Concern over drop in number of academics

One of Poland’s university associations is reporting that the number of academics at the country’s higher education institutions is in decline. This has been accompanied by falling student numbers at higher education institutions. Funding problems are being blamed for the drop, writes Jaroslaw Adamowski for Chemistry World.

The report from the KRASP university association claimed that “in the past decade, the average ratio of tutors per student has significantly increased, but this improvement is entirely a consequence of the changing demographics”. The report indicates that Polish universities are unable to secure as much funding from private stakeholders as they once were owing to falling student numbers and recommends that Polish universities call on the government to establish a “professional, apolitical public agency which should handle the financing of higher education institutions”.

Between 2011 and 2013, numbers of academics at Poland’s universities fell by 6% to 97,000, according to the Central Statistical Office of Poland. Since the 1994-95 academic year, when Poland’s universities hit a record of almost 2 million students, numbers have fallen to just 1.5 million students in 2013-14. However, the number of PhD students has been growing over the past 20 years.
Full report on the Chemistry World site