Turn on, tune in, drop out
The news comes in the wake of the correction of jobless figures by the Central Statistical Office (GUS) which adjusted its methodology to take account of all those who remain unemployed, even when they have not registered. The new data put an end to the statistical gimmicks of the current government, which ingeniously reduced unemployment growth by extending health benefits to unregistered unemployed people, thus reducing incentives to make the trip to an overcrowded and useless job center. The new set of figures, based on last year's general census, reveals that at least one in five Poles is out of work.
In a separate, though hardly unrelated, study, GUS revealed last week that families across the land are slashing spending on the schooling of their beloved offspring, presumably disappointed with the returns that education brings. More than one tenth of families have decided kids would do better without any textbooks.
So what - an expat reader might exclaim. Sure, the consequences may not be felt before you leave the country, in which case the whole thing may seem irrelevant to you. Still, you might want to spare a thought for your company's IT department which, in a few years time, could be staffed by workers imported from India, China or, perhaps, Burkina Faso. Not that this will be a cheaper or better option - soon it could be not so much an option, as a necessity. Even now, employers are complaining that there seem to be millions of young lawyers and management or marketing specialists - but that finding an engineer with even the slightest appreciation of the requirements of life in the business world is reminiscent of a search for the Holy Grail.
The government, to be sure, is well aware of the problem. It has, in fact, been very active in the field of education reform, or rather, in reversing the reforms initiated by the previous cabinet. From stopping the introduction of nationwide exams, which means that the only people evaluating teachers' performance will be the teachers themselves, to reversing the abolition of vocational training schools, considered to be breeding grounds of crime and delinquency, this government has done a lot to freeze the current, outdated system.
Nevertheless, Education Minister Krystyna Łybacka deserves some respect for being the only of the so-called SLD 'barons,' or heads of the party's regional organizations, to defy the prime minister's orders and refuse to relinquish her party responsibilities upon entering government. She will, perhaps, now earn Leszek Miller's gratitude, as he will be able to point to her example when defying the calls for him to resign as SLD chairman. "Look at Łybacka," the prime minister is no doubt saying to his opponents, "she can do two jobs at once. Why shouldn't I?"
Teachers should lead from the front, providing an example for others to emulate and in this, clearly, Łybacka does not fail. But other prominent SLD members are also keen to set standards for schoolchildren across the nation.
"Just because you like linguistic studies doesn't mean that you're going to run for the European Parliament," said Andrzej Ryński, head of the provincial legislature in the northeastern Warmińsko-Mazurskie region. The politician thus repelled speculation that he would be the top SLD candidate from the area, after his sensational and, evidently, ill-conceived claim to be, "reasonably fluent in two languages." That is indeed a rarity among the ruling party's European Parliamentary hopefuls, as the case of Sebastian Florek, a former Big Brother star who declared his intention to run last Tuesday, amply demonstrates. Florek treated with disdain any suggestion that learning English, to say nothing of French, might help his chances of speaking in the parliament, or even ordering drinks at the bar.
But before you heap any blame on the hapless TV star, you would do well to reflect a little. Florek is, after all, a deputy of the ruling party in this country's parliament, and has been for three years. In that time, apparently, he has had no need for strange parlance, so why should he change his ways now? His colleague, Joanna Sosnowska, famous for her championing of such causes as abortion and demands for gay rights, has also announced her plans to stand. When a cheeky journalist pointed out to her that the issues so close to her heart are strictly national matters and that the EP will not offer a venue for her favorite rants, Sosnowska fell into a trance of sorts, until finally saying she could also deal with infrastructure and high technology. "But the social issues which have made me so well-known, still turn me on," she added.
When the EP speaker Pat Cox was visiting last week, he asked Poles not to send, "54 whining old men" to Strasbourg. Well, Big Brother's Florek is hardly old, though he apparently did do a fair bit of whining on the show itself. But then again, with people with his education making it all the way to the top, there is perhaps no reason to worry about the state of our schools.
In a separate, though hardly unrelated, study, GUS revealed last week that families across the land are slashing spending on the schooling of their beloved offspring, presumably disappointed with the returns that education brings. More than one tenth of families have decided kids would do better without any textbooks.
So what - an expat reader might exclaim. Sure, the consequences may not be felt before you leave the country, in which case the whole thing may seem irrelevant to you. Still, you might want to spare a thought for your company's IT department which, in a few years time, could be staffed by workers imported from India, China or, perhaps, Burkina Faso. Not that this will be a cheaper or better option - soon it could be not so much an option, as a necessity. Even now, employers are complaining that there seem to be millions of young lawyers and management or marketing specialists - but that finding an engineer with even the slightest appreciation of the requirements of life in the business world is reminiscent of a search for the Holy Grail.
The government, to be sure, is well aware of the problem. It has, in fact, been very active in the field of education reform, or rather, in reversing the reforms initiated by the previous cabinet. From stopping the introduction of nationwide exams, which means that the only people evaluating teachers' performance will be the teachers themselves, to reversing the abolition of vocational training schools, considered to be breeding grounds of crime and delinquency, this government has done a lot to freeze the current, outdated system.
Nevertheless, Education Minister Krystyna Łybacka deserves some respect for being the only of the so-called SLD 'barons,' or heads of the party's regional organizations, to defy the prime minister's orders and refuse to relinquish her party responsibilities upon entering government. She will, perhaps, now earn Leszek Miller's gratitude, as he will be able to point to her example when defying the calls for him to resign as SLD chairman. "Look at Łybacka," the prime minister is no doubt saying to his opponents, "she can do two jobs at once. Why shouldn't I?"
Teachers should lead from the front, providing an example for others to emulate and in this, clearly, Łybacka does not fail. But other prominent SLD members are also keen to set standards for schoolchildren across the nation.
"Just because you like linguistic studies doesn't mean that you're going to run for the European Parliament," said Andrzej Ryński, head of the provincial legislature in the northeastern Warmińsko-Mazurskie region. The politician thus repelled speculation that he would be the top SLD candidate from the area, after his sensational and, evidently, ill-conceived claim to be, "reasonably fluent in two languages." That is indeed a rarity among the ruling party's European Parliamentary hopefuls, as the case of Sebastian Florek, a former Big Brother star who declared his intention to run last Tuesday, amply demonstrates. Florek treated with disdain any suggestion that learning English, to say nothing of French, might help his chances of speaking in the parliament, or even ordering drinks at the bar.
But before you heap any blame on the hapless TV star, you would do well to reflect a little. Florek is, after all, a deputy of the ruling party in this country's parliament, and has been for three years. In that time, apparently, he has had no need for strange parlance, so why should he change his ways now? His colleague, Joanna Sosnowska, famous for her championing of such causes as abortion and demands for gay rights, has also announced her plans to stand. When a cheeky journalist pointed out to her that the issues so close to her heart are strictly national matters and that the EP will not offer a venue for her favorite rants, Sosnowska fell into a trance of sorts, until finally saying she could also deal with infrastructure and high technology. "But the social issues which have made me so well-known, still turn me on," she added.
When the EP speaker Pat Cox was visiting last week, he asked Poles not to send, "54 whining old men" to Strasbourg. Well, Big Brother's Florek is hardly old, though he apparently did do a fair bit of whining on the show itself. But then again, with people with his education making it all the way to the top, there is perhaps no reason to worry about the state of our schools.
