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FIGURE 38. The educational system (U/OU) (chart)
Numerous efforts from 1950 to 1956 to bring organization and curriculum closer to Soviet models seriously reduced the quality of education of all levels. Thereafter the attempts of the Gomulka regime to place emphasis on qualitative improvements consistent with what it regarded as minimum ideological criteria suffered from periodic setbacks primarily as a result of the tendency of the system toward ideological backsliding. The major educational reform of July 1961 affected primarily the elementary and secondary school system and attempted to ensure greater internal continuity. Similar to measures instituted in other Eastern European [illegible] saw (which was gradually implemented between 1963 and 1968) extended the length of compulsory schooling by 1 year. Elementary schools were expanded from seven to eight grades, and some courses in secondary schools were shortened from 5 to 4 years. By 1968, over 96% of all elementary school children attended schools with a full 8-year syllabus.
Higher education bore the brunt of the 1968 reforms, which were undertaken by Gomulka largely as a reflex action to the university student disturbances in March of that year. These changes represented in March of that year. These changes represented another attempt at reinvigorating ideological indoctrination in higher education, reducing the autonomy of university "chairs," and putting new stress on the preferential selection of students with worker and peasant background. Except for the organizational shifts, these changes have again been largely nullified by simple noncompliance or impracticability. (Discussed further below, under Higher Education). The organization of the overall educational system is shown in Figure 38.
The study undertaken by the government leading toward eventual reform of the educational system was begun by the Gierek regime in January 1971 with the creation of a Committee of Experts, reporting directly to the government. The committee works integrally with the Polish Academy of Science's Committee for Research and Prognoses, which is officially dubbed Poland 2000 because it is tasked with drafting multitudinous proposals for the economic, social, scientific, educational, and sociopolitical development of the country up to the year 2000 and beyond.
The work of the Committee of Experts on educational reform has been laid out in several phases. Its initial report, presented for professional review and discussion in late 1972, concerns primarily, though not exclusively, draft plans for the further standardization of curriculums in elementary and secondary education. Subsequent phases of the study are slated to include some organizational changes, long-range expansion plans, and detailed correlations between demographical projections, economic development, and educational needs. After a "public discussion," the initial proposals are to be submitted to parliament to be put into law. Realistically, however, whatever reforms are approved will probably not begin to be implemented before 1974; in mid-1972 the Minister of Education and Training stated that implementation depended on the general progress of other developmental plans subsumed in the work of the Poland 2000 committee.
Published discussions of the scheduled educational reforms have not been adequate to determine the basic intent of the Gierek regime. Unofficial comment, however, focusing on an analysis of the general shortcomings of the present system, reveals the probable direction of the reformers. Teacher training, for example, is still inadequate; there is built-in
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
