It cited figures according to which there were 373 higher-education institutions in Poland as of the end of last year, 225 private, 121 public and 17 church-based, employing over 95,000 staff in total.
According to the country's Central Statistical Office (GUS), the total number of students, which had been falling since 2010, grew by some 1 percent in the 2020/2021 academic year, to 1.17 million.
This academic year is likely to see a similar number of students nationwide, according to the National Information Processing Institute (OPI) and the KRASP association of university presidents.
Foreign learners continue to be attracted to Polish universities, despite the pandemic, the education ministry said, with their number growing by over 4,000 during the 2020/2021 academic year.
According to the Central Statistical Office, there were 84,700 foreign students in Poland last academic year, mainly from Ukraine (45.4 percent), Belarus (11.5 percent) and India (3 percent).
On the eve of the new academic year, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda attended an official opening ceremony at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), accompanied by Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek and Agriculture Minister Grzegorz Puda.
Addressing the gathering, Duda said he wanted students to be able to meet face-to-face with lecturers and among themselves, not just for the sake of education, but also the university’s communal spirit, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
He urged those not yet vaccinated to get the COVID-19 jab “in the interests of societal health,” while also voicing hope that the pandemic’s end was now around the corner.
The president wished the whole academic community “much success and health,” his office noted.
The 2021/2022 academic year runs over two semesters, from October 1 to September 30, with universities enjoying discretion over the exact schedule of courses, exams and breaks.
After a series of lockdowns and a prolonged period of virtual learning at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, students are returning to most campuses for what will be the first in-person classes for some of them, the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP
