I don't know why Delphi keeps on thinking I support PiS. I don't and my post has nothing to do with them whatsoever.
You certainly do support PiS, as your previous posts make very clear. The things you talk about in your post (criticising books, schools and educational system) is also a core part of the PiS platform. See, being interested in education, I tend to keep track of what people say in politics - and what you say is straight from PiS.
Oh dear. Palikot doesn't get support from "thick kids" - he gets support from people who are intelligent. You might regard his supporters as thick (like all PiS supporters) - but the reality is that Ruch Palikota's support comes mainly from the educated youth of Poland that were disenfranchised for many years. Common PiS talk however - people with primary school education insulting the educated.
First off: the schoolbooks suck - I'm talking from a teacher-using-the-book point of view ... which you can only get if you're a teacher! Anyone who tells you differently is a liar.
Oh please. Anyone can get the teachers books - they can be bought through any good bookshop. As for the methodology of the books - any good Polish teacher will tell you that you must teach to the programme, not to the book. Only a poor, poor teacher would ever consider the 'book' as being the programme in Poland. I've had a quick look at my programme (written by a wonderful lady in Torun, actually) - and it's clear that following the book alone is not good enough.
Middle school - only introduced because the Germans introduced it.
It's working in Poland, not least because it addresses what was one of the huge concerns under the 8-4 system - children are being written off in primary school and then don't have a chance to sort themselves out in a new environment. Yes, it's not perfect, and I'd rather just see 6 year high schools - but it works.
Repeating a year at school.
The teacher doesn't have to teach the child at all - for a start, teachers are only (theoretically) paid for their attendance in school and nothing else. No teacher is going to give up holidays for free to teach a child - if they do, it's their own personal choice to do so. What you're alluding to is a failure to discipline children correctly, particularly due to the 'right to an education' nonsense.
The points you need to get onto a physics course at Warsaw Technical University are weighted - meaning that you need to get very high marks in your physics exam at matura to get on the physics course!
Oh really? Would that be why (according to the Politechnika Warszawska website) physics only required 102 points on their scale, compared to scores closer to 200 for more attractive subjects? As you're well aware, Polish universities allow anyone who passed their Matura to apply - so if the minimum score for entry was 102, it means that it converts roughly into an average of 50% at Matura. In other words - the students are crap.
The problem is that people scoring high levels in physics at matura level are dropping out of physics and related science courses because they have not had enough time to study physics to a high enough level at school.
No, they're dropping out because -
a) They resat their Matura, got a better score and got into a course that was less of an unemployment factory
b) They were going to study physics despite getting a poor physics grade
c) The expectations of the universities are out of sync with what's being taught in school (common)
Vital time is also wasted on additional courses (WOK, WOS etc).
How is WOS a waste of time? So many people don't even know the basics about the relationship between the EU and Poland - leading to nonsense that they believe in rags like Gazeta Polska.
Mixed ability - once again Delphi misses the point.
But they will have covered the same things because the programme is broadly similar, combined with a standardised exam in Mathematics at the end of middle school. The lack of cooperation between middle and high schools is lamentable, however - and causes the situation that the high school teachers expect the middle school kids to be able to do things that they can't do.
High schools and universities have high expectations.
Good high schools have high expectations - yes. The points required to get into the best three high schools here are huge - there is somewhat immense competition for such places, not least because private schools are doing a dreadful job in many cases. But universities are a different story - shall I give some examples? I'll use Adam Mickiewicz for this because it's what I'm familiar with -
amuland.pl/Portal/Progi-punktowe - all scores out of 100
Law - amuland.pl/Portal/Progi-punktowe/DM-Prawo-2012 - 71.60 points required for entry.
Norwegian - amuland.pl/Portal/Progi-punktowe/DL-NorwA-2013 - 91.40 points required for entry
Psychology - amuland.pl/Portal/Progi-punktowe/DM-PSYCH-2012 - 60.60 points required for entry
All fine and well, and shows that UAM is one of the better universities in the country. But.
Physics - amuland.pl/Portal/Progi-punktowe/DL-FizO-2012 - 33.30 points required for entry
Biological Chemistry - amuland.pl/Portal/Progi-punktowe/DL-CHB-2012 - 26.40 points required for entry
Europeistyka - amuland.pl/Portal/Progi-punktowe/DL-EUR-2012 - 11.55 points required for entry
Hence - universities do not have high standards as a rule, but rather they work solely on the basis of who applies for the courses. For me, it is sheer madness that anyone would be allowed to study physics with a score that suggests somewhere around 45% at Matura.