Education, Human Capital and Knowledge—The Paradigm Shift and Future Scenarios on Polish Rural Areas

Nowadays, the education level is treated as an important endogenous resource of economic development, defining the development potential of territorial systems. In this context, the level of education can be treated as a resource of towns, regions or states. But this paradigm has undergone transformation in the last decades, especially at the time of the socio-economic and political change in Poland in 1989, and its impact in the future will be different, with due account for the increasing globalization, internet usage, importance of knowledge in development, servicising of the economy, etc. Despite the dynamic growth of the share of inhabitants with higher and secondary education in the last two decades, the spatial distribution of the respective measures remains highly stable. Such high stability (inertia) of the educational spatial structures will also play a significant role in the future importance of education for rural development. The aim of the chapter is to study the changes in the educational attainment level of inhabitants of rural areas in Poland in the recent two-three decades and to identify the perspectives for further importance of education levels of the rural population for the development of rural areas of Poland. The analysis were based on the review of scientific literature, strategic papers, and data collected by public statistics.