#DescribeYourCountry - Poland

When I am on holidays in different countries I can notice that there are so many differences(lifestyle, educational system, flat prices and so on) in comparison to my country, most of them are hard to reach even through internet. So I decided to create a #DescribeYourCountry and gather every information you regard as interesting more or less, write whatever you like. Just create an article and title it with #Describeyourcountry - describing country. I guess that in future a few articles will occur describing one, the same country. That is not a problem I accept that somebody do not agree with other version and will write your own, just then provide a link in your article to somebody’s version to make everything clear.
Let’s start then!

EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

When child is 7 years old it goes to primary school for 8 years. At the end there is an exam deciding which school you can go, if you obtain more points, the better school you can choose. High school divides on two types:
-Typical high school with general subjects, some of them are extended, depends on profile of class. You go there for 3 years and it ends with high school final. It consists of(minimum requirements to pass):

• Polish exam (divided on written and oral),
• Math exam
• Foreign language exam (divided on written and oral)
• Additional exam whatever subject you like. You can fail it (even give back blank exam) without consequences but you have to come.

Pass threshold is 30% from each exam. The better result, the more points you can get to recruitment on studies. To get even more points, you can write additional exams of extended subjects.

-Second type is Technical college and it last 4 years. Here you can obtain profession diploma and high school final. Profession exams may vary a lot, it can be divided for 2 tests or even 7. It depends on profession. I know that technical college sounds a lot better than high school, but due to low quality of teaching these schools are not so popular.

FUN FACT#1: Discount for tickets(set by law) for people under 18 years (till high school) is 37% but for students is 51%. In most cases but not everywhere, they are counted as one group with 50% discount, but not always, sometimes 40%-30%.

Prom
Usually prom is taking place outside school. Pupils communicate together and preparing everything like place, choosing food, orchestra or DJ and so on. Pupils are paying for yourself and for teachers. They can invite an partner even outside school. Officially alcohol is prohibited but personally I didn’t hear about polish prom without alcohol :)

FLAT COSTS

Flats in Poland are extremely expensive, median in biggest cities are round 7 000PLN per square meter (1850EURO/2180USD). In other, smaller cities price is acceptable at level 2000-4000PLN (350EURO/410USD). These prices apply to “old” buildings. Price of flat in a new building (that was created after year 2005) can reach even 15 000PLN (3500EURO/4100USD) per square meter.
Tell me in comments if this is a lot in your country or not.

Minimum wage per hour is around 11PLN (2,58EURO/3USD), so 7 000PLN is a lot of money.

FUN FACT#2: Almost every train in Poland is slower and more expensive (twice or triply!) than bus. Around 200 kilometers train will make in about 3 hours, flixbus will travel the same distance in 2hours and 20 minutes and is about 3 times cheaper.

MEDICAL CARE

Just horrible, for example you can wait more than 1 year for wisdom tooth removal. When you got serious injury (but not life threatening like car accident or strong bleeding and so on) you can wait for help in hospital for even 12 hours. There are accidents that people are dying while waiting for help.

DRIVING LICENSE

To obtain driving license you have to sign up to driving school. It is not an state company, all of them are private but to start a one, all necessary courses and documents are required from a state institution. So, course in driving school cost about 700 PLN (It is not a stable price, depends on school) and include 30 hours of theory lecture and 30 hours of driving.

After that you can participate to official theory exam which cost about 30PLN (7EURO/8USD). Minimum pass threshold is 92%.

If you pass, then the next step is practical exam (which cost around 170 PLN (40EURO/46USD)) where at the beginning you have to check oil, brake fluid, lights and so on and describe it to the examiner.
Then you have to drive on the curve road back and forth, and move the car from tilt.

After that it is time for the final step. You are leaving maneuvering area and go to drive in the city for around 30 minutes. If you won’t make any mistake twice you pass the exam.
What happens if you fail theory or practical exam? You just have to pay again and try to pass.

That's all for this post, if you want more, just let me know!