Diversification, Rankings and Their Conditions. General Problems and the Polish Example

The diversification of higher education facilities and institutions, together with the importance of international rankings and competition within the market of the higher education sector, have in recent years become probably the most frequently discussed issues related to higher education, along with the notions of autonomy or management. The reasons for this interest, so as to name only the most important ones (see e.g. publications of the European Commission or Lambert and Butler, 2006), are associated with the challenges set before higher education on the one hand and with the criticism of educational institutions on the other. These challenges include the globalization process, international competition, both in the economy and the higher education sector, the Lisbon Strategy, the pursuit of increasing the competitiveness of the European economy, and the ever-increasing role of higher education in the process of building a knowledge-based economy. The criticism of the higher education system applies to its low efficiency and the fact that universities cannot successfully handle the above challenges due to internal and external restrictions. The former may include inefficient management, lack of adaptation to the needs of the community, and poor quality of teaching and learning processes. They are caused in part by external restrictions, since the growing tasks of higher education are not accompanied by appropriately higher government funding, and insufficient institutional autonomy in many countries prevents the bottom-up adaptation of a strategy that reflects changing needs (European Commission, 2003, 2005, 2006; Lambert and Butler, 2006).