University of Warsaw Poland – the right choice

Poland – the right choice

Poland is a member of:

  • European Union, the community of 27 states of the continent of Europe. The beginnings of the Union go back to the 1950s; Poland joined it in 2004.
  • Schengen Area, which includes 27 European states. This means that whoever enters Poland may freely travel around all the member states: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Hungary and Italy, as well as four states from outside the Union: Island, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

European Higher Education Area – European integration

Poland is one of the 47 counties constituting the European Higher Education Area, the establishment of which was the central idea of the Bologna Process. EHEA goes beyond the borders of the European Union.

 

Participating in the Bologna Process, Polish academies have introduced and continuously support:

  • the three-cycle framework of higher education qualifications,
  • the European Credit Transfer System,
  • study programmes based on the so-called learning effects, which facilitates comparing diplomas in the European framework of qualifications,
  • diploma supplements,
  • the development of systems guaranteeing the quality of education,
  • postgraduate study programmes in keeping with the idea of “lifelong learning”,
  • student, scholar and administrative staff mobility, not only through participation in the Erasmus+ and similar programmes, but also by establishing foreign-language courses of study.

! To foreigners, Poland’s participation in the European Higher Education Area means:

  • the ease of availing themselves of academic exchange programmes (due to the ECTS system and mobility support programmes such as the Erasmus+),
  • the possibility of continuing a course of study initiated abroad in Poland, or continuing in Poland a course of study initiated abroad (due to the three-cycle division of courses),
  • the certainty that education and qualifications gained in Poland will be fully recognised elsewhere, which facilitates employment or continuation of academic career (due to the European qualification framework and diploma supplements),
  • the certainty as to the quality of education offered by Polish academies (due to the development of systems guaranteeing the quality of education).

Higher education system in Poland

650 years of academic tradition

132 public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

100 HEIs is authorised to confer doctoral titles

1.4 million students

500 programmes with a foreign language, mainly English, as the language of instruction

 

Academic tradition in Poland goes back 650 years, to the “studium generale”, the first Polish university, established in the mid-14th century. Poland was the sixth country in Europe to have its own university; the only older academies were those in Italy, France, Great Britain, Spain and Bohemia. The emergence of modern universities in the 19th century brought a breakthrough in the model of higher education in Europe; the University of Warsaw was instituted at that time, in 1816.

 

1.4 million students per year receive their education in Poland. This makes our county one of European leaders, preceded only by Great Britain, Germany and France. According to the European Commission research, the region of Mazovia, of which Warsaw is the capital, belongs to the continent’s areas where the largest percentage of young people, over 75%, are students.

 

International students

Polish academies offer a wide choice of programmes of 1st, 2nd, 3rd cycle studies and long cycle (uniform) Master’s studies, in full-time and part-time systems. Study programmes at the faculties of Medicine, Management, Foreign Relations and Economy are the most popular among foreign students. Foreign-language curriculum is developing as well; apart from 1,500 study programmes in Modern Languages, Polish academies offer over 800 programmes with a foreign language, mainly English, as the language of instruction.

 

Currently Polish academies are host to over 65,800 students from over 150 countries. Study programmes in Poland are most often selected by our eastern neighbours, the Ukrainians and Belorussians, as well as by students from Norway, Spain, Sweden, Lithuania, the Czech Republic.

 

Academic exchange

The Erasmus Programme, which used to be the most popular European student-mobility programme, was replaced by Erasmus+ in 2014. Poland was, and still is, their very active participant. In the course of two decades, our county was visited by 30,000 grantees from the European Union, and 100,000 Polish students went abroad.

 

Polish academies participate in other mobility programmes as well, not only within Europe but also worldwide. Mutual academic exchange programmes involve nearly 40 countries of the world and are addressed not only to students, but also to scholars.

 

Additional information

POLAND

population: 38 million; 7th largest country in Europe

capital: Warsaw, 1.7 million inhabitants

area: 312,000 km²

location: Central Europe

membership: European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and others

 

In the heart of Europe

 

To find out more about Poland, its history, culture, tradition, economy and position in today’s world, see:

Polish Institute in your own country

www.polska.pl

culture.pl/en

www.poland.travel/en

To find more about studies in Poland, see:

Ready, Study, Go! POLAND

Study in Poland

National Agency for Academic Exchange

Ministry of Science and Higher Education

European Higher Education Area

The birthplace of scholars and artists

Offering the opportunity study and conduct academic research in Poland, we invite you to a modern, dynamically developing country that makes investment in scholarship and innovativeness its priorities. It is also a country with a fascinating past and a centuries-old academic tradition; the achievements of many great Poles are the best advertisement of our rich culture and history.

 

Poland was the birthplace of ground-breaking discoverers, such as the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, the author of the heliocentric model of the universe, or Maria Skłodowska-Curie, the laureate of two Nobel Prizes: in physics and in chemistry. Frederic Chopin and world-famous contemporary composers, like Jan A.P. Kaczmarek or Wojciech Kilar, were also born in Poland. Poems by Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz and the prose of Stanisław Lem have been translated into dozens of languages. Films directed by Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland and Krzysztof Kieślowski have been watched and admired all over the world.

 

Studying in Poland is not only an opportunity to acquire best-quality education, but also to get truly acquainted with the Polish tradition and culture.

 

 

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