Academic Tutoring as a form of Modern Cooperation with the Student and an Element of Improving the Quality of Teaching Services

The article, on the example of Poland and Slovakia, concentrates on the changes taking place in higher education in Central and Eastern Europe. The expectations of contemporary students (Z generation representatives) towards academic education and teaching staff have been analysed, and academic tutoring has been presented as an innovative, though not a new, form of education that perfectly meets these expectations.Based on the collected theoretical material and own experience, the authors have indicated the strengths and weaknesses of academic tutoring and analysed the opportunities of implementing this form of teaching in higher education systems. The subsidiary aim of this paper is to pose a number of questions, which could lead to determining the direction of changes that should be considered in order to incorporate academic tutoring into the teaching activities of the university.Potential difficulties arising at the stage of implementing tutoring have also been presented. Their identification may contribute to the optimization of the application of this didactic method, thus increasing the chances of its success. Moreover, several examples of good practice and didactic projects related to the introduction of tutoring into academic practice in Poland have been presented. They may be found helpful when making a decision to implement tutoring at the university level in other Central European countries.