Czarnecki: Education for the future should be practical

We don’t know what the labour market will look like in five, ten, or fifteen years and what specialisations will be needed. How should education deal with this challenge?

It is likely that 70% of the children who started school in September will be working in occupations that do not exist today. We need to think about what education for the future should be. I feel most comfortable describing non-public higher education. Training and education for the future should be practical. It is not the case, as has been advocated in recent years, that schools and universities are supposed to respond to the challenges of the labour market. The labour market is so dynamic, processes are occurring so quickly, new professions are being created, that we would not be able to keep up with preparing specialists in a few years of study.

It is indeed a challenge to properly prepare young people graduating from universities so that they have the competences needed in the labour market. So how to go about it?

We have to start taking education seriously and with a vision that it is education for the future. When we design undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, this should be processed in collaboration with employers. It is fundamental for the studies to be in relevant to what is happening on the market.

Programmes need to be created. They don’t have to be innovative courses; it could be psychology, management, law – in consultation with employers, who will point out possible changes that result from them practising the profession. There is a need to create an offer of practical training in cooperation with companies.

And how to go about teaching it?

Teaching should be based on three principles. First of all, the students should be conscious of the fact that they are a persons, human beings. What they do in their professional life is determined by their character. For them to know their strengths and weaknesses, they need to be taught soft skills, assertiveness, openness to other people and teamwork, including the right mindset and attitude to problem solving. We should teach innovation, creativity, and disruptive thinking. In addition, students should be taught how to seek knowledge because we need to be open to knowledge. We live in a nanosecond culture, so when we don’t have the right knowledge, we should be willing to acquire it.

The second area is related to study design. Studies prepared in collaboration with practitioners should be led by them. Theoretical classes should be taught by professors; however, they should not account for more than 20% of the syllabus. Other classes should be taught by practitioners, who will teach and show by example how to practise the profession properly.

Without the third area, modern education does not exist, and it such elements as new technologies, digitalisation, virtual reality, or artificial intelligence. The latter largely eliminates traditional laboratories. As this all is a very expensive, it requires huge financial resources.

These are the three determinants of effective education: soft skills, practitioners, and digital technologies.

You brought up the perspective from non-public higher education institutions. However, within this context, there is discussion about potential discrimination against private universities in Poland. Is there any truth to these claims?

The history of “private” universities in Poland dates back nearly as far as the oldest university in Kraków. The first private university was established in 1594 in Zamość. However, the first university in the non-public sector, as we know it today, was founded in 1991.

Undoubtedly, universities within the non-public sector face systematic discrimination. The term “private” itself carries a negative connotation, leading to a form of bias. We can also observe environmental discrimination in this regard.

What does this discrimination consist of?

Environmental discrimination is slowly dying out. In contrast, we are systemically discriminated against through legislation.

A basic example is that all levels of education in Poland – kindergartens, primary, secondary, post-secondary, and higher education – benefit from state subsidies. At the higher education level, only public universities receive subsidies for statutory activities, i.e., for functioning. Non-public universities do not receive such subsidies. They have to raise the funds themselves, which means earn the money. This is a huge plus because by doing so we are able to respond to what is happening in the socio-economic environment and create a study offer that is expected. However, this is still discrimination because we cannot compete with universities or even public academies which receive enormous funding to build infrastructure, libraries, or laboratories. For the past 10 years, no one has tried to change this despite a favourable Constitutional Court ruling in 2013, which indicated that the Ministry of Education and Science should introduce appropriate legislation to eliminate financial discrimination.

What specifically could improve the situation of private universities?

We need to initiate change gradually. For instance, at Collegium Humanum, the distribution of full-time and part-time students is 40% to 60%. Despite being a private university, we have many young individuals enrolling immediately after completing high school who are eager to pursue their studies. If the government were to support non-public universities by providing subsidies for full-time students, it would represent a significant move towards reducing the existing discrimination.