Academic standards eroding. An attempted diagnosis

• Authors: Brzezinski J.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

This article takes up the issue of deteriorating standards in scholarly and teaching work as prevailing in the present-day university, or academic milieu. The topic is analysed against the background of the transformations taking place in Polish tertiary schooling - commencing with the adoption of the Tertiary Education Act (Ustawa o szkolnictwie wyzszym) dated 12th September 1990, as an important caesura separating the era of what was the 'People's Republic of Poland' and the time of an emerging Third Republic.The rapid transition, also observable in the tertiary education sphere, had to exert, and has indeed exerted, a destructive impact on the standards governing the university life, in its various aspects (a trend which has coexisted with threads of positive influence). These various aspects encompass academic promotions, teaching standards, impacts exerted by masters modelling their students' and young university teachers' personalities, or, good customs and habits in university life. The author has pointed out to several sources of the disturbing phenomenon in question. No deeply thought-over scientific and educational policies of the State, along with the imperfect legislation which is full of gaps, and, scarce funds being chronically offered to both spheres, are among the main, albeit external, sources of the milieu's observable irregularities. No uniform law on science and tertiary education has as yet been enacted in Poland to regulate the operation of the sphere of sciences (the latter being created in three sectors: tertiary schools - both public and non-public, Polish Academy of Sciences institutes, and research and development units). The author also enumerates the disturbing phenomenon's internal sources. Those relate to: (a) progressing depreciation of educating standards; (b) abuses (such as frauds or plagiarisms) committed by researchers in the area of science; (c) attempts made by certain PhD holders to qualify themselves as an assistant professor in the former USSR countries (basing on the so-called Prague Convention which remained valid in Poland until 2004). As to the latter case, the degrees obtained in certain sociological/humanities disciplines, such as e.g. pedagogics or psychology, represented a standard clearly lower than that offered in Poland, the promotion procedure itself being much facilitated; (d) scholars having their works published in local journals or collections, thus avoiding an opportunity to submit themselves to a severer scientific criticism; (e) too-easy conditions of getting promoted as a scientist, particularly to a PhD degree; (f) retarding scientists' promotions, due to a too-high average age at which one can be promoted to become a doctor, assistant professor or professor; (g) the context of teaching being separated from the one of making scientific research.

Keywords

EN

EDUCATION; SCHOLARSHIP

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Teksty Drugie (Second Texts)
• Year: 2006
• Issue: 1/2(97/98)
• Pages: 9-39
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Brzezinski J.

• J. Brzezinski, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, Instytut Psychologii, ul. Szamarzewskiego 89, 60-568 Poznan, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06PLAAAA01383092