The opening of the EU labour markets vs. educational and professional aspirations among grammar school pupils

Abstract

The opening of the EU labour markets for Polish employees and the emergence of the chance to search employment in other EU countries by present grammar school pupils, turned out to be significant for educational and career aspirations for about 40 per cent of those who responded. As far as the influence of the opening labour markets on the aspirations concerning career and education is concerned, the researched youth can be divided into three groups. These groups differ in the results in learning. Intensity of the impact that the opening of the markets for Polish workers has on particular aspirations in different groups of the respondents depends on the scope of the time perspective of the planned educational career. If short education is planned by the people who have the poorest learning results and who are going to cease their education after basic vocational school, the most influenced aspect are their career aspirations. At pupils who have average learning results and choose their education in secondary technical school or basic vocational school but they are planning to have secondary education in the future, the opening of the EU markets influenced most their aspirations connected with post-secondary school. When respondents has very good results in their education and they are going to engage themselves in long-lasting learning and completion of studies, then the opening of the EU market labours seems to be most influential for the aspirations related to the level of the planned education.