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illiteracy, especially among working and peasant class adults, resulted in the marked decline in the number of elementary (basic) schools for adults in the 1960's (Figure 37). Increasingly since then, adult education has concentrated on the secondary school level, and on higher education where it is being integrated into regular evening, part-time, and correspondence courses conducted by established institutions.

All public institutions, whether at the compulsory or the optional level, is tuition-free. In addition, full-time students of institutions of higher education who do not live within commuting distance are provided with free housing (dormitories) and with stipends for living expenses. Such stipends and other assistance was provided to 27% of the students of higher education in 1970/71. Elementary and secondary education is financed entirely through the central government. In 1970 state outlays for education represented about 9% of total budgetary expenditures. Virtually all teachers in the state system belong to the Polish Teachers Union, a component of the state-controlled trade union movement. A majority of teachers are Communist Party members through necessity if not by conviction.

2. The educational system

a. Organization and reform

Public education is virtually a state monopoly. The sole exceptions are the Roman Catholic University of Lublin and a negligible number of lower level schools operated by religious and charitable institutions; all of these have been brought under increasing government control, and some have been eliminated entirely. Until late 1966 control over general elementary and secondary schools was vested in the Ministry of Education, and institutes of higher learning were administered by the Ministry of Higher Education. In November 1966 the government merged the two ministries into the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. This organizational move probably was designed primarily to achieve the stated purpose of more efficient use of state educational funds and better continuity of education through the coordination of curriculums, but it also permitted the regime to put new life into its consistently flagging drive toward a "socialist" educational system via tighter central control of the entire structure.

Following the coming to power of the Gierek regime, the educational system has come under serious scrutiny, with a major overhaul scheduled for completion by 1975. As a first step, the governmental reorganization of March 1972 included the creation, once again, of two separate cabinet portfolios with responsibility for education. General education through the secondary level, including all vocational schools, is under the purview of the Ministry of Education and Training, while all higher education is administered by the new Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Technology. The nomenclature of the latter ministry graphically underscores the new regime's emphasis on the integration of higher education with the scientific and technical development of the country.

Organizationally, the educational system has been in an almost continuous state of flux throughout the post-World War II period, primarily because of changing political, social, and economic pressures

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