Understanding youth transition system in Poland through the analysis of partnerships between vocational upper secondary schools and industry

Abstract

This paper examines the current youth transition system in Poland focusing on the role of industry partnerships with vocational upper secondary schools. On the example of the aviation cluster in the south-eastern Poland, this paper assesses the strong industry-led partnership established in 2007 with local schools and authorities in delivery of aviation-specific programmes, and its impact of local youth transitions to labour market. In contrast to Poland's national trend towards weak cooperation between industry and the vocational education sector, three major dynamics regarding the aviation cluster's influence on vocational education are observable. The region benefits from: strong leadership from local industry in influencing the supply of particular skills by local vocational education and training (VET) schools and universities; a high level of willingness of local government authorities at the mayor's and municipality's offices to support the aviation cluster's influence on VET; and a free-market model of student choice influencing the practice of local VET schools and training centres. Such cooperation is valuable for businesses and local institutes of education. However, these processes affect the equal chances of successful school-to-work transitions for graduates stratified in different educational pathways, and successful transitions are still constrained by the structure of Poland's system, which is increasingly assuming ‘education logic’.

Keywords:

• youth transition systems
• vocational education
• school partnerships
• Poland
• industry clusters

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This research enquiry was based on individual interviews conducted in Poland in June 2014. Interviews were conducted with the representatives of: the AVA, Municipal Council of Rzeszów City and Marshal’s Office; as well as the director of the practical training centre in Rzeszów; and principals and teachers from ‘Mechanik’ Secondary Technical School as well as Rzeszów’s Hotel and Catering Secondary School.

2. In 2013, 81% of secondary technical graduates passed the maturity exam compared with 94% for the academic stream, and 65.1% passed the qualification exams compared with 79.6% from basic VET schools (CKE 2014; OKE 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Melbourne Graduate School of Education under the 2013 Melbourne Graduate School of Education Early Career Researcher Grant.