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POLAND

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INSTITUTIONAL SETTING

There are three basic types of higher education institutions which offer Public Administration programs in Poland: universities, other public institutions without university status, and private ones, which emerged after 1990. All those types were established to educate a cadre for state and self-government administration.

  1. Krajowa Szkola Administracji Publicznej (The National School of Public Administration)
  2. The Krajowa Szkola Administracji Publicznej (KSAP, National School of Public Administration), was established in Warsaw by the Polish government in May of 1990. The school is designed to educate its students for state administration. This school is unique in that it was created with support from the first non-communistic government and organized in a very different way than previous universities in Poland. The program of KSAP is post-graduated. Now KSAP plays a dominant role in the education of officers for the highest levels of state public administration.

    KSAP offers a 19 month graduate program. In order to qualify for admission, the candidates must be under 32 years old, have completed an undergraduate program, and be eligible for employment in Polish public administration (among others, Polish citizenship). Furthermore, the candidates take a four-stage entry exam in the form of competition and must agree to serve for at least 5 years in administrative offices at the positions assigned by the Prime Minister. The program does not charge tuition. Students of the KSAP receive scholarships and are offered free accommodations in Warsaw.

  3. Universities
  4. Currently in Poland, there are thirteen higher education institutions which have university status (the fourteenth is Warminsko-Mazurski University, established in September 1999, but there is no data in this report on it). In order to earn this status, a school must have the right to award doctoral degrees (Ph.D. Habilited). These universities offer Public Administration programs primarily through their Law and Administration Faculties and/or the Political Science Faculties. These universities are at the top of the academic hierarchy. Private schools recruit their faculty from the university ranks, eleven out of thirteen Polish universities offer Public Administration programs through their Law and Administration Faculties (except Catholic University in Lublin and the just recently established University of Bialystok). There are six schools which offers specialization in social anthropology or local government systems through their Political Science Departments.

  5. Public (state) schools without university status
  6. Public higher education institutions without university status (technical, pedagogical, and schools of economics) offer limited programs in Public Administration. Schools of economics offer degrees in business administration and not public administration, even though they conduct research and teach courses from the field of public administration (for example, the Academy of Economics in Krakow, the Research Center for Public Economy and Administration). The School of Pedagogy in Olsztyn, the School of Pedagogy in Bydgoszcz, the Radom Polytechnic, and the Warsaw Polytechnic also offer Public Administration programs through their Departments of Economics or Institutes of Public Administration. The schools of Bydgoszcz, Olsztyn, and Radom currently are seeking university status, which according to Polish law can happen only if the Parliament passes the legislative act.

  7. Private schools

After 1990, in response to the high demand for higher education in Poland, many newly established private schools opened their doors. Unlike the institutions mentioned in the previous two sections, these schools are not supported by the state, but operate thanks to tuition paid by the students. Some of them have for-profit (commercial) character, mainly when they are established by private individuals or corporations. Others, usually established by local governments or charitable foundations, are non-profit institutions who must spend their profits according to their internal regulations.

In the first period after the reform of the Polish political system in 1990, newly established private schools mainly offered programs in business administration. However, currently there are 35 private schools offering programs in Public Administration and other related fields.

In summary, currently more private (35) than public (17) schools offer Public Administration programs. Annex 1 shows the list of all category schools offering such programs.

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