In February 2024, Poland’s Anti-Corruption Bureau opened an investigation into the ‘Collegium Humanum Warsaw Management University’, a ‘Private Management School’ opened in 2018 by a man now (for legal reasons) referred to only as Paweł C. That same month, Paweł C was detained by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on suspicion of issuing diplomas in exchange for personal financial gain. Today, the desire for the appearance of wisdom is often greater than the desire for wisdom itself.
Poland has an interesting relationship with academic credentials.
The Collegium Humanum website boasts of offering ‘prestigious degrees’, including cut-price three-month MBA programmes marketing themselves with the words ‘save 6,200 zlotys and almost a year of studies’. A political scandal has emerged in Poland centred around the fast-tracking of nominees for the boards of state-run companies with the use of the Collegium Humanum three-month MBA.
The ACB investigation has also revealed that the Collegium Humanum offered degrees for other programmes which involved no classes or examinations at all, and put on online examinations without demanding proof of identity.
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