Safety studies as a new form of education in universities — the media and law context

Анотація

This article undertakes a challenge of discussing issues of safety studies as a new form of education in universities — the media and law context. To achieve it, certain curriculums have been thoroughly analysed and numerous advantages of new courses in this field have been developed. Moreover, importance and legitimacy of PhD safety studies and getting an independence in conducting scientific researches are shown in this study.
For some time now, in Polish public and private universities there are courses such as “National Security”, “Internal Security” and “Security Engineering”. No one expected the education in a safety field to become so interesting and “in fashion” among students. It turned out that a lot of young people want to be somehow related to the uniformed services, a variety types of formations and also jobs in public administration in the future. Some of the occupations of that sort require education in the safety field. Because of that many universities began to introduce students to new courses such as “National Security” and “Internal Security” ending with a Bachelor Degree. Later on, requests to continue the studies on Masters level started to appear. What is more, technology universities adapted a form of educating called Security Engineering, which consisted of two aspects — social and technological knowledge. Nowadays there are tens of universities in Poland that enable studying within the discussed field. The Subcommittee of Higher Education considers introducing PhD studies of safety and also giving some of the academies rights to open courses which make it possible for students to get a degree qualifying as an associate professor (higher doctorate). However, for now these plans exist only in discussions with no obligations. The aim of this article is to present safety studies and their role in education in universities. What is more, the author tries to answer the question whether it is possible to induct the PhD studies or even higher levels of education in that very interesting field combining theory and practice of widely understood safety in the nearest future.