Secondary vocational education is traditionally an important element of the Polish educational system (Figure 1). However, in the 1990s, the foundations of its functioning began to be shaken by a declining interest among young people in secondary technical education. A similar decline in interest was observed at that time in basic vocational schools as well. There was also a decreasing interest in post-secondary schools offering vocational training based on general secondary education, because first-cycle higher education studies (so-called bachelor’s studies) became an alternative, offering higher vocational education in a period of study only one year longer than in post-secondary schools. The above conditions influenced the situation of secondary schools in the educational market. Some vocational technical schools were liquidated or transformed into vocational high schools or technical high schools. The reform of the educational system that took place in 1999 led to the liquidation of the latter two types of high schools, introducing profiled high schools in their place. This change had little impact on the interest of young people in secondary vocational education. Poland’s accession to the European Union initially did not provide an impulse for change either, because most of the so-called “old EU members” launched mechanisms protecting their own labor markets against the influx of foreigners from new member states. However, the progressing liberalization of the EU labor market, the opening of further borders to Polish workers, and the attractiveness of these workers, which was and is based on the disparity of economic conditions prevailing in Poland and other European Union countries, caused an outflow of workers from Polish enterprises abroad. This mechanism not only caused a decline in unemployment in Poland but also triggered a shortage of workers that preceded it in many fields. For example, in the case of mechanical or construction professions, the outflow of workers combined with the declining interest of young people in technical professions for years has even led to a generational gap in the labor market.
The growing demand for workers led to a reversal of the trend related to interest in vocational education and caused a renewed increase in interest in basic and secondary vocational education, which, after a period of economic downturn, is rebuilding its position in the educational system. This is not simple, because some teachers with vocational training to conduct classes in specialized subjects have meanwhile left the teaching profession or changed their qualifications, and schools are adapting their educational offer to the current demand reported by the labor market and educational opportunities.
Freight Forwarder Technician and Logistics Technician as a profession
The situation in the educational market and the growing interest in logistics, fueled by the media popularity of this term, have caused some secondary and post-secondary schools to turn their attention to the possibility of education in the professions of Freight Forwarder Technician and Logistics Technician. The accuracy of these decisions is confirmed by the labor market. Employers signal a lack of workers with basic and secondary education in transport, forwarding, and logistics, as well as high turnover in these two groups of employees. The schools’ decisions find legal support in the Regulation of the Minister of National Education and Sport of May 8, 2004, on the classification of vocational education professions. The breakthrough occurred due to two decisions of the Minister of National Education and Sport, resulting in the inclusion of the following professions in this structure: Freight Forwarder Technician –
December 30, 2004, and Logistics Technician –
July 20, 2005. The minister’s decision preceded a similar decision by the Minister of Science and Higher Education, who included logistics in the list of fields of study in higher education institutions only in 2006. Some secondary and post-secondary schools quickly reacted to the decisions of their departmental minister. Research conducted by the Higher School of Logistics in January 2006 shows that teaching in one of these professions was conducted by about 105 secondary and post-secondary schools. In the 2006/2007 school year, some of them promoted their first graduates. The applicable educational content is strongly saturated with specialized issues, which guarantees good vocational preparation for a secondary school graduate. Table 1 shows the proportions of individual program blocks during the training period in the Freight Forwarder Technician profession, and Table 2 shows similar data for the Logistics Technician profession. In the case of both professions, the minister left a certain small number of hours at the disposal of schools in order to adapt the teaching content to the needs of the local labor market. However, the curriculum, defined in the core curricula of both professions, causes difficulties for teachers in its implementation and requires serious corrections.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 4/2007.