and elsewhere, at home, in the family, and local community? In the modern world, in the face of increasingly strong global competition, human capital, highly qualified, skilled and adapted to the challenges of a changing world, is one of the indispensable conditions for rapid economic growth (Barro 1999), the development of civil society and, consequently, improvement in the quality of life. Human capital should not be viewed only through the prism of its “utility” in the development process. A sufficiently high level of human capital significantly increases the chances of employment. Subsequently, a safe and high quality job is one of the ways to avoid poverty and – consequently – social exclusion. The high quality of human capital is also relevant for choices focused on respect for the environment, as its condition translates into a higher quality of life (for present and future generations) and public health (Lan et al. 2011; Ministerstwo Pracy i Polityki Społecznej 2012). The purpose of education policy, as well as of other policies in the area of public sector services, is to increase equity in access to services, improve its quality and efficiency. Without a more precise formulation of the objectives of education (and thus determining what competencies are to be formed – what kind of human capital is needed) and without appropriate indicators to measure them, it is difficult to conduct any policy and evaluate its effectiveness. An important objective of the state is to equalise access to education and life chances that an individual enjoys after completing formal education. The whole rhetoric of the knowledge-based economy and the information society is, in fact, a call to raise the level of competences (UNDP Poland 2007). Human capital measured by the level of education of the labour force is the sum of competences of particular individuals. For a country, such as Poland, with a still limited financial capital stock possessed by its own citizens, the investment in education (and thus boosting human capital) is the key to success (Czarnik et al. 2012). The conclusion that follows is: the level of expertise of society, i.e. the population’s knowledge measured by the level of attained education, is crucial. Starting from 2010, two indicators with their respective sub-indices are being used for the educational dimension of the international HDI – the Expected Years of Schooling Index (EYSI) and the Mean Years of Schooling Index (MYSI). EYSI reflects the number of years that a 5-year-old is expected to spend in the educational system, and MYSI shows the number of years that a person over the age of 25 has spent to get their current level of education (UNDP 2010). Both are difficult to calculate at the regional level on a yearly basis, but their significance remains undisputed (UNDP PO in Poland 2012), mainly due to the fundamental role of education for achieving a higher income in the future (Hanushek & Woessmann 2007). Based on data from the National Census 2002, one can calculate the average number of years of education needed to get to the attained education for people of over 25 years of age in the county profile in other words Mean Years of Schooling. This indicator can be estimated by multiplying the number of people over 25 years of age with a given level of education by the estimated time required to complete the school. We assume a simplified model of the path to achieve a given education level based on the average time it takes to complete a given stage (according to regulations relevant for people 25 years old in 2002). We are also assuming that for higher education, there are 8 years of primary education, four years of high school and five years of University studies. In the case of vocational post-secondary colleges we assume 2 years of college, four years of high school and eight years of primary school - a total of 14 years, for the secondary vocational education - a total of 13 years, for the basic vocational education - 12 years, primary - 8 years, and 6 years for those who did not indicate any levels of education or had not completed the primary level. Then these values were divided by the sum
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