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The purpose of the mock exams taken last week by school leavers around Poland is to create the conditions of the real thing as closely as possible so the little darlings will be ready for the big day. Well, they certainly succeeded in keeping it real, in preparing children for the tough, hard future - not only of the actual exam but of life after school:

Some head teachers held the exams early. The questions therefore found their way onto the internet allowing half the pupils to cheat their mocks, just like the real thing.

… for the failure to post any of the deluge of comments over the last few months. This was due to a combination of spam and technical incompetence: in blocking spam to one post I somehow disabled all commenting. Your comments are now up on the relevant pages but I’ll post a few replies of sorts here. Most of it will mean little or nothing to you, I’m afraid, but it’s the internet and paper is cheap.

It’s true: a PESEL is not a social security number except in the sense that in many countries your social security number is the only numerical identifier you have. A PESEL is only that: a numerical identifier. In general it’s always a mistake to volunteer more information than you are asked for by bureaucrats.

I’m afraid I’m going to cop out of the post on the abolition of MA theses: it turned out that the proposals reported in the Dziennik were “only” proposals and ministry officials hastened to say so when the whole establishment kicked up stink about the changes. They were just leaking/floating another scheme.

Something similar happened when Giertych announced the changes to the reading list for school children. Poland laughed and they wheeled out some ministry flunky to say they were only “proposals.” In this case, though, I understand a lot of the proposals were enacted. To speak of “MAs by research” was a bit sloppy on my part. The hitherto primary academic degree in Poland is called a “magister” and includes a thesis but there is of course a very large taught component.

It’s good to hear from you Damo. Who knows the primesidents’ precise motives for introducing the vetting procedure? I’m tempted to say that it’s less about eliminating the left than personal spitefulness and score-settling. I admit it’s a bit pop-psychological to lay the blame for government policy in a 35 million strong, functioning democracy at the feet of the personalities of its primesident but it’s just a feeling I have. There is no left left in Poland.

I write Health Care Bingo drunk. It’s a provocation and I don’t really think Poles are too mean to pay for a proper public health care service but– wait a minute. I do think they’re too mean to pay for it out of central taxation. Why else are there only varying shades of right wing parties in the country? And I’m sober now.

It’s the time of year when Polish schoolchildren don suits and take school leaving exams, wrestling with the incompetence of Poland’s Ministry for Education bureaucrats. The reason they dress up like Little Lord Fauntleroys is that until very recently their own teachers examined them and pronounced them fit or unfit for further education, imprisonment, poverty or what-have-you. The whole idea of meritocracy is new to the Poles and only recently did they hit on the revolutionary idea of making final school examinations anonymous. I managed to sneak a peak at the instructions for school leavers and while I will not attempt to describe the intricacies of the instructions on how correctly to fill in the inevitable attendant paperwork I will say that anyone who does it correctly deserves to pass. One example of inept bureaucracy springs out from the page: pupils are required to fill in their PESEL (social security) number. The PESEL starts off with your date of birth so anonymity is straight away under threat, especially since there are also codes to be filled in that identify the school. (Data protection is also something of a novelty here: within days of getting a mobile phone, for instance, you will start receiving junk text messages.) Way down at the bottom of the form there is another field for the pupil to fill in: date of birth…

True story: an Irish friend of mine went to the bank in Gdańsk for a loan. Everything went swimmingly until it was time to type in his PESEL, the Polish equivalent of a social security number. My friend only had his Irish number. “How many digits?” asked the clerk. “Nine.” “I’m sorry, it has to have 11 or the computer won’t accept it.” There is no formal-legal requirement to have a PESEL, but the computer says no.

Similarly, in parts of Poland it is necessary to register with the labour exchange as “homeless” in order to get access to jobs on offer from outside the administrative district where your home is…