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Education In The People's Republic Of PolandEducation in the People's Republic of Poland was a priority of the government, which provided primary schools, secondary schools, vocational education and universities. Education was compulsory from 7 to 15. Primary and secondary education Prior to World War II, education in Poland was limited. According to official statistics at the time, the number of children who did not attend school in the 1935/1936 school year was 600,000 out of a total of 5,143,100 children of school age. In the 1937/1938 year only 127,100 finished up to seventh grade, and only 36,400 of these students were from rural areas. All secondary schools, even public ones, charged high tuition fees that many Poles simply could not afford, meaning that only 11.1% of schoolchildren would go on past primary school. When the communist government came to power following the war, it greatly reformed the education system. In May, 1945, the Ministry of Education drew up a plan outlining an educational system based on the principles that education in Poland be free, uniform, public and compulsory, free in that tuition fees would be abolished and that a system of scholarships, dormitories and government assistance be put into place ensuring that every child had equal access to an education, uniform in that the same curriculum be taught at every school and that rural institutions be brought up to the same standard as urban ones, public in that the state would control every educational institution, and compulsory in that parents or legal guardians could be imprisoned if the children in their care did not attend school. The plan also stated that the curriculum must be modelled so that children gained a wide base of knowledge, learnt to think for themselves, and would leave school with a scientific world outlook. Though the plan was formulated in 1945, it would not be until 1947 that it would be largely put into practise. The acquisition of new territory by Poland the destruction wreaked on the country during the war meant that schools needed to be built or rebuilt, and new teachers needed to be trained. In 1948, the curriculum was altered to make communist ideology and theory more central. In addition, various sciences have been affected by the communist ideology. Many Western books and publications were decreed illegal and possession of any of them could result in fines or even imprisonment. Especially history was changed to minimise the events that could undermine the current communist government - for example, Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 was completely omitted from some history books, and the members of Polish Government in Exile, like Władysław Sikorski, were portrayed as traitors. Science of economics was also deeply affected, as commnist ideology stressed that central planning is always supperior to capitalism, and banned works like those of Josef Kornai on shortage economy. Schools were also standardised into seven year primary schools and four year secondary schools. A large scale campaign to build hundreds of new secondary schools in rural villages, in inner city areas and on the outskirts of towns was also initiated. It was hoped that this would eliminate the educational privilege richer Poles enjoyed and make the system fairer for everyone. By the 1950s, rapid urbanisation and the associated internal migration meant that fewer children were enrolling in rural schools. The 1950s also marked a massive surge in the number of teachers. In the 1948/1949 school year, there had been 79,319 teachers, and by 1962/1963 there were 156,193. Thanks to new universities being constructed around the country, these teachers were highly qualified. In order to be able to admit all children to the seven year schools outlined in 1948, a campaign to expand the schools network was undertaken. So many schools were built (4,834 new classrooms in 1956 alone) that the government could, and indeed did, pass a law mandating the distance between a child's home and their school. For students in grades one to four, a school must be within 3 kilometres of their home, and for students in grades five to seven, within 4 kilometres of their home. In 1956, a detailed study by the Central Statistical Office declared that every single mentally and physically healthy Polish child received an education. Special schools were set up for deaf, mute or blind children. Altogether, 5,650,000 students completed primary schooling in Poland between 1945 and 1963. On July 15, 1961, the Seym passed an act on the development of the educational system. This act introduced two years of compulsory agricultural or vocational training, officially secularised all schools, and raised the minimum leaving school age from 14 to 15. This reform was gradually implemented from 1962 to 1966. Vocational education In the 1920s and 1930s, vocational education did exist on a relatively adequate scale, and a fairly large number of students (110,000 in 1937/1938) attended vocational instutions. However, the standard of education was very low. Many did not have textbooks, and almost none could offer any sort of environment for students to put into practice what they had learnt. Lack of widespread industrialisation 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 university. As rapid industrialisation was one of the key communist priorities, so too were the vocational schools improved. The Ministries of Education and Industry began to set up new schools. By 1946/1947, there were 60,000 more students enrolled in vocational institutes than there had been in 1937/1938. Standardised textbooks were published en masse, the required number of hours of theory was raised to 18, and a number of new subjects, based on more modern technological skills, were introduced. In 1949, the Central Agency for Vocational Training was set up to sculpt the curricula so that the demands of Poland's planned economy could be met. Existing vocational schools were converted into prepatory vocational schools, basic trade schools that trained skilled labour and vocational secondary schools. Its task completed, the Agency was absorbed into the Ministry of Education in 1956. That same year, the first two-year agricultural vocational schools were built, which offered training for rural students who wished to be farmers. By 1962, there were three thousand of these, with 100,000 students being trained. The number of students in vocational institutions grew rapidly from the 1930s to the 1960s, with 207,529 students in 1937/1938 and 1,371,400 in 1963/1964. University Almost all of Poland's universities, having been located in major cities, were completely destroyed in World War II. Poland's German occupiers, viewing Slavs as an inferior race that were to be made into slaves, took equipment and literature from Polish universities back to Germany, and closed the buildings. Heavy bombing destroyed many, and 60% of Warsaw University was destroyed during the 1944 uprising. However, tertiary education continued in Poland, see underground education in Poland during World War II. Following the war, the universities were rebuilt. 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. Many new universities were also constructed; by 1963 the number of universities in Poland was almost double what it had been in 1938 (73 and 32, respectively). Among these new universities were ten medical schools, a type of institution unknown in prewar Poland. Poland had a considerable number of day students in its universities, an estimated 57.2 students per 10,000 people in 1964, compared to 14.4 in 1938. 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. See also Reference Balicki, Stanisław W. et al. Twenty Years of the Polish People's Republic. Warszawa Państwowe Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne, 1964.
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