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Yesterday Gazeta Wyborcza announced plans by the government to stop paying for students to do two degrees – one’s your limit. Today’s paper lets the cat well and truly out of the bag. There’s an interview with professor Kazimierz Stępień, chairman of the Rada Nauki (Education Council, more or less) at the Ministry for Privatising Education. He says quite openly (that is to say: he doesn’t hide behind childish arguments like “free education is a myth,” a headline in last week’s newspaper) that the constitutional guarantee of free studies should be abolished (“konstytucyjny zapis o bezpłatnych studiach powinien być zniesiony”). But wait – what’s this – oh he does go for the childish argument: “Studiów bezpłatnych nie ma, ponieważ płaci za nie całe społeczeństwo” (There is no such thing as free education because society as a whole pays for it). It’s depressing that such a weak argument can be made (and made repeatedly) in serious newspapers. Aside from the government’s desire to exclude poor people from university education, there is the question of when Gazeta Wyborcza is going to wise up to all this. It’s quite alright to have ago at the poor, the sick, the old and the working classes but university educated people…? They’re the ones who buy the newspaper. If you alienate them, who’s going to buy your product?

The health service was in such a jock here that they decided to have a so-called “white summit” of various interest groups – doctors, economists and so on. I can’t recall off hand the name of my representative there but anyway, they’ve come up with a plan to get the health service out of the jock. The chairman of the steering committee, Professor Marek Safjan (he’s not a politician or a doctor or a patient but a judge), has some interesting comments on the nature of the consultative process: “our document must be accepted in full or rejected in full. There is no other way.” Perhaps he hasn’t got out of the habit yet of instructing juries. Among the proposals that I must accept or reject en masse is the introduction of a symbolic fee for visiting doctors. Perhaps I should rephrase that in case children or people for whom money is no object are reading: Among the proposals that I must accept or reject en masse is the introduction of a “symbolic” fee for visiting doctors. People regularly kill each other over symbols. Another proposal I must accept or reject is that of giving people the right to pay for operations in public hospitals if they don’t want to wait their turn (more commonly known as “bribery”). Naturally you would only be allowed to skip the queue on condition that this does not happen at the cost of patients waiting in the queue. (All in today’s Gazeta Wyborcza.)

So it would seem that the white summit mountaineers have come up with the wonderful idea of formalising and legalising the existing jock.

Gazeta Wyborcza’s motto is “Nam nie jest wszystko jedno,” or “it’s not all the same to us.” The crusading force is strong in this one. There was the schools campaign (motto: the inspired “class with class”), which I am told was a nightmare of added paperwork for the teachers involved — which was nearly all of them, like it or not. Then there was (is?) the “rodzi? po ludzku” (give birth like a human being — I can’t be bothered to translate it any better than that) campaign. The new one is “Przejrzyste wybory” (transparent elections) in which they invite candidates for election to “completely of their own free will” open themselves up to the scrutiny of voters. Just as teachers completely of their own free will opened up their classrooms to the nosey parkers of their local newspapers.

GW’s faith in the efficacy of electoral politics is touching. Doing something more constructive than pestering your local bribe-taker with questions about the traffic jams on the road outside your house is not quite so indulgently viewed. At the moment Greek school teachers are out on strike and have been joined by their pupils. The teachers want more pay; the pupils want easier access to universities; students are unhappy with the favouritism shown by the government to private universities. Today’s paper describes Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis as a conservative — not a populist, even though he is reneging on a promise to raise the share of GDP spent on education to a princely 5%. If “populist” means anything, surely it means someone who makes promises not intended to be kept.* Reading between the lines of GW’s report today (by Jacek Pawlicki) it is clear that Greek teachers, pupils and students are joining in a concerted effort to (re-)build what Poles call a “solidarne pa?stwo,” a state based on solidarity. But they’re doing it all wrong. Pawlicki warns that patience with the strikers is wearing thin: parents are “furious” at teachers for using children in the struggle (just as the gutter press and Dziennik were furious at doctors during the recent strike here). Pawlicki’s article contains two direct quotes. One is, inevitably, from Kostas Karamanlis himself. The other is from a blogger who thinks the teachers deserve a kick up the arse for daring to look for more money.

The share of Greek GDP spent on education is kept low so that, among other things, state universities have a shortage of places, driving students into private diploma factories. This is what is happening in Poland now but the Poles are too cowed to do anything more than stump up the exorbitant fees, emigrate, or join in petty media campaigns to paper over the fissures in society. Those with some spirit left in them, like the miners and doctors, who realise that just just because Poland is a democracy doesn’t mean you don’t have to fight for your rights, are routinely denigrated in the quality papers.

Greek Indymedia (in English).

* “Chcesz cukierka, id? do Gierka,” they used to say when the target was not capitalism (it means “if you want a sweetie, ask [first secretary] Gierek”.)

From Friday’s Rzeczpospolita, a national daily paper in Poland: A front page article by Marcin Czeka?ski about the detrimental effects of the government’s disarray. It seems that many key posts have not been filled yet. There is no treasury minister, for example. And then this gem:

“Privatisation is limping. PiS [the near-winners of the elections] has not sold a single firm of any size. Even though the privatisation plans of the previous government are still binding, they [the current government] are not carrying them out.”

It would appear to go without saying - literally without saying - that privatisation is a good thing (the article is clearly about the bad effects of the current situation). Privatisation is not presented here (a long way from the opinion section) as an economic policy with merits and demerits. It may indeed be a wise policy for Poland to follow but is that not a judgement one must make and defend with - oh, I don’t know - “facts”, “evidence”? You could argue that the absence of a treasury minister should also be presented more neutrally, not as an unquestionably bad thing. You would be right. A rudderless Poland is not necessarily a bad thing when people like Giertych and Lepper are itching to take control.

And since when were governments bound by the decisions of previous governments? If that is the case why have elections to change governments?

Rzeczpospolita, however, is only trotting after Gazeta wyborcza, whose pompousness seems inversely proportional to its decline in intellectual standards. Here’s a typically arrogant headline from Monday the 23rd. The story concerns modern architecture:

Poles still fear contrast. In Poland there is still little modern architecture built into the historic fabric. Even moderately extravagant projects can cause a good deal of confusion - is it fear of the new or a dictatorship of conservationists?

The poor benighted people are “confused” by extravagant intrusions of concrete and glass into medieval streets. And what causes this? Well, the sub editor allows only two possibilities - fear and dictatorship.