Education in the Polish People's Republic

[citation needed] When the communist government came to power following the World War II, it reformed the education system.

It was to be free in that tuition fees would be abolished and a system of scholarships, dormitories and government assistance be put into place ensuring that every child had equal access to education.

The plan also stated that the curriculum had to be so modelled that children would gain a wide base of knowledge, learn to think for themselves, and leave school with the scientific world outlook.

The acquisition of new territory and the destruction wreaked on the country during the war meant that schools had to be built or rebuilt, and new teachers had to be trained.

The Nazi and Soviet massacre of the prewar Polish intelligentsia, and the emigration of many other intellectuals and skilled people, had left Poland severely educationally lacking.

The science of economics was also deeply affected, as communist ideology stressed that central planning was always superior to capitalism, and banned works like those of János Kornai on the shortage economy.

A large scale campaign to build hundreds of new secondary schools in rural villages, inner city areas, and on the outskirts of towns was also initiated.

In 1956, a detailed study by the Central Statistical Office declared that every single mentally and physically healthy Polish child received an education.

It introduced two years of compulsory agricultural or vocational training, officially secularized all schools and raised the minimum age of graduation from 14 to 15.

Lack of widespread industrialization in Poland at the time meant that many graduates were not guaranteed a job, and only 4.1% attended complete secondary trade schools that allowed them to move on to the university level.

In 1949, the Central Agency for Vocational Training was set up to sculpt the curriculum so that the demands of Poland's planned economy could be met.

In the same year the first two-year agricultural vocational schools were built, which offered training for rural students who wished to be farmers.

Following the war, the universities were rebuilt and restructured according to a communist model, i.e. medical, agricultural, economical, engineering and sport faculties became colleges.

The new government, as part of a plan to strengthen the Polish economy, created many new faculties across the country, including dairying, fishing, textiles, chemistry and mechanisation of agriculture, as well as new courses for Marxist economics.

This put it at fifth place in the Eastern Bloc (behind the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) and in relation to the capitalist world, behind the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia.