Polish educational system facing challenges of new society. Trauma, future shock or social problem?

Abstract

The education system on the verge of transformation faced the challenges of a rapidly changing society. On the one hand, the political nature of the changes entails changes in the economic model (adoption of a market model), the transformation in the sphere of ideology (vision of the world, social order, place of the individual in society). On the other, Polish society has entered the global market: economic, educational and cultural; became the subject to the processes taking place on a global scale and have been confronted with the need to adapt to changing conditions. These processes have launched a phenomenon hitherto unknown, such as unemployment, withdrawal of the State from the function of care, which weakened the sense of security at the nation and individual. On the one hand, to the education system the most important challenges were these being the consequence of the global knowledge-based society, where the level of qualification plays an important role in achieving success, on the other, and the emergence of the labour markets, which formulate their expectations at the education system. No less important, there were problems in the educational sphere that occurred as a result of changes: the transformation of value system, vision of the world and its order, but also the risks arising from the impact of the global media culture. Our assumption is that these phenomena could be analysed using different categories such as cultural shock, social and cultural trauma and social problem. Analysis of these phenomena will be the subject of our contribution. Keywords: system of education, rapid social change, trauma, cultural shock, social problem.