Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology...

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Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Transcript of Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology...

Page 1: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Understanding changes in Polish higher education

dr Dominik AntonowiczInstitute of SociologyNicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Page 2: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Dynamics of higher education

Expansion of higher education

Institutional diversification of HE

Growing international and national competitiveness

Europeanization of higher education

Commercialisation of science and higher education

Page 3: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

European universities…..

Many decades of state domination have left most European universities with limited autonomy and poor systems of governance. There is a kind of drab uniformity across the sector: many institutions are struggling to cope with growing number of students and inadequate resources, delivering unaspiring teaching in dilapidated buildings.

Richard Labert and Nick Butler

Page 4: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Can we just copy and paste American system of higher education?

Page 5: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Pressure from the world society

Institutional landscape

Culture, values and norms

Mentality of people in HE

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National context does matter!

Tradition of self-governance of academic community

Strong political autonomy of the Polish universities

Pauperisation of academic community in the communist time

High status of university professors

The strong sense of higher education being a private club for academic oligarchy. Are you one of us?

Page 7: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

How can we improve higher education in Poland?

1. Increasing public accountability

2. Modernazing of working conditions

3. Adopting managerial structure of governance

4. Re-structuring of higher education (elite institutions)

5. International evaluation, assessments and benchmarking

Page 8: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

What should happen

to modernize higher education in Poland?

Who is strong enough to face all these challenges?

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Questions to be addressed:

1. Who would benefit/lose from introducing market reforms in higher education in Poland?

2. Is the central government strong enough to introduce reforms in higher education? Can we force ourselves to do more for less?

3. Do we need all of almost 120 public higher education institutions in Poland?

4. As a society, are we ready to reach a pact for higher education as it happened in some transitional countries such as South Africa.

Page 10: Understanding changes in Polish higher education dr Dominik Antonowicz Institute of Sociology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Thank you for your attention!

dr Dominik Antonowicz

Institute of Sociology

Nicolaus Copernicus University

[email protected]