Number of officer recruits to be radically cut as part of army reforms

This year, and probably next year, officer training academies (with the exception of the naval academy) will not accept new officer recruits, as for the next two years the army only needs around 200 cadets a year. The number of soldiers is to be slashed to 150,000. In the future, military forces will need only 750 officers a year. "Nowadays 4,000 officers are trained each year at a cost zl. 800 million," said the director of human resources in the Defense Ministry gen. Zbigniew Jablonski, during a presentation of reforms to the military. The reforms assume, among others, that academies will be reduced from 19 to 13, with The Military Medical Academy merging with Medical Academy in Lodz. The reforms will be completed in 2008. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 8) K.S.