Bachelor’s degree recognised as higher education

The basic provision of law regulating the terms for including periods of study in the duration of employment for purposes of calculating leave allotment is art 155.1 of the Polish Labour Code, under which the following periods shall be included in the length of the employment record:

1. Basic vocational school or other equivalent vocational school – the time of study provided for in the curriculum, not more than three years;
2. Secondary vocational school – the time of study provided for in the curriculum, not more than five years;
3. Secondary vocational school for basic vocational school or other equivalent vocational school graduates – five years;
4. General secondary school – four years;
5. Post-secondary school – six years;
6. Higher education – eight years.

Art 155.2 of the Labour Code provides that, where an employee was enrolled in a course of study in the course of her/his employment, the duration of employment taken as a basis for calculating leave entitlement includes either the duration of employment during which the employee was pursuing studies or the period of study proper, whichever is more advantageous to the employee. And thus, as indicated above, an employee who completed a course of higher education has her/his duration of employment for leave entitlement purposes extended by eight years.

That said, the Labour Code does not specify what, exactly, is meant by completion of higher education. What can one do, then ? Recourse should be had to the legislative Act of 27 July 2005 – the Higher Education Law, art 2.1.5 of which defines higher study as degree courses offered by a duly empowered institutional education and concluding with conferral of an appropriate professional degree. A professional degree, meanwhile, includes those of bachelor, engineer, and master as well as their equivalents (art 2.1.6). Obtainment of a bachelor’s degree, then, is deemed tantamount to graduation from an institution of higher learning. Accordingly, the reader needs not wait until completing her second (i.e. master’s degree), in that completion of her first (bachelor’s) university degree entitles her to increase the period of employment for leave allotment calculation purposes by eight years (…)