How not to screw your children’s lives - book review

Can’t recall now how I have come across a series of books by Mikołaj Marcela which dissect imperfections of the Polish schooling system. Past reading some of them, I do not wholeheartedly agree with all of the author’s assertions, yet I find the book valuable.

Familiarising with its content made me realise the current primary and secondary education system is based on principles worked out in Prussia in the first half of the nineteenth century and rests on obedience and discipline. The Prussian government, by imposing common schooling obligation wanted not just to promulgate education, but aimed at bringing up submissive citizens.

As the author points out, the schooling system in Poland and in most countries is uniform, not unique. All pupils, regardless of their unique talents and skills are pushed into ruthless frames of standardisation which kill the lust for knowledge and talent development.

Core deficiencies of Polish schools, nimbly depicted in the book are accurately pinpointed.
1) Agreeably, Polish school do not teach skills that could come in useful in real life. I wonder whether the assumption is that young adults should be taught useful skills at home, or that should learn the hard way the moment life necessitates it.
2) Beyond all doubt, school to not teach how to learn – such techniques need to worked out and mastered by pupils themselves.
3) Sadly the curricula too often favour memorizing facts, instead of focusing on understanding causations and teaching how to seek out information and to verify them (particularly important in the era of fake news).

With some exceptions of outstanding teachers, school classes do not inspire, seldom kick-start talent nurturing, rarely spur curiosity. Pupils are infrequently encouraged to challenge their tutors, to debate with one another. This is all put down to an obsolete model of one-side interactions between teachers and students, with the former passing on knowledge and testing its acquisition and the latter obediently listening and swotting up for tests and exams.

With the diagnosis of all the ailments eating up the Polish schooling one also must keep in mind several obstacles hinder its turnaround. A major reform would require a general consensus between stakeholders (government, teachers, parents) of the current system that it badly needs an overhaul and on directions in which it would need to be reshaped. Besides, if we were to ditch standardisation and treat children individually, it would require more workforce of higher quality, which means much more money (payrolls, but infrastructure too) would need to be injected to the education system. There also ought to be consensus a substantial chunk of public finances should be laid out for the education system, which in decades will determine Polish economy’s competitiveness. Those expenses would certainly pay themselves off.

P.S. On personal front, doing reasonably fine, though with ups and downs typical for such getting-over periods.

After-exam after-thoughts

Happy to leave it behind, now an almost two-month long wait to get the result begins. Given the difficulty of the exam and level of my preparation I should be quite secure about the outcome, yet far from certainty… Many questions were tricky, means to mislead candidates, so in this case, seeing is believing, albeit I believe I did well.

For sake of brevity, just a few observations…

1. I’m getting older... Most candidates I saw yesterday looked like students. Maybe I can’t properly assess people’s age by their look, maybe many didn’t look their age, but it seems I’m lagging a few years behind the most ambitious youngsters. Some of my university friends took this exam, i.e. were on the same stage of development in June 2009, yet none has reached the end of the road and many are struggling to make further steps forward. I wanted to reach this milestone before my 25th birthday and did it.

2. It’s a men’s world... I dare to estimate roughly 80% of candidates were males. I could go on about possible explanations for this, but I will only take the liberty of mentioning there are no barriers to entry to the programme and signing up is absolutely voluntary, so I believe this is women’s choice or lack of interest in the programme that keep their share in candidate structure so low.

3. I can’t stay in one place when I feel restless. Other people can stand or sit, while I need to move around. Being in motion somehow calms me down. It’s been like this for years, even when waiting on a bus stop I have to be in motion... I’m not cut out to be idle!

4. I can’t understand people reading notes until the last moment before any exam and delving into the content thereafter. I’d been studying for eight months and finished my preparations on Thursday. On Friday I put my mind at rest and didn’t think about the oncoming exam at all. I felt a bit stressed out in the evening, upon returning home and managed to ease up the next day, after I saw first questions on the exam sheet.

5. The exam doesn’t only test your knowledge. It would be too easy. It puts to the test your logistical skills and endurance.

The former as you need to strictly obey several rules, violation of any would result in termination of your candidacy to the programme. You need to check you have all permitted items and not have anything not permitted, which made me go to the test centre without keys and mobile phone. Getting to Centrum Expo XXI is a bit of a nuisance, getting out of there as well, especially if you’re not from Warsaw. Even if you live in the capital of Poland, still it is a bit of a challenge, as it is a few hundred metres away from the nearest bus stop. Therefore I’m immensely grateful to my father for insisting on dropping me off there and picking me up.

The latter as the exam consists of two sessions. The first, which last three hours and wears you out solid, is followed by an hour-long break. The break in fact lasts shorter, some 40 minutes, as you are not allowed to leave the exam room before all papers are collected. Within 40 minutes you need to queue up to a cloakroom with 300 other candidates, get your rucksack containing a packed lunch, immediately queue up to a cloakroom to give back your rucksack and in the meantime devour whatever you can (one sandwich and one apple were my only nutrition during the day), then go to the toilet and then check in for the second, three-hour long session, which ends at 5 p.m. At that time I was hungry, thirsty, felt cold (heating was off, excellent!) and virtually prostrating. At the end you’re in for to a 40-minutes-long wait to get you coat from the cloakroom…

I’m complaining a bit, indeed, but if you fork out thousands of zlotys for something, is it too much to expect good organisation and heating turned on? Nevertheless, I recognise endurance should be tested, as working environment for people working in financial industry require this and only the fittest can survive there. And after all, sacrifices must be made in a pursuit of a better life…

Needless to say, this is all an excellent example of rent-seeking. Now I financially support rent-seekers hoping to become one of them one day…

'Business school' versus 'School of economics'

In practice, I have actually parted company with my school, although in theory I'll do it when I pass my Master's exam. Formally I'm still a student, and both as a student and as a would-be graduate (a diploma from the Warsaw School of Economics is a recognised 'brand') I should be interested in the strategy of WSE (PL: SGH), thus the direction in which it is drifting.

Recent years have brought significant changes in the workings of my university. Most of them have been brought about by an obligation to implement the so-called Bologna system. The biggest revolution to take place under the new system was the shift towards two-tier studies. Each student now has to no choice, but to take a three-year BA course and then, if they wish to continue their education, a two-year MA course. This has replaced the previous cycle of five-year MA studies, which left the decision to take a Bachelor's exam at students' discretion. The shift necessitated changes in the curricula. In the old system studies lasted five years, now they last three plus two years. This indeed equates to five, but the new system lacks continuity, as studies have to be split into two separate cycles and new curricula for each cycle have had to be drawn up.

Proponents of the shift (not those from Poland, but EU officials and scholars) pointed out the Bologna system would bring benefits to students. As it now transpires, its introduction was to the benefit of the overwhelming, problem-piling-up bureaucractic machinery and students are not key beneficiaries of the Bologna system. Since the introduction of the new system in 2006, when I began my studies, SGH has pressed on with two curriculum reforms. Both have come in for harsh criticism for cutting down on number of course hours allocated for "core" courses (intermediate macro- and microeconomics, advanced economics, statistics, econometrics, mathematics) and "not strictly economic" courses (sociology, economic history). The most ardent opponents of the reshaped curricula even cried out against SGH turning into a "vocational school" and retaining the word "economics" in its English name only.

In the West we have two different types of universities:
1) business schools,
2) schools of economics.
And they must not be mistaken for each other!

Let's look at the top bar at "The Economist's" main page.

This is not a coincidence that 'economics' and 'business' have separate sections.

The difference between the two is quite simple. Economics is about understanding people's and companies' behaviours on the marketplace and functioning of economies and it is a social science. Business in turn is simply about making money. The two are strongly tied-up with each other, yet the latter is just a part of the former.

This assertion leads us to another conclusion. It takes much more to educate a good economist than a good businessman. In fact a 'vocational school' would suffice to churn out graduates who would pursue their careers in 'business'. They should have all competencies and skills that would allow them to generate money for their corporations and, consequently, for themselves. A graduate of a business school can work in a consultancy firm, as accountant, auditor, product manager, at a bank, they can successfully run a company. In many of the jobs listed above they would outperform graduates of economics, but think about a business school graduate analysing financial markets, working in a central bank (remember the former president of Polish central bank, ridiculed for his diploma from an 'inferior US business school'?), as an economist at a bank or drafting a pension system reform. All those tasks require a graduate of economics, equipped not only with essential knowledge, but also taught to understand all complex phenomena that take place in the economy, taught to analyse and track causations and, above all, able to shape their own opinions independently. In the context of independence the word 'business' has to be stressed. Being in business involves money-related tie-ups and conflicts of interests that jeopardise an economist's independence. But bear in mind that only business, but also politics might pose a threat to an economist's independence.

Nevertheless, the education of an economist needs to be much broader that the one of a business school student. Courses such as sociology, economics of development, economic history, economic policy have to be run and taken by students. Being an economist requires broader horizons and open mind. The style of teaching should differ. Students of economics should be encouraged to discuss; during such discussions various opinions should clash, substantive arguments backed by examples and calculations should be traded. Analytical skills should be developed, students should be taught to discern possible impacts of some factors on other ones. A few useful rules should be instilled, such as recently quoted one that in economics you can prove a theory if you can't disprove it. And a grasp of psychology is essential when analysing the mechanics of economies and financial markets! Business students, in turn, can crack case studies, learn how to manage people, run companies, foist stuff upon customers and develop other skills requisite for making money.

I don't wish to denigrate students and graduates of business schools. They're just a different breed and are not cut out for some jobs. As a rich man I would not hesitate to take on a business graduate to run my company (but remember the currency-option botch-up from early 2009), but they would not be allowed to manage my personal finances.

And having said that I can't stress strongly enough there is no clear dividing line between business and economics. At my job I am somewhere in between; I try to make the most of my knowledge in economics, but the job has a tilt at the 'business', which means my career path might have to be reassessed...

Coming back to the issue of SGH, I'd like them to settle on 'school of economics' model. Maybe this is not what the market, ruled by money, needs most, but this what next generations will surely need. Moreover, 'business school' means taking a path of least resistance, while SGH with at least some of its excellent staff, is capable of aiming much higher. May it stay the Warsaw School of Economics, not in name only!

Transition

Hard to put it into words what I feel in one of turning points of my life. I suppose I would even have problems defining my emotions, and, disturbingly, they are rather sparse, though they should not.

On Wednesdat I took my last exam at SGH, to be precise this was the penultimate exam, since I still have to take my Master's exam, due... probably in late spring, bereaucracy permitting. My last two exams taken this week were both rough rides, however I hope for the best and contend that I will have gone through my studies without a single re-sit.

On Monday I start my first permanent job (formally I will have a three-month probationary period and then, if both parties agree, will it be a permanent job). This does not actually mean delving into a totally different world. I have had two encounters with the corporate world before and I cannot confess to feel anything like a "stage-fright", but I do feel a bit self-concious though.

The transition might be the right moment for some summaries. To put it possibly briefly, I have drawn up two lists of things I will miss and I will not miss after parting with SGH.

I WILL MISS:

1. Day-to-day contact with peers. Truth be told my colleagues will be a bit or much older than me. From my past experience I know I can get along with older colleagues very well, but they are a sort of a different breed, they have different problems, pastime activities, interests, priorities in life, usually they have a different point of view because they have their own families and obligations it entails.

2. Clever, awe-inspiring lecturers, just to name a few:
dr Bogusław Czarny, who taught me basic micro- and macroeconomics, inspired to think independently, form my own opinions and who stressed the importance of the overriding rule in economics, that an assertion is true when it cannot be disproved, not when it can be proved,
prof. Marek Garbicz, for his breathtaking lectures, sense of humour and open mind,
prof. Maria Podgórska, for her patience, consistency and the fact she did not confine just to teach econometrics and mathematics in finance and insurance, but also wanted to instil in us integrity and made us aware how important in life it was,
mgr Sławomira Rajkowska, my best German teacher ever, unfortunately she stood in for our lecturer just for one term, but the progress I made (without much effort) was unbelievable. Had my Deutsch been that good today...
mgr Aneta Piwko, my best English teacher ever. If all teachers had such excellent command of English, passion and drive to teach, Germans would not stack up against Poles in terms of English skills.
prof. Sławiński... Here words are very unnecessary. Who experienced the pleasure of attending his lectures knows what I mean. The rest may only regret.
dr Piotr Mielus, the supervisor of my MA thesis and an outstanding practitioner.

3. Casual clothes. From next week will fit for weekends, holidays and cult dress-down Fridays. I actually like formal outfits so this one should be taken with a pinch of salt.

4. Commuting in non-peak hours. Lovely it was to get from or to Warsaw within fifty minutes in the middle of the day or in the evening when streets were already unclogged. My new recipe for avoiding traffic jams will be trains, so the journey between home and the office should take around an hour.

5. Job fairs, event, meeting famous people who visited SGH and other events. First two and a half years abounded in such events. Later the crisis came, companies cut their promotion budgets and I ran out of disposable pens.

6. Privileges. Not that soon. I will pick up my diploma some three months after the final MA exam, so I until then will I make the most of my ticket concession and other measurable benefits of being a student. The new world will compensate me for this by giving perks.

7. Unfettered speculation on stock exchange. From now I will not be able to do a real-time trading plus I will have several trading restrictions. This does not mean I will pull back from the stock market at all; the speculator will become a mid-term investor.

I WILL NOT MISS:

1. The overwhelming mess, bad communication between authorities and students and general disinformation.

2. Ignorance and laziness of lecturers. I do not even wish to comment. The list of admired lecturers was short. The list of big let-downs from the whole course of my studies would be much longer...

3. Workings of the student office (dziekanat), its surly personnel, quiant decisions (deleting completed courses from track record of studies, informing me about my Bachelor's exam the day before in the evening)...

4. To boot bad organisation, doing everything at eleventh hour...

5. Appaling use of English, which was ridiculed on this blog repeatedly.

6. Broken down central heating when outside it was -15C or unopenable windows and lack of curtains or blinds when outside temperature hit +30C

7. Lectures at 19:00 for day-time students (prevalent, alas).

Immersing in the corporate world will not only mean I will be self-supporting, but also will bring new challenges and real learning opportunities. In the coming months I expect to work harder and learn more than within four and a half years of my studies.

Hitherto I have not observed any sympthoms of depresja magisterska, (graduates afflicted with this malady are down in the dumps because the carefree period of studies is drawing to a close and they are in for forty years of work), but the worst might be still to come.

The last thing I can mention is the higher education system reform passed yesterday by the lower house of the Polish parliament. The new law is intended to curb two pathologies that plague Polish universities. Firstly, it imposes limits on number of jobs scholars can take. Secondly, it introduces tuition fees for students who take their second studies. From what I have observed, both steps will do Polish universities only good. At least in this respect the current government can be credited with a good job.

Cock-up happens

As a popular saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This time I can’t pick on the intentions. Poland should promote itself and its universities abroad and agreeably, it can’t be done in Polish. In order to address foreign students you have to prepare a guide in a language virtually everyone knows and as you guess, the only language to meet this criterion is English.

Study in Poland is a new initiative launched with a view to promote Polish higher education system and aimed at students and scholars from abroad. Perspektywy Foundation which is behind the project has set up a website and printed a guide for the foreign students, both in English. And here’s the hitch. The English language, you know what I mean.

The brochure I’m ranting about is a compilation of general information about Poland (example: actual exchange rates: www.nbp.pl, I have no doubt the exchange rates published at central bank’s website are actual, but didn’t they mean current? And look at the approximate rates. 1 EUR = 3,59 PLN, 1 USD = 2,45 PLN. They’re neither actual, nor current...

My school also has its two pages in the guide. As the editors have written in a disclaimer, they take no responsibility for the information on the particular universities, since they had been provided by the schools themselves.

Let’s take a look at what my school has written…

1) “SGH offers many opportunities to study economics and social studies”. The author of this blog has chosen to study financial studies.

2) “programes”, “buisiness” – has anybody run a spellcheck?

3) “… we also offer post-graduate studies and vocational trainings for…” Is SGH a vocational school? Does it run courses for carpenters, or welders? It is not enough to check how to translate zawodowy into English. But after all there were attempts to turn SGH into a vocational school.

4) “a system of academic grades which are easy to read…” Once again, I thought a phrase “academic degree” is relatively commonly used and is a good equivalent of Polish stopień naukowy.

5) “a first cycle (Bachelor) geared to the employment market”. Bachelor is an unmarried man, Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science are academic degrees, someone can have BA in a certain discipline, but not to be a Bachelor of Arts in sth (yes, I did make errors on this blog). And why “geared to” and not “labour market-oriented”? I won’t have a go at “cycle”, no matter how strange it sounds, it is used in official documents.

6) “cooperating / in collaboration with other universities” – maybe one day Poles will learn a nice English equivalent of współpraca is “partnership” (though it’s not an actual error)

7) “Postgraduate studies, with abundance of faculties…” Once they use hyphen, the other time they omit it, and why abundance? Isn’t it too formal or literary, wouldn’t simple “variety” suit better?

8) “SGH has been a centre for scientific research in economics and management science”. Should it be “of” instead of “for”? Isn’t the word “science” at the end totally superfluous? Wouldn’t it sound better as “SGH has been an academic centre of research in economics and management”?

9) “1,5 thousand publications”. Again, you can tell me I made the same error and I concede. Let’s illustrate it with an example: the number three thousand seven hundred ninety two point seventy eight would be written in Polish convention as 3.792,78 or 3 792,78, but in English it goes 3,792.78, so…

10) “Every year, the SGH publishes a bilingual, Polish & English report on the competitiveness of the country’s economy and around 150 EXPERTISES. Brush aside the first comma, but let’s examine the report. What is a Polish or English report? What determines a Polishness of a report? A report can be published in both Polish and in English. Meanwhile instead of “the country’s”, why not “Polish economy”? And the accursed EKSPERTYZA, which is expert opinion / report / evaluation / examination. Expertise is biegłość, wysoka kompetencja, but it sounds similarly, so a compiler didn’t take a trouble and used a similar word...

11) “faculty”, “dormitories”. The whole text is written in BrE, just some AmE words don’t seem to fit. Choose one type of English and stick to it, replace it with “(academic) staff” and “halls of residence”.

12) “Fields of study in English:” – the vexed question how to translate kierunek studiów. I would stray from the original Polish phrase and apply “programmes run in English:”.

13) And look how deftly those “fields of study” were translated”: “finance and accountancy”, “spatial economics”, “social politics”. They are respectively: “finance and accounting”, “land management”, “social policy”. I thought it would be hard to make an error there, but they knew how to amaze me.

14) I am dedicating a separate paragraph to a translation of międzynarodowe stosunki gospodarcze, translated as “international economic relations”. Once “international economics” (correct translation) was brought into Poland in 1960s, a communist science committee didn’t agree for a name ekonomia międzynarodowa and it was renamed międzynarodowe stosunki gospodarcze, just not to tease one stupid party official.

15) “The teaching facilities of the Warsaw School of Economics campus include five buildings, with the newest of them built in 2006.” They used a good word, but in a wrong part of the sentence. How about: “The teaching facilities of the Warsaw School of Economics campus are made up of five buildings, including the newest one, built in 2006.”

16) And the sentence which crowns the disastrous piece is: “Beside lectures and classes, students cooperate in REALISING PROJECTS concerning all spheres of life…”
I really I wish I had somebody I could take comfort in beside me… And the second glaring error to demonstrate the expertise of a hapless compiler. Leave out the fact that whenever I hear the word realizować I feel like committing a suicide and let me confine to two hints: realizować project (I detest both words) is “to develop a project”, or “to complete a project”, if you want to say zrealizować.
Apart from attending classes / lectures and workshops (since lecture is a type of a class) students develop projects related to all spheres of life…

I appreciate any critical remarks on the ranting above, mostly the ones on the errors I have made.

I can connive at clumsiness and spelling errors, but EXPERTISE and REALISE PROJECTS are unacceptable. Funnily enough, I managed to envisage it (both words are listed in the post dated 14 May 2009). It turns out it is much easier to predict Poles’ problems with English than stock market trends!

At first I blamed a(n anonymous) compiler, but it was wicked of me. I have nothing against a person who wrote it, they may be a good professional with intermediate command of English and what they have done is not blameworthy.
The writer is for me like a third-year student of medicine who performs a complicated surgery in a hospital. They might be a talented student, but not capable of performing a task they had taken up. Here’s what happened, this person shouldn’t have been assigned a task of writing information in English. And who actually allowed this rubbish to be published?
But there is a much more serious problem. What if the third-year student is the best doctor in the whole hospital? Isn’t it the diagnosis of how it was published?

Now a question to native speakers. Let’s assume that you are keen to support a good cause which is a promotion of Polish universities abroad? How much would you quote for proofreading / editing 100 pages in English? Would hiring a knowledgeable English editor ruin their budget? Does it pay off to save on quality assurance? Are they proud of themselves now, when students are laughing their heads off when they’re reading the hapless booklet?

Szybki magister was just a hoax...

…but I fell for it as well. Now I can have a sigh of relief…

There was something absurd in it, but the fictional university did a roaring trade – within a few days around five thousand people wanted to inquire about the fees, terms of studying, etc. I’d dearly step up the blogging frequency (you’re reading the 100th post on my blog), however this weekend I’m a bit short of time. To find out more about the made up university of Wyborcza, read their comprehensive report.

University of complacency – update

Like on cue, Gazeta Wyborcza published today an extensive report on the pitiful state of education on Polish universities. I’ve just skimmed it, after one of the lecturers told us about the articles in GW. The headings suggest my school is really not that bad…

Quo vadis SGH?

Totally out of the blue, almost three weeks ago, on 22 July the Senate Curriculum Commission congregated and… I don’t know if unexpectedly, but passed a resolution on the changeover in the curriculum of Bachelor’s and Master’s studies (I start the latter in October so the reforms will affect me). The heated discussions about the direction my university should evolve have been held in public for months and the next step was just the par for the course, but… But I somehow deluded myself that the bureaucracy-stricken structure of my school would put off implementation of the reform, all in all it didn’t happen. Sadly I can only fall in with the scholars, students and other members of our academic community who disapproved of the drafts of changes, claiming Warsaw School of Economics was drifting towards a vocational school. So once again I sympathise with the ones who call out “Nie róbcie z SGH zawodówki!”.

The modification of the curriculum can’t be rather categorised as common-sense-based. The course of studies in the academy of economics which has pretences to be a member of elite and wants to compete with the best schools of economics abroad can be simplified in the way it is being done. Why were the advanced micro- and macroeconomics erased from the curriculum of Master’s studies? Is the managerial economics going to substitute for it? What was the main reason for crossing out specified specialisations from the curriculum? Should we pick the lectures on our own, yes, this is the step towards more freedom, but how about the specialisation note which appears on the diploma?

On Bachelor’s studies the changes will take a heavy toll on the knowledge of the graduates. Just take a first glance. Even in the times of communism, when Warsaw School of Planning and Statistics was called a “Red Fortress” (PL: Czerwona Twierdza), the distinguishing mark of the school was teaching two foreign languages on relatively high level. The current graduates of BA studies had to go through five semester long course of “language I” (the candidates are expected to have the command of this language on B2 level) and six semester long course of “language II” (here candidates should be on B1 level). The quality of teaching and all the stereotypes linked to it are the topic for the separate endless post, but let’s focus on the shot in foot, which is cutting down the length of both courses to four semester. Altogether 180 learning hours less than before! And the grasp of languages represented by students of SGH, although relatively good still leaves a lot to be desired. Nevertheless the command of two languages has given us the edge over the graduates of other universities. Why do the authorities want to take away one of our assets? The students will have the opportunity to carry on learning under the pool of learning hours and credit system, maybe it will be better to let them take the matters into their own hands? Why aren’t some courses like sociology or economic history compulsory. The proponents of the reform pointed out they’re not necessary or the students should have been given more freedom in making choices. After two years which elapsed since I’ve completed those courses I have conflicting feeling – many freshmen students find those lectures tedious and superfluous and treat as a ball and chain on their way to career and here we reach the heart of the matter – graduates of the prestigious Warsaw School of Economics should apart from strictly professional knowledge have broad mind, horizons, during their studies they should develop the passion to explore and the habit of critical looking at economic phenomena from different perspectives, taking into account psychology. A modern-day economist is not just a mathematician whose over-reliance on models and patterns leads up to bungled forecasts, it’s rather an open-minded person who has a thorough understanding of psychology, social factors influencing the economy, historical background which underlies some stances and be aware of many more things, unlike the callous traders closed in the dealing room who lump together Poland and Hungary when it comes to financial stability of both countries.

I don’t want my school to churn out graduates lacking general education. Narrow-minded people as far as I observed are more likely to try to outwit the others when it comes to financial matters and are more likely to be ignorant of obvious phenomena – they also led to the current crisis, they fuelled stock bubbles disregarding fundamental factors and elementary laws of economics. The two excellent examples of something what was missed out on are LTCM and the current investment results of Superfund (hedge fund managed by computer system operating on the basis of econometrical model)

For a conclusion – do the today’s drop-offs on stock exchanges herald the deeper correction? If so, I wouldn’t be surprised…

Bachelor of Economics

I can’t say I feel any wiser or more reputable with holding my first academic degree. However, there’s a feeling of properly fulfilled duty, I somehow believe I have just completed one of the phases in my life, so maybe it’s time to turn over a new leaf… But that’s just a symbolic moment, nothing has really changed.

The very exam is indeed a pure formality which crowns student’s academic career. Mine took even less than ten minutes – I just answered the examiners’ questions, then they conferred and decided to award me the highest grade – excellent (PL: celujący). Quite nice, now I can only wish I had applied myself more during the studies – if my average of grade from the entire course of studies had been a bit higher, I could have got the diploma with distinction. According to my school’s formula my average was 0,14 too low to get it, but it doesn’t really matter now. It’s the brains not the papers that make a man successful.

In October I’m going to start my Master’s studies, I hope in less than two years (around March 2011) there will be a post titled “Master of Economics” on this blog. Before it happens, there’s a lot ahead of me to be done, within that “new leaf”. Maybe as my supervisor said, we should strive for publishing some excerpts of my thesis. When writing it, long ago, in February I thought I wanted to produce something more than a thoughtless compilation of sentences rewritten from academic books – I described the phenomenon which undergoes constant evolution and is not comprehensively described in any of the academic books or papers I managed to reach, and my thesis had in my opinion more to do with practice than with dry theory (I wrote about security in electronic banking) and could be seen as a contribution into the description of those issues.

SKO or SCAM?

SKO – stands for Szkolna Kasa Oszczędności (EN: School Savings Association). An invention with the long, tracing back to 1920’s, tradition, under the umbrella of partly state-owned PKO Bank Polski (this bank is a monopolist when it comes to that very product). SKOs are aimed at pupils, mainly of primary schools, aged under 13. The idea behind the whole deception is to instil the pupils ability and habit of saving. End is indeed commendable, but end justifies the means.

According to the bank’s statement, in which it declares it can’t decline to run SKOs as it is one of activities arising from its articles of association, the primary goal of the scheme (do not mistake for scam) is the financial education. Probably it even sounds loftily but there’s a hitch which can’t pass unnoticed. In the normal economy the value of money rises with time, this is called inflation. In the normal banks people get interest for the money they deposit, so that by inflation of four per cent and interest rate on their deposit of five per cent their money turns a real profit of about one per cent. At least depositors’ savings retain their real value – but that’s the shape of things in the normal bank, not in SKO. Here, indeed the deposit is interested, at 0,01 per cent (to illustrate it by an example, imagine that you pay ten thousand zlotys, pounds, dollar, etc. and after a year you get one zloty, pound or dollar as interests), what in practise means that a child would take out exactly as much as it paid in.

Case study:
A child puts aside money for a new bike, which costs 600 zlotys. Each month (at the beginning) it pays 50 zlotys into SKO, or into bank savings account set up by its parent with the interest rate of 5%. In the former variant it gets no more and no less than 600 złotys, in the latter approximately 613,95.

You might say that additional almost 14 zlotys is a little sum. It is, for one child, but it teaches that saving pays dividends. We deposit our money in the banks instead of putting them under the mattress to get more then we put – that’s the logics behind it. Children, although bank may highly speak about it’s action, are taught something different – taking into account inflation they pay out in real terms less than the paid in. Isn’t it in contradiction with the idea of financial education? It’s pathology, something like this should not be allowed to function. A normal man would not save on his current, bearing no interest, account, a financial surplus is transferred into savings account so that it works there.

But many people are unaware of another aspect of the situation. Banks doesn’t keep the collected money in the safe deposit box. It has it at its disposal and can lend it to another bank at the WIBOR rate (currently about 4,6 per cent). So, the conclusion is that bank makes money on poor, still naive children, doing them out of due interests.

Bank explains that the interest earned on the deposits of pupils is turned into precious prizes, like school trips for the best associations. The next lie and pathology – namely unfair redistribution of interest income – children from the whole country finance the trip of one, chosen school. That’s the con, although it may raise the spirit of competition among children – but the more they save, the more profit the bank can make on it. It may only discourage children from saving, as they see it doesn’t beat any fruits. If such programme is to be held, it should be held under market conditions – so depositors should be paid interests.

A traditional piggy bank is a better solution. One won’t get more anyway, the basic assumption is fulfilled and big fishes in expensive suits won’t get their bonuses from children.

The post was inspired by a short article from yesterday’s issue of Gazeta Wyborcza.

“Dziś oszczędzam w SKO, jutro w PKO!” – a fool and his money are soon parted!

A survey…

which I was asked to fill in. Half of my kingdom to the one who’ll tell why was it given out to the students in the private language school… I don’t even know for whom it is, I won’t ask anybody to help me answer these few simple questions. As a typical fault-finder (treat it with a pinch of salt :-) I’m looking for the flaw of Polish schooling system as a whole, when it comes to language teaching.
My first suggestion after few years of learning – teachers, textbook authors and other experts blend British and American English, consequently the language student use is often a mixture of those two types. I personally stick to the BrE, finding all American modifications like “realize” (although it’s correct in BrE as well), “color”, etc. dirty, hideous, oversimplified, nevertheless I use words characteristic for AmE instead of British equivalents, cause I was taught so, now I have to kick that habit…
Original British genteel English has its virtue, but in the Internet prevails the AmE…