Meeting, Kraków, Poland

May 17 – 20, 2009

Leonardo da Vinci Partnership Project

2008 - 2010
“Building the Best”
2008-0012-LEO-PP-09

On Monday the 18th of May 2009, the meeting of the Leonardo da Vinci Project
“Building the Best” as written in the work schedule took place in Kraków, in
conference room of Wyspiański Hotel. Organizations represented included Järva
County Vocational Training Center – the Project Leader and Coordination
Institution, Institute for Support of Education and Entrepreneurship BONUM – the
Hosting Institution and Organizer of the meeting; Panstwowe Szkoly
Budownistwa – Poland; N.E.T Association – Italy and Wisamar GbR – Germany.
Not present was Lepido Rocco Association – Italy. Additionally local institutions
from Krakow and Malopolska region were also represented: Building Secondary
School No. 1 in Krakow by the Headmaster Andrzej Mielczarek, Practical
Training Center in Krakow by the Headmaster Marek Filipczyk and Vice
Headmaster Piotr Pasternak as well as “Budowlani” Trade Union by the Head
Andrzej Piotrowski and Vice Head Jerzy Turchan.

The BONUM Institute’s representatives, Michał Bury and Łukasz Szklarz, opened
the conference by providing an overview of the meeting’s program. The project
aims, objectives, expected results, and tasks to be accomplished during the
project were pointed by Gärt Filippov - Järva County Vocational Training Center
representative. Additionally all meeting participants introduced themselves as
well as institutions they represented.

First Guest Speaker, Andrzej Mielczarek, presented educational system of the

building/ construction secondary schools in Poland as well as the general
information about the school he represented. The Head of the Building
Secondary School talked about positive and negative sites of the current

1
educational system. The most important information from his presentation are
summarized below.

The problems in educational sector of building and construction field that are
perceived currently:
• Enrolment: demographic low and economical depression causes that less
pupils are eager to learn in vocational schools,
• Organisation: headmaster is not able to flexibly change the work sheets of
teaching hours because of imposed rules by Ministry of Education (Model
point 5); senseless vocational schools’ existence without workshops,
• Financing: the government’s idea of education voucher as a new form of
school financing; the choice between cheap subject and more expensive
but simultaneously more effective module learning,
• Staff management: low salaries means low skilled teachers (Model points
4,6),
• Vocational training: difficult cooperation with employers (limited internships
for pupils and employment opportunities for graduates) (Model points
2,6),
• New professions: listing new professions into the Ministry of Education’s
list of professions, modernization of existing professions, lobbing, conflicts
of interests,
• Market environment and competition: short vocational courses organized
by private educational institutions (also supported by employers) (Model
point 2, 6).

Reasons of planned reform in 2012, mainly:

1. Education sector needs: quality of education and implemented new
grounds of general education.
2. Domestic development: needs of Polish economy and labor market as
well as strategy of Poland’s development.
3. EU context: European projects in frame of European Social Fund, aims of
renewed Lisbon Strategy (mainly: lifelong learning), European and
domestic frames of qualifications and certification, exact given
competence during the education process (e.g. Europass) and mutual
recognizing of qualifications in EU.

The main areas of planned changes encompass:

1. Classification of vocational education professions.
2. The structure and organisation of vocational education.
3. The educational program offer.

2
 4. Development of vocational consulting and advisory.
5. System of qualification and certification.
6. Education, supplement education of teachers and improving of teachers’
skills.
7. Distance vocational education.
8. System encouraging employers to join into the vocational education
process.
9. Financing of vocational education.
10. Promotion of vocational education.

Marek Filipczyk, the second Guest Speaker, presented the tasks of Practical
Training Centers in the vocational education of building/ construction specialists
based on the example of the Practical Training Center in Krakow. He focuses of
current areas of activities of Krakow Practical Training Center as a vocational
training center, regional examination institution as well as lifelong learning centre.
He also focused on Practical Training Centre as an important factor in labor
market net of institutions like labor offices, vocational schools, companies,
chamber of commerce, city hall, local government that need to cooperate
effectively to improve the educational system, local labor market and economy
(Model points 2,3,4,5, 7). Additionally it was pointed that the offer of Practical
Training Centre is a good opportunity for people in getting high leveled vocational
training when cooperation with companies actively performing on the market is
difficult and limited.

Third Guest Speaker, Andrzej Piotrowski, showed achievements of “Budowlani”

Trade Union that he represented. From the complex analyze done by the Union’s
specialists we could know the problems existing in the building and construction
field in Poland.
Problems:
• supervisory – the lack of “middle” supervisors (building technicians) -
statistically engineers (polytechnic graduates) supervise 7 building sites
simultaneously,
• seasonality and instability of employment – young people prefer to go
abroad and get better and stable job in comparison to labor and market
domestic opportunities in construction sector,
• lack of internships’ system and connection with real companies makes the
lower level of vocational education,
• lifelong learning is not well organized (Model point 6)– unemployed,
unskilled or unqualified people cannot retrain quick when the labor market
changes, it causes that labor market in building sector is not flexible,

3
 • lack of vocational teachers (salaries are too low) is the reason of
vocational training organization problems,
• lack of good practices concerning the tutoring in companies.

Possible solutions:
• implementation of system of cooperation between school and companies
(dual system?),
• centralization of training funds (French system? – part of taxes goes to
finance the vocational practical training),
• salaries for teachers and trainers should be higher to motivate and make
this profession more attractive,
• consideration of covering costs of education by the pupils if they go
abroad in 5 years after school graduation (controversial idea),
• elimination of seasonality effect in employment by encouraging employers
to employ for a full-time.

The conference was finished with a discussion between participants. The experts
could have additional time to show their point of view concerning educational
system in building and construction field in Poland.

Second day of the Krakow meeting was devoted to visits in the Building
Secondary School No. 1 and Practical Training Centre in Krakow, the Building
Department as well cultural program which consisted of English guided tour of
Krakow center with Royal Route and Cathedral as well as the former Jewish
district Kazimierz.

Below it can be found a summary concentrating on 7 main points agreed during

the First Transnational Conference in Paide, Estonia:
1. apprenticeship system
2. level of cooperation between schools and firms
3. connection with construction unions
4. training of enterprise trainers
5. teaching materials/curriculum
6. continuing education program for teachers to gain new skills
7. feedback loop

Apprenticeship system
The vocational education is much more expensive for government than general
education. This is the reason why the number of hours of practical training is
limited. The less hours of practical training the lower level of vocational
education. First solution is to increase financing of vocational education

4
(discussed later), second, the system of education should be changed. It can be
done by introducing dual system of vocational education when pupils partly get
theoretical knowledge in the school and practical knowledge in a company or a
practical training centre. Another solution is a module teaching: pupils receive
theoretical basics in the school, then they get a training in practical training
centre and after that they continue practical education in a company. Of course it
is more expensive for the government in short term but more effective in an
educational process and less stressful for pupils as before a real training in a
company they can see how the work “looks like” in practical training centre. For
companies it is also an advantage as they can host pupils with at least basics of
professional experience gained in a practical training centre.

Level of cooperation between schools and firms

The main aim of firms’ existence is profit. Management of companies decide to
organize internships only if it could be profitable for them. In general the profit for
companies of pupil’s work should be higher than the cost of time and efforts
needed to teach her/him practical skills. There should be found system’s
solutions like: centralized or regionalized vocational training fund (collected from
taxes) or/and tax incentives for employees who decide to organise vocational
training for pupils. Companies can be encouraged to organize internship for
pupils if it will be profitable for them (recommended solution) or less expensive.

Connection with construction unions

From the lecture done by Trade Union “Budowlani” representatives we know that
trade unions work hard to analyze building educational sector in noticing
problems and finding possible solutions. Trade unions as a group have bigger
influence power on government decisions. Currently trade union representatives
are also members of committee working on educational reform that is planned to
be introduced in 2012. At the moment trade unions focuses on low skilled
specialists in building and construction area in comparison to the situation in 80s
and 90s of last century when educational system “produced” much better building
specialists. Trade Union “Budowlani” shows vocational schools managed by
companies as a proper and effective model of schools. Such schools were co-
financed by the state and a company, the curriculum was influenced by
company’s needs of specialists. Nowadays such model exists very rare. It needs
economical stability when the risk of company’s bankruptcy or economical
distress is very low. Economical and political breakthrough in early 90s and
current worldwide crisis are not conducive to the existence of such schools. It is
simply too risky.

5
Training of Enterprise Trainers
The current educational system in Poland does not say what should be the
educational background of enterprise trainers. Moreover, because of low
interests between managers to be a vocational teacher in the school even a
pedagogical background of teachers in vocational schools is not necessary. The
market conditions caused such decision of Ministry of Education to avoid the
situation of lacking teachers in building educational sector. Current market
circumstances show that construction engineer can earn several times more
being a supervisor at the building site than a teacher in the school. The situation
is a big challenge for decision-makers working now a new educational reform.

Teaching materials-curriculum
At present, educational system has one disadvantage more – decisions
concerning the educational program and curriculum are centralized, taking by the
Ministry of Education, many times disregarding the needs of local labor market.
Regional institutions like vocational schools, practical training centers,
companies, local government, labor offices should have an opportunity and tools
to monitor the labor market in the context of forecasting trends in a near future.
Based on such information headmasters of vocational schools could decide
about the program their schools offer. Decentralization of decision and more
independence of local educational management should be introduced.

During the second meeting organized in Krakow we could learn about the
educational system in building and construction area on a secondary school level
in Poland. We had an opportunity to see the points of view of the vocational
schools, practical training centre and trade union representatives. We could see
that also within one sector of education there are groups representing different
fields of interest. What they have in common is willingness to work for increasing
the level of education and solving existing problems. For us it was a very good
source of useful information that we can base on during further work in our
project.