Przystosowanie czy rozwój? Pytanie o jakość i cel edukacji w szkole wyższej

Nowadays, higher education institutions participate in a nationwide discussion about the quality of education. What cannot be avoided in this context are questions about their responsibilities. Education is such a kind of social practice that must respond both to local and national demands as well as global ones. The global dimension of education forces us, the researchers of this field, to examine both practices that are present in other countries as well as the social and cultural diagnoses of threats and problems that may be solved thanks to and by the means of education. The national, meaning here also the local dimension of education, indicates the necessity of diagnosing problems of a given country and trying to find their solution. The social competences, which should be executed by higher education institutions must correspond to the function of education and include such “components” or parts as social knowledge, the readiness to act in the social sphere and to the benefit of the community as well as a positive attitude to such actions. Therefore, I have put forward a social diagnosis as the departure point for specifying the tasks of higher education institutions in order to later concentrate on social competences being one of the effects of academic education.