Poland

Poland has the new minister of Science and Higher Education Wojciech Murdzek from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. Murdzek has a background in electrical engineering which he studied at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology and a postgraduate degree in New Public Management from the International University of Logistics and Transport in Wroclaw.

Murdzek spent most of his professional career in this birthplace Świdnica where he worked as an engineer, city counsellor and deputy chairman of the city council before becoming a mayor for three consecutive terms. From December 2019, Murdezek was the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Development before taking the position of the Minister of Science and Higher Education. It is one of the two Polish ministries in charge of education along with the Ministry of National Education under supervision of minister Dariusz Plontkowski.

Slovakia

Another central European country appointed a new minister of education but unlike Poland’s conservative minister, the new Slovak minister of education comes from a liberal party - Freedom and Solidarity (SaS). Gröhling finished secondary education in footwear design and production in his hometown Partizánske, known for quality shoemaking in Slovakia, and, years later, studied law in the first cohort of The Pan-European University in Bratislava. In the meantime, Gröhling worked in a number of private companies in cosmetic industry and became a shareholder in some of them. In parallel, he closely worked with vocational training institutions on different projects aiming at connecting industry with students. As a journalist, he published extensively on the issues of vocational training with a focus on secondary vocational schools.
He was elected to Slovak national parliament in 2016 and became the new the Minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport in April 2020.

Polish Ministry of science and higher education

Ministry of education, science, research and sport of the Slovak Republic