Tuition Hours in Polish Universities

Was just reading an article about the number of hours spent in lectures in UK universities (for an undergraduate degree) and apparently it's an average of 13 hours per week. How does Poland compare I wonder.

Remember there are tutorials as well as lectures.

I remember at University we has a pretty full week.

i think I had about 14 hours a week including tutorials.
that was for a lazy arts degree though, I believe science subjects were more or less a full timetable.
In my final year I had 8 hours...:D

Believe it or not that includes tutorials! I understand that for arts courses there's a huge amount of reading to do which can be done at home but all the same........

Now when I was a 'gal', in art college we did appallingly long hours, 8.30 till 5.00 five days a week with two evening classes from 7pm to 9.30pm and we had to sign in and out when we arrived in the morning and when we left the building! Of course most of the hours were spent on practical work obviously.

When I did my Montessori teacher training it was very intensive. Three days a week in lectures from 9.00 to 4.00 and two full days each week in supervised teaching practice with a two week block in each term and a month long block following exams in May. Not to mention all the assignments, essays, projects, designing and making teaching materials and keeping a teaching practice diary. As recently as the 1970s students at the main teacher training colleges in Ireland frequently lived in and on Sundays they had to attend mass, being checked first for their skirt lengths and that they were wearing a black mantilla, white was forbidden for some strange reason. There were also up to 80 children per class in some of their teaching practice placements!

That's pretty well what I had for my degree (and of course there was an essay a week that had to be good plus other commitments) for my teacher training afterwards the schedule sounds like yours.

In Poland, the large number of part-time students muddy the water and there are obvious issues about standards; a friend who has just finished his Masters (at a well-known Catholic university) was studying at a level similar to the first year of a BA at a Russell Group university.

Why?


"'Cause nothing compares...
Nothing compares to youuuuu..."

lol

I really liked Sinead O'Connor when I was a teenager (and some Irish bands) :))

oh please give that a rest Jon.
for a start, you dont reallly know what level was expected.
Nor do you know the content of first year courses at Russell Group universitites.
Also 'Russell Group' has nothing to do with undergraduate standards or student satisfaction, but is a self selected group of research universities.

Well, I am an examiner after all.


And attended two of them.

Unfortunately, the amount and level of tuition in Polish Universities is poor. People can get so-called 'magister' degrees with remarkbly little work or insight into what they're studying.

What do you mean by "amount"? Those hours spent in lectures that Atch asked about? Judging by what she wrote it's more hours per week in Polish universities (including at the one I've graduated from) than in British universities.

I've found some classes schedules on the internet.
Mechanics faculty at Politechnika Krakowska (40 hours per week seems to be the norm):
mech.pk.edu.pl/~podzial/stacjonarne/html/index.html
mech.pk.edu.pl/~podzial/stacjonarne/html/plany/o7.html

Or English Philology at Jagiellonian University:
dropbox.com/s/4p883krev86do4x/SM_1.doc?dl=0

Unless I misunderstood sth and those 13 hours per week aren't for normal full-time day-time studies?


Compared to what? The level can't really be so terrible if Polish doctors are being hired in British hospitals and Polish computer scientists are sought after in Germany and Polish students win engineering competitions in the US, etc. etc.

And it's not even about that. Atch didn't ask about the standards, level, quality of studies at Polish univeristies. She asked about the number of hours.

But you just have to demonstrate your British ego and anti-Polish prejudice at any opportunity :) Even among Harry and delph you stick out like a sore thumb with your irritating attitude.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I was reading your comment: "Oh, jon, give it a rest already. We all know after all those years on PF that the UK is the best country on the planet and British people are the best people on the planet who can do no wrong and nothing, absolutely nothing and noone in Poland compares to anything and anyone in the holy land of UK - you don't have to prove it every time." :))

you are now an examiner for Masters level programs in Poland are you?
That is odd, I thought you just said you had a mate that was doing a Masters.

Medical training is, in theory anyway, a universal standard, however there have been a number of Polish doctors and dentists struck off recently, including one doctor described in the media as 'the worst doctor in Britain'. he's now apparently working as a care assistant (unqualified nurse's helper), fortunately not in the UK. Apparently he was caught (fortunately right away) because he'd memorised phrases from the previous night's Holby City and when given a routine first aid test for hospital porters, failed it.

He passed his medical training at Poznan Medical Academy and had been practising as a doctor in Poland.

Unfortunately, Polish University courses, especially zaoczne are very below par, with remarkably little time devoted to taught study and a low standard of thesis required for a pass.

A quick look at the various quality ranking tables (cited often and usefully on this forum and generally considered reliable) which include Polish 'universities' is pretty damning, especially for some of the newer private ones.

Jon357, I don't care if one doctor was described as such probably by some British tabloid. There are bad doctors everywhere. I would even understand you or delph or Harry going on and on and on and on about poor quality of Polish univeristies with "especially zaoczne" added every time (noone in Poland treats studia zaoczne seriously anyway) in a thread in which someone from India or wherever would be expressing his will to study in Poland and asking about studying in Poland.

But this thread is not about that (unless I'm too naïve to read between the lines and Atch actually made this thread to compare British and Polish "penis sizes"? lol)

Get over your British self already *sigh*


And what's with the quotation marks? Polish universities aren't even worthy to be called "universities" according to you?

I agree with Paulina.

There you go again. It was actually very well publicised.


I do. Plenty of people close to me could easily have become victims of this 'Polish Doctor'. Anyway, he isn't allowed to practice in the UK now, so the danger has been removed. Just a shame that he was awarded a medical qualification after so many years of study. he must have been particularly clueless, not something you want in a doctor.


So why do thousands pay for courses that "noone (sic) takes seriously"?


It is very much about the qulity of Polish Universities (medical training is always a good benchmark) compared to British ones, which as you were told, come generally lower in the rankings.


Looks like you have a bit of a chip on your bulky shoulder.


Some of them are certainly not worthy of that name.

why would Paulina's shoulder be 'bulky' Jon? Why would you say that? Looks like your 'right on' mask is slipping a tad.

To carry such a heavy chip on top - I'm not Po3 you know ;-)

as long as u are sure..


well nor are some British universities Jon, and you know it.

Agreed as well. There were some very good technical colleges however so many of them wanted university status, sadly. Some are OK (and some ex-polys are superb), others could do a lot better. This is reflected in the rankings.

A much worse situation here in Poland, where the budget for lecturers and basically to provide the whole learning experience is much lower - and of course the private 'universities' sometimes even skim money off the top of that as profit. And of course this does impact not only on the quality, but also the number of teaching hours. In some practical subjects the problem (this has been ongoing since at least the 1930s) is that there's often more theory than actual practice.

Oh, I didn't write that it wasn't well publicised. I don't know that. But was he called "the worst doctor in Britain" by BBC or Daily Mail? :)

Let's google :)

Ah... There it is...:
cavendish-press.co.uk/news/post/58/is-this-the-worst-doctor-in-britain-surgeon-dubbed-teflon-doc-is-struck-off-after-errors-spanning-16-years.aspx
Oops... wait... Gavin Denton... This doesn't sound Polish, right?

OK, let's try again - Daily Mail this time:
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2720973/UK-s-worst-doctors-named-shamed-let-Just-slap-wrist-fatal-mistakes-criminal-behaviour.html

Is he there? I don't see any Polish surname... Do you?


Oh, I didn't write I don't care about what he did. I wrote that I don't care that probably some British tabloid called him "the worst doctor in Britain".


Yes, just like plenty of my compatriots could easily have become victims of this "British Doctor" - Gavin Denton.


Because Poles are crazy about education and they want to have at least "zaoczne" if they didn't manage to get into "dzienne". Some people also have no choice because they have to work and that's the only way for them.


Really? And I thought Atch asked only about numbers of hours?
Atch, was I wrong? Was your question a veiled way to discuss how crappy Polish universities are as compared to British ones? :)


No, I don't, jon357. But I do wonder about your attitude and what your problem is when I read your comments which are always the same. No matter what is discussed - sth Polish is always worse than sth British. Even if other foreign, even British posters tell you it isn't always so, you just keep going. I've just seen it too many times in your case. When sth bad is done by the British you're always justifying it, etc. Roz is opposite of you in this matter, I've seen her being able to be more objective and less chauvinistic than many people on here and probably that's why she agreed with me on this thread.


Just like in any country. But you made it look like all are.


Sweet Jesus, jon357... I think it was written in one of the threads that Polish national budget is half of the NHS budget alone! Your country is filthy rich! lol Yes, everything is better in your country and probably many things are better in Poland than in many poorer countries with even more difficult history but I don't have the need to write about it for an umpteenth time in every possible thread somehow connected to the subject matter or even not connected. It's like with delph and others writing about how Polish men are ugly at almost any given opportunity as if they were themselves Apollo incarnations who descended to this Earth lol One wonders what your problem is, you know? Why do you have to do that every time? Do you have nothing else to say on this forum? It's just boring already. It's like you guys have some kind of obsessions - like Polonius3 and his praise of Jews - in theory there's nothing wrong with it but sometimes you just want him to stop already :D

Sorry, but I just had to say it at last...

Another attempt to defend the indefensible?


Nope, he was from Poznan and called Andrzej. You'll find him if you spend another hour looking as you just have.

I didn't bother to read the rest of your typically wordy and (call it sexist if you like) hysterical rant, trying to pretend that the serious problems in 'Polish Universities' don't really exists.

Have you checked out the international rankings lately? You will find them interesting.