Polska edukacja coraz lepsza?

The eyes of the football world have turned to Poland, as it plays co-host to Euro 2012.

But the country has been winning international approval for a different kind of league table success - as Poland has become one of the rising stars in education.

Among eastern European, former-Communist countries, Poland has been the biggest education success story - following modernising reforms launched at the end of the 1990s.

It has also been more successful than most countries at one of the holy grails for education reform, equality of opportunity.

Poland's schools are succeeding, more than many others, in narrowing the gap between the weak and the strong, the gifted and the challenged.

No other European country has climbed the international education tables quite so consistently as this nation, which emerged so recently from decades of totalitarian rule and economic hardship.

More for less

The most recent test results from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) show that Poland is ranked 14th for reading, ahead of the USA, Sweden, France and Germany - and well ahead of the UK in 25th.

While media attention focused on the scorching performances of Pisa chart-toppers such as regions of China and South Korea, it was Poland's success which perhaps offered the more relevant lessons to the struggling post-industrial economies of western Europe.

So what is it that Poland has been doing so well?

The OECD points out that Poland's reforms have raised performance to the same or higher levels as those of the USA and Norway, "despite spending less than half of what those countries spend on education".

But if throwing money at schools was not the answer, what is?

Dr Michal Federowicz, director of Poland's Education Research Institute in Warsaw, traces the roots of this success back to the dark years of martial law after the Solidarity era ended in 1981, when, as he put it, "educated people were suppressed".

For most of the 1980s, he said, Poland turned its back on education - so that when democracy finally arrived in 1990, a massive appetite for change in economic, cultural life was released. This soon translated into demands for better education.

Soviet curriculum

Initial reforms in the early 1990s concentrated on stripping out the ideological content of the old Soviet-influenced curriculum. But it was not until the 1999 education act that deeper structural changes were approved.

The act was radical. Poland's elementary school tier was to be reduced from eight to six years, but with a new three-year "junior high" or "gymnasium" tier tacked on, covering ages 13 to 16 years olds.

This gave all pupils a crucial extra year before having to decide on their paths into higher education or vocational training.

"The political will was there to achieve substantial changes in the quality of education and other public services," said Dr Federowicz.

"But the changes couldn't have happened without comprehensive reforms of the structure of local government itself, which resulted in more local autonomy."

Poland's former deputy minister of education and higher education, Professor Zbigniew Marciniak, identified factors beyond political and economic imperatives.

"It was the spirit of the people. The effort that parents and families put in for their kids to continue at school… society did it for us, we just created the conditions."

While decentralised decision-making was vital, government intervention was required in the poorer rural areas, as well as in formulation of nationally-standardised exams and teacher-training. (...)

Source: bbc.co.uk