Polish universities point way forward
The Times reported today that a Polish university is opening a branch in Shepherd’s Bush, in west London. This is a marvellous development, allowing young Polish people to develop skills that will get them off the bottom of the wage ladder and encouraging them to settle down here. It is also another step forward in the emergence of a truly globalised education system.
However, I did also notice this, too:
The Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz [sic.] has about 20,000 students, many of whom study part-time. It is one of about 300 private universities and was ranked 15th by Newsweek Poland last year.
300 private universities!? And that’s after just 15 years of them being legal. The United Kingdom has one. It just goes to show that, despite five decades of oppression at the hands of the Nazis and the Soviet Union, the Polish people’s individualism and entrepreneurism was only incubated, and has flourished since the fall of the Iron Curtain. If that’s the way Poles do it, we need more, not fewer, Poles over here.
Categories: London, Poland, universities
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Paul Marks said,
August 9, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
There was one private university in Poland even under the Communists - the Roman Catholic university in Cracow (of Krakow if you prefer).
Even Stalin did not try and enforce collectivization on Poland (as he did in Bulgaria and other lands), inspite of all its faults “Poland has not yet perished”.
Perhaps one day it will free itself from the E.U. and be an independent nation.