Lessons need to be learned

While researching the Polish education system in recent months, and doing the rounds in second-level schools, he was amazed to discover students quite proudly showing their sleeves stuffed with ściągawki, or cheat sheets.

Polish publishers have taken it a step further with some even publishing textbooks with convenient cheat sheets attached that can be ripped off and stuffed up a shirt sleeve in the blink of an eye. Poles may take this as a particularly shrewd piece of entrepreneurship, but at the risk of sounding like a stuffed shirt, it paints a worrying picture of Polish education.

Degrees and qualifications rely on the trust and authority of the institution that grants them, and a widespread acceptance of cheating will erode those qualifications, particularly abroad where few employers perusing Polish CVs will be able to tell the difference between a distinguished Polish university with decades of teaching excellence behind it, and a private profit-focused college.

A recent World Bank report on tertiary education in Poland is another cause for concern. It claims a lack of cold, hard cash is leading to sub-standard education and says the level of public funds spent per student in Poland is less than half the average level in OECD countries, and significantly lower than those in Hungary or the Czech Republic.

Lucas claimed that there were "islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity" in Polish education. Unless the new Minster for Education moves quickly too implement reforms, the same could soon become true of the system's graduates. Let's hope Minister Giertych has something clever up his sleeve, other than a stash of ściągawki.