor...) What's happening in Poland is just a symptom of the provision of tertiary education on a much bigger scale than previously (I'm avoiding the word democratisation as I agree with you that it's coming at a financial cost to parents). This is bringing with it a vocationalisation which is sorely needed in certain disciplines and Poles are right to worry about the current trend of universities producing highly qualified but unemployable graduates, the percentage of which in Poland is significantly higher than it is in other EU states. Yes there are problems with Bologna (check out the Black Book of the Bologna Process at http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/Docs/02-ESIB/0505_ESIB_blackbook.pdf) but there are far bigger problems (imho) with Polish implementation of same, with it being used as a political tool to reinforce hierarchical buraucracies (the trickle down effect from administration to academics being, in my experience, far more minimal than it has been in Britain and Ireland). Yet I'd be cautiously optimistic about these idiosyncracies in national implementation being remedied in the medium term, pending changes in the political climate. I'm less optimistic about changes taking place in fields like learning innovation at grass roots level, changes which will be necessary for the upgrading (NB not introduction) of licencjaty to their comparable BA level in Western Europe from their current pedagogical status of 'zajęcia kursowe' (in opposition to the more prestigious 'zajęcia autorskie' of magister studies, a dichotomy which I would say is hugely damaging though ingrained in the Polish academic psyche).
Posted by: jk at March 5, 2007 09:31 AM
So the university system will fall in line with the rest of the western world and produce people who can be productive in society as opposed to the huge number of "magistrow" who are still are nithing more than dreamers and hang out in the coffee shops around campuses and argue over esoteric issues. An engineer or a nurse do not need a Masters to work, this will shorten their time sucking resources from the state and add two years of productive work and tax payments. Where is the problem people?
Posted by: Jacek Pietrowski at April 15, 2007 04:35 PM