Poles are one of the best-educated societies in Europe. There are 126 state higher education academies including 17 universities, 18 universities of technology, as well as 301 private schools of tertiary education. They employ over 100 thousand scientists; half of them hold a Ph.D. degree.
Two million young people currently studying at the university level make up almost half of the student age population. The education index illustrates the relation of the number of students aged 19 - 24 years old to the overall number of people of this age. For the academic year 2004/2005 it was 48% and it is rising. In 2003 the number of graduates was 366 thousand, while 2004 figure increased to 384 thousand. Studying is becoming increasingly popular among youths from smaller towns and rural areas.
Poland has a lot of gifted graduates and students of higher education institution, who constitute an excellent human resources base for businesses.
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES
Poland distinguishes itself in terms of ICT graduates, whose numbers amount to 40 thousand a year. The high standard of ICT education is backed up by the successes achieved by Polish students in international computer programming competitions. Poles are winning in the prestigious Top Coder ranking and also achieving high positions in the worldwide Google Code Jam Competition and the IBM Linux Scholars Challenge.
Polish IT specialists are much sought after abroad. Without difficulty they find employment with the largest IT companies in the world. Poles constitute a large share of managers responsible for research and development (R&D) activities in the multinational corporations such as Microsoft and Nokia. Over 300 Polish IT engineers are employed at the Silicon Valley.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Two thousand people graduate annually from university faculties providing biotechnology education. Such large number of highly qualified alumni creates the possibility of dynamic development of biotechnology sector in Poland and carrying out innovative projects. Schools teaching this particular branch of science have recognized the need to work with commercial companies. The Jagiellonian University, Agricultural University and the Polish Academy of Science have set up Maԯpolska Biotechnology Centre, which aims at attracting interest of the business world through the activities of the scientific research centres. Our scientists have the chance to achieve successes especially in genetic diagnosis, production of biologically active proteins, enzymes and insulin. In 2005 the Polish Technology Platform of Biotechnology was established. It aims to coordinate projects in research centres and to establish collaborative links with biotechnological firms.
MANAGEMENT
In April 2005 Cracow University of Economics graduates won an international management contest – EUROMANAGER in Lisbon. The idea of the contest is to manage a virtual company in simulated conditions of free market economy. Qualified teams play the role of Management Boards of companies and make complex decisions on all areas of functioning of a modern organization. Poles participated in this event for the fifth time in a row. They took over teams from France, Macau and China. The successes of Poles in this competition show that foreign investors can find well-qualified managerial staff in Poland.
KNOWLEDGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Polish students are excellently acquainted with foreign languages. Over half (55%) have achieved a good level of English language knowledge and the majority have an elementary grounding. The second language in terms of popularity amongst Polish students is German, where 13% declare good knowledge and 35% define their skills as “rather good”. The third most popular language among Polish students is Russian, 17% of them declare at least intermediate knowledge. Following on in the rank order are the Roman languages: French (10%) and Spanish (5%). (Source: Student News, www.studentnews.pl)
POLISH SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS
High level of education leads to very tangible achievements. Polish scientists are responsible for such break-troughs in science as: the discovery of the first extra solar planetary system, discovery of the practical implementation of blue laser, the design of the technology for the manufacture of the smallest synthetic diamonds in the world and even the discovery of a substance which induces cancer cells to self destruct.
Polish scientists can also take pride in other achievements such as:
- constructing an artificial heart,
- producing Polish insulin,
- designing unique scald bandages,
- designing nano-cristals for the purposes of 3G mobile telephony systems.
The quality of the Polish scientific and technical achievements is reflected by the fact that the world's largest corporations locate their R&D centres in Poland.
Source: PAIiIZ S.A., March 2006
