Equity in an educational boom: Lessons from the expansion and marketization of tertiary schooling in Poland

The transformation of Polish economy toward a free market system and related changes on the Polish labour market released the demand for higher education, held for decades at an artificially low level. The impressive increase in enrolment was possible because the Polish government allowed the private sector to establish higher education institutions. This paper demonstrates how the probability of enrolment in tertiary schools evolves for different social groups in Poland over the period of educational boom. It also investigates how the socio-economic status influences the choices between full-time and part-time studies (the latter being of relatively low quality), and the probability of admission to subsidized, free programs versus programs requiring tuition. Between 1994 and 2008 Poland has undoubtedly improved the participation of students with low socio-economic status in the university education. However, if we look at the change in the ratios of enrolment probabilities for different layers of the social strata, we find that the improvement refers to those with low family educational background and living in small settlements, but not to individuals suffering from the low income. Further investigation shows that the policy makers should focus not only on ensuring equal access to tertiary education for the whole social strata, but on allowing the unprivileged groups access to education of acceptable quality.Higher education; equity; participation; transformation; Poland

The Carpathian Euroregion from the perspective of economic cooperation in peripheral regions

Euroregions provide an institutional framework that fosters cross-border cooperation. Their main objective is to manage and support economic, environmental, social, cultural and institutional cooperation in border areas. Economic cooperation should be considered as a crucial factor that may help strengthen the cohesion of the border regions, allowing them to overcome underdevelopment related to their peripheral location within the respective countries. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the significance of cross-border economic interactions in the Carpathian Euroregion. The analysis covers foreign trade relations as well as foreign direct investments in the border regions of Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. The first, empirical part of the paper, reviews these flows from the country-level perspective, providing an insight on the potential importance of economic cross-border cooperation. The second part presents a selection of empirical findings related to the intensity and direction of economic cooperation on the basis of the Polish case study. The last part assesses the impact of the Euroregion’s activities aimed to strengthen economic cooperation between the partners located in different countries. Finally, the recommendations regarding future activities in this field, including reconfiguration of cooperation networks, are formulated

Drivers and patterns of students’ and graduates’ mobility in Poland. Evidence from social media network (CPP RPS 76/2014)

In this paper we use a unique, large dataset collected from a social networking website to develop a typology of the educational and post-educational mobility in Poland, to identify regions that are winning or losing in terms of human capital accumulation, and to elaborate on factors of human capital migration using empirical model of interregional flows of students and graduates. We find out that the mobility of Poland’s human capital is rather low, with graduates being more prone to migrate than students while enrolling to universities. The average Polish region manages to absorb one third of incoming students (born and raised in other regions) on the local labour market, and it pulls back about 50% of students who originated from the region, but studied elsewhere. However, only five of sixteen Polish regions experience net gain of human capital in consequence of skilled migration. All of them include big metropolitan cities – Warsaw, Poznań, Gdańsk, Wrocław, and Kraków. The remaining eleven regions are subjects of a brain drain. Physical distance between potential donor and destination regions is the most significant determinant of human capital flow. Although distance plays crucial role in both student and graduate decisions, it is more significant at student level. Students prefer to migrate to large metropolitan cities, regardless of their economic performance. In turn, graduates are more willing to leave the areas with low GDP per capita. They migrate to affluent regions, with large central cities, although, as a qualified labour force, they don’t care much for unemployment rate. The share of population with higher education is also a significant pull factor

Mobility of human capital and its effect on regional economic development. Review of theory and empirical literature

According to economic theory, supported by rich empirical evidence, the ability of an economy to accumulate a high quality human capital is an important factor of economic growth. Since economies better endowed with human capital grow at a higher rate, the mobility of skilled individuals should have a meaningful effect on the economic perspectives of different countries and regions. In this paper we attempt to systematise the existing literature on the impact that human capital mobility has on economic growth and some other aspects of regional development, in order to better understand the channels through which this impact is accomplished and the significance of the observed effects. We complement it with a typology of drivers of highly skilled migration and, finally, we focus on policy efforts at the regional level that aim at raising the human capital level in a region

Mobility of human capital and its effect on regional economic development. Review of theory and empirical literature

According to economic theory, supported by rich empirical evidence, the ability of an economy to accumulate a high quality human capital is an important factor of economic growth. Since economies better endowed with human capital grow at a higher rate, the mobility of skilled individuals should have a meaningful effect on the economic perspectives of different countries and regions. In this paper we attempt to systematise the existing literature on the impact that human capital mobility has on economic growth and some other aspects of regional development, in order to better understand the channels through which this impact is accomplished and the significance of the observed effects. We complement it with a typology of drivers of highly skilled migration and, finally, we focus on policy efforts at the regional level that aim at raising the human capital level in a region

Equity in an educational boom: Lessons from the expansion and marketization of tertiary schooling in Poland

The transformation of Polish economy toward a free market system and related changes on the Polish labour market released the demand for higher education, held for decades at an artificially low level. The impressive increase in enrolment was possible because the Polish government allowed the private sector to establish higher education institutions. This paper demonstrates how the probability of enrolment in tertiary schools evolves for different social groups in Poland over the period of educational boom. It also investigates how the socio-economic status influences the choices between full-time and part-time studies (the latter being of relatively low quality), and the probability of admission to subsidized, free programs versus programs requiring tuition. Between 1994 and 2008 Poland has undoubtedly improved the participation of students with low socio-economic status in the university education. However, if we look at the change in the ratios of enrolment probabilities for different layers of the social strata, we find that the improvement refers to those with low family educational background and living in small settlements, but not to individuals suffering from the low income. Further investigation shows that the policy makers should focus not only on ensuring equal access to tertiary education for the whole social strata, but on allowing the unprivileged groups access to education of acceptable quality

Mobility of human capital and its effect on regional economic development. Review of theory and empirical literature

According to economic theory, supported by rich empirical evidence, the ability of an economy to accumulate a high quality human capital is an important factor of economic growth. Since economies better endowed with human capital grow at a higher rate, the mobility of skilled individuals should have a meaningful effect on the economic perspectives of different countries and regions. In this paper we attempt to systematise the existing literature on the impact that human capital mobility has on economic growth and some other aspects of regional development, in order to better understand the channels through which this impact is accomplished and the significance of the observed effects. We complement it with a typology of drivers of highly skilled migration and, finally, we focus on policy efforts at the regional level that aim at raising the human capital level in a region

Equity in an educational boom: Lessons from the expansion and marketization of tertiary schooling in Poland

The transformation of Polish economy toward a free market system and related changes on the Polish labour market released the demand for higher education, held for decades at an artificially low level. The impressive increase in enrolment was possible because the Polish government allowed the private sector to establish higher education institutions. This paper demonstrates how the probability of enrolment in tertiary schools evolves for different social groups in Poland over the period of educational boom. It also investigates how the socio-economic status influences the choices between full-time and part-time studies (the latter being of relatively low quality), and the probability of admission to subsidized, free programs versus programs requiring tuition. Between 1994 and 2008 Poland has undoubtedly improved the participation of students with low socio-economic status in the university education. However, if we look at the change in the ratios of enrolment probabilities for different layers of the social strata, we find that the improvement refers to those with low family educational background and living in small settlements, but not to individuals suffering from the low income. Further investigation shows that the policy makers should focus not only on ensuring equal access to tertiary education for the whole social strata, but on allowing the unprivileged groups access to education of acceptable quality

Extending BIM for air quality monitoring

As we spend more than 90% of our time inside buildings, indoor environmental quality is a major concern for healthy living. Recent studies show that almost 80% of people in European countries and the United States suffer from SBS (Sick Building Syndrome), which affects physical health, productivity and psychological well-being. In this context, environmental quality monitoring provides stakeholders with crucial information about indoor living conditions, thus facilitating building management along its lifecycle, from design, construction and commissioning to usage, maintenance and end-of-life. However, currently available modelling tools for building management remain limited to static models and lack integration capacities to efficiently exploit environmental quality monitoring data. In order to overcome these limitations, we designed and implemented a generic software architecture that relies on accessible Building Information Model (BIM) attributes to add a dynamic layer that integrates environmental quality data coming from deployed sensors. Merging sensor data with BIM allows creation of a digital twin for the monitored building where live information about environmental quality enables evaluation through numerical simulation. Our solution allows accessing and displaying live sensor data, thus providing advanced functionality to the end-user and other systems in the building. In order to preserve genericity and separation of concerns, our solution stores sensor data in a separate database available through an application programming interface (API), which decouples BIM models from sensor data. Our proof-of-concept experiments were conducted with a cultural heritage building located in Bled, Slovenia. We demonstrated that it is possible to display live information regarding environmental quality (temperature, relative humidity, CO2, particle matter, light) using Revit as an example, thus enabling end-users to follow the conditions of their living environment and take appropriate measures to improve its quality.Pages 244-250

Prerequisites for coexistence: human pressure and refuge habitat availability shape continental‑scale habitat use patterns of a large carnivore

Context Adjustments in habitat use by large carnivores can be a key factor facilitating their coexistence with people in shared landscapes. Landscape composition might be a key factor determining how large carnivores can adapt to occurring alongside humans, yet broad-scale analyses investigating adjustments of habitat use across large gradients of human pressure and landscape composition are lacking. Objectives Here, we investigate adjustments in habitat use by Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in response to varying availability of refuge habitats (i.e., forests and rugged terrain) and human landscape modifcation. Methods Using a large tracking dataset including 434 individuals from seven populations, we assess functional responses in lynx habitat use across two spatial scales, testing for variation by sex, daytime, and season. Results We found that lynx use refuge habitats more intensively with increasing landscape modifcation across spatial scales, selecting forests most strongly in otherwise open landscapes and rugged terrain in mountainous regions. Moreover, higher forest availability enabled lynx to place their home ranges in more human-modifed landscapes. Human pressure and refuge habitat availability also shaped temporal patterns of lynx habitat use, with lynx increasing refuge habitat use and reducing their use of human-modifed areas during periods of high exposure (daytime) or high vulnerability (postnatal period) to human pressure. Conclusions Our fndings suggest a remarkable adaptive capacity of lynx towards human pressure and underline the importance of refuge habitats across scales for enabling coexistence between large carnivores and people. More broadly, we highlight that the composition of landscapes determines how large carnivores can adapt to human pressure and thus play an important role shaping large carnivore habitat use and distributions.publishedVersio