Speaking of Poland’s economic future and the on-going generation shifts, note has to be taken of the education which young people coming of age have and will gain. These days only 11% of the country’s population aged between 45 and 60 have university-level education. In stark contrast, as many as 49% of those aged between 19 and 24 will soon enter the labour market after completing studies at schools of higher learning.
This development has to be taken into account by those responsible for Poland’s future. Aspirations of young Polish people are growing. Those who start university and college education have no intention to do manual work afterwards. Those who enthuse over motorway and housing construction projects have to realize that while young people aspire to having motorways and new homes, they have no intention to build these themselves. The young are determined to gain university level education and subsequently to pursue their careers as qualified professionals in their respective fields.
Unfortunately, out of about 2 million students in Poland, only 300,000 study the “hard” subjects of science and technology in which fields the demand for graduates is immense in an innovative economy. Yet if most of the other 1.7 million study first of all marketing and education, because these are the least expensive studies, one may ponder what innovations can be expected from these future marketing specialists and teachers?
Educated people need work based on knowledge. Young people take up studies in order to work in a knowledge-based economy. Hence it should have been the prime aim of Poland’s economic strategy to develop a knowledge-based economy for the country’s future generations. Yet instead of doing that, economic policy is being artificially juxtaposed with social policy. Yet in real fact no conflict of interests exists between the two: young people need a knowledge-based economy for work while the elderly need such an economy for services because they would be unable to cater for themselves in a globalised world without young people’s know-how. If we fail to build a knowledge-based economy in Poland, we might perhaps still construct new motorways but these will be used primarily by old pensioners travelling on bicycles because of the high petrol prices they will not afford to pay, while the young will be departing to countries where their knowledge will be appreciated.
Professor Wojciech Cellary, PhD (Eng)
Poznań University of Economics