Abstract
It is generally assumed that school dropout is not much of a problem in Poland. According to Eurostat (2008), the rate of early school leaving is only 5.5%, which means that only a small proportion of young people aged 18–24 have not obtained an upper secondary qualification. Rapid and wide expansion of education at the secondary and tertiary levels suggests that the quality of Polish education is high and so too is its effectiveness. This chapter presents a contrary point of view. The author will try to show the impact of educational change in contemporary Polish education, particularly in terms of social inequalities. The processes of change have led to an illusion of democratic and effective schooling but, as will be argued, the mechanical involvement of larger and larger numbers of students in education is not sufficient to overcome social inequalities or to open up opportunities to all. As will be shown, dropout (or potential dropout) is not as low as might be expected and differs according to the type of secondary education.
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Notes
- 1.
Source: Concise Statistical Yearbook of Poland, 2008
- 2.
Source: Concise Statistical Yearbook of Poland, 2008
- 3.
Without division into 2- and 3-year schools (most BVS are 3-year schools)
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Mikiewicz, P. (2011). School Dropout in Secondary Education: The Case of Poland. In: Lamb, S., Markussen, E., Teese, R., Polesel, J., Sandberg, N. (eds) School Dropout and Completion. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9763-7_9
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