| dc.description.abstract | After 1989 in Poland, the only area of social life which did not experience major shock and
rapid change was the Polish educational system. The new authorities, busy carrying out
economic and then social reforms, did not push rapid curriculum, organizational and staff
changes as they did not want to open a new field of social conflict.
After 1944, the authorities in Poland treated education as a tool of their rule. The educational
system was used to control the social structure as part of the policy known as the „equalization
of social opportunities”. The authorities made Marxism-Leninism the basis of the great social
reconstruction program both in its economic and social assumptions and its outlook. Out of
the 14 ministers of education during the communist period, 5 had the titles of professors in
various specialties, and all were the party activists. Matters of education were the subject
of disputes and decisions of the following Communist Party congresses, Central Committee
plenary sessions as well as Central Committee Department of Science and Education. The
resulting projects were then sent to the Bureau of the Government, and then to the Parliament,
which usually passed the relevant bills unanimously
Ideological pressure diminished in the school from the early 1980s as a result of an increasing
conflict between the authorities and the society. Concern about an inadequate educational
impact of school was one of the conclusions in the last report on the state of education in the
communist Poland. On the other hand, raising the question about the educational success of
school is the question of who in Poland led to the democratic political transformations. | en |
