Education in The People's Republic of Poland - University

University

As almost all of Poland's universities, before World War II, were located in major cities, they were completely destroyed during the war. 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. Many of them were destroyed by heavy bombing, and 60% of Warsaw University was destroyed during the 1944 uprising. However, post-secondary education continued in Poland (see underground education in Poland during World War II).

Following the war, the universities were rebuilt and restructured according to Soviet model, i.e. medical, agricultural, economical, engineering and sport faculties became colleges. Theological faculties were removed from state universities, two theological colleges were created in Warsaw. 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 and colleges in Poland was almost double what it had been in 1938 (73 and 32, respectively). Among these new colleges 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.

After the war people coming from workers' or farmers' families were preferred. The system was cancelled around 1956. Later a system similar to the affirmative action was implemented, where people coming from workers' or farmers' families (pochodzenie robotniczo-chłopskie) were given preferential treatment in the university admission, usually in the form of extra points in the recruitment process given for the social class (punkty za pochodzenie). This was partially motivated by the Communists seeing the traditional intelligentsia as hostile, and trying to build a new educated class more friendly towards them. All kinds of affirmative action were abolished after the fall of communism. After 1968 student protests students had to apply for political certificates, as the result many of them lost their scholarschips.