All challenges and global problems of contemporary world manifest themselves in various proportions on Polish ground. The map of objective, external processes is additionally superimposed by an intricate pattern of our own internal preconditions, mostly concerned with procedures of the implementation of democratic order and mechanisms of free market economy. On top of the two sources of factors there are also endogenous conditions rooted in the state of education, which experienced multiple perturbations in the course of post-war history of Poland. It was never successfully reformed and continually suffered from insufficient funding. At the same time social and economic expectations towards education have continuously been growing, especially now after the accession to the European Union.
As a result of the aforementioned factors, there is an entirely new set of legal practices developing in our country, which apart from other considerations, strongly insists on changes in education. Thus, external conditions are exerting unremitting influence on the functioning of schools and other educational institutions by driving them towards far-reaching reforms. In the demanding environment, infested with complex stipulations and manifold barriers, the development of educational institutions requires careful planning, meticulous supervision at each and every step of the procedures, and most of all considerable and well distributed funding. Automatic and spontaneous progression is no longer an option.

Spis treści:

Introduction

I. The Development of Education in Poland until 1989
1. Origins of Polish Educational Acts and Decrees
2. The School and the Teacher between 1918 and 1939
3. Education in Communist Poland - School in the Monopoly of the State

II. Polish School at the Time of Educational Reforms
1. Initial Status at the Threshold of System Transformation
2. Educational Problems at the Time of Transformation
3. The Teacher between his Past and Future
4. Project of Complex School Reforms
5. Evaluation in the Polish System of Education
6. Co-operation and Responsibility - Prospects for the Development of Contemporary School

III. Educational Reforms of 1999 in Teachers' and Public Opinions
1. The Beginnings of Educational Discourse
2. The Assessment of the Functioning of Polish Schools and of Introduced Changes
3. Curricular Reform
4. Changes in the Structure of Education
5. Relationship between Schools and Local Communities
6. Changes in Evaluation Procedures
7. Professional Status of Teachers

IV. Teachers' Status in their Professional Environment
1. Teachers' Attitudes to Educational Change
2. Chaos and Confusion in the Search for New Teachers' Duties
3. Teachers' Professional Development and the Requirement for Internal and External Forms of its Support
4. Changes in the System of Teachers' Training
5. The Teacher Subservient to Educational Change

V. The Unsolved Problem of Educational inequality
1. Freedom and Educational (In)Justice
2. Social Inequalities in the Polish Educational System
3. Nonegalitarism of Pedagogy and Egalitarian Educational Policies

Some Final Considerations
References