Poland’s Educational Management Information System (EMIS) provides a comprehensive dataset for analyzing the relationship between education and labor market outcomes. Covering student cohorts who completed secondary education between 2005 and 2024, the dataset includes records on student demographics, academic performance, school characteristics, and teacher information. With complete coverage of the education system, it enables longitudinal tracking of students’ educational and professional trajectories, supporting both descriptive and causal analyses while adhering to GDPR and national data privacy regulations. A key feature of the Polish EMIS is its ability to link with social insurance records (Żółtak & Stasiowski, 2024), allowing for detailed analyses of employment status, income levels, and career mobility. Additionally, the dataset is enriched with survey data on student preferences, career aspirations, and perceived returns to education(Czajkowski et al., 2020), providing deeper insights into decision-making processes and labor market integration. The system employs three analytical approaches to track students' educational and professional pathways: • Descriptive Analysis: Summarizing trends in educational attainment and labor market participation, with a focus on disparities by gender, region, and socio-economic background. • Causal Analysis: Using advanced econometric methods, such as fixed-effects regression and instrumental variable approaches, to examine the impact of education on labor market outcomes. • Predictive Modeling: Applying machine learning algorithms to forecast career trajectories and employment stability based on educational variables. Access to EMIS data is managed within a secure framework, ensuring compliance with national and EU data protection regulations. Researchers can apply for access to anonymized datasets through authorized institutions, with strict data anonymization protocols in place to protect individual privacy. This study contributes by linking educational and labor market data to assess the effectiveness of Poland’s education system in preparing students for the workforce. It highlights key factors influencing socio-economic mobility, skill mismatches, and disparities in access to education and employment. Additionally, it integrates survey data to explore students' career aspirations and motivations, providing a nuanced perspective on educational and professional decision-making (Czajkowski et al., 2020). By combining administrative and survey data, this research offers actionable insights for policymakers and educators, helping to design interventions that align with students’ aspirations while addressing labor market demands. The findings aim to enhance the relevance and impact of EMIS-based research in shaping education and workforce development policies in Poland (Zając, 2023).

Czajkowski, M., Gajderowicz, T., Giergiczny, M., Grotkowska, G., & Sztandar-Sztanderska, U. (2020). Choosing the future: economic preferences for higher education using discrete choice experiment method. Research in Higher Education, 61, 510-539. Żółtak, T., & Stasiowski, J. (2024). Adding insult to injury: trajectories of school-to-work transitions of Polish basic vocational school graduates during the Covid-19 pandemic. Zając, T. Z., Żółtak, T., Bożykowski, M., & Jasiński, M. (2023). All that glitters is not gold—Mixed early labour market outcomes of STEM graduates in Poland. European Journal of Education, 58(3), 477-497.