EN
According to contemporary concepts of regional growth, the most important factors of socio-economic development are the quality of human resources and their ability to cooperate. Especially education and constant skills development are important factors and generators of growth in the regions and the country. The experience of economically developed countries show that the economic successes, the high rank of these countries in the world market and the competitiveness increasingly depend on the level of public knowledge and the ability to create and use technical, economic, information, etc., knowledge in the economic terms. In the process of globalization, the quality of human factor plays larger role and regions take over the role of the state more or less. Among the factors influencing the competitiveness of the regions first of all are: - supply of skilled workpower, - opportunities for learning in the region, - demand for a highly skilled work, - certain number of skilled workers willing to improve their skills, - availability of research centres, - quality of education institutions. The main purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between education and socio-economic growth on the case study of West Pomerania. The article discusses: - contemporary growth factors; - education and related factors: the level of education, the impact of education on human and social capital, innovation and discovery, culture and socio- -economic growth; - education and development: on a case study example of structural changes in Western Pomerania, - conclusions and recommendations.