The paper deals with the issues related to the right to education under the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997 and to the actual operation of the education system. The main focus is on the constitutional guarantee of equal access to education. This guarantee should be treated as Kant’s Regulatory Idea which should be pursued by public authority though its full attainment is not possible in social reality. This study attempts to indicate to what extent the state’s obligation to ensure equal access to education is implemented by the institution of the school in Poland.

The right to education for persons with disabilities results from the constitutional principle of universal and equal access to education, however, it frequently encounters difficulties in implementation. This issue is particularly important not only from the point of view of Polish law but also due to international guarantees of universal access to education and activities aimed at the elimination of all forms of discrimination. They were included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on Human Rights. European standards in this respect are set, first of all, by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, EU regulations and directives, as well as by the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Moreover, the issue of the universal and equal right to education was also raised in the documents of the Council of Europe: the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter, judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, and decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights.

The right to education is at the heart of the notion of cultural rights, established in basic laws and international treaties. Meanwhile, outside the official educational system, the phenomenon of tutoring is becoming an increasingly influential factor contributing to the deepening of inequalities in access to education. This article presents the results of research carried out using the survey method - auditorium questionnaire, on the total population of the first-year students of first-cycle programme and long-cycle Master’s programme at the University of Rzeszów. The aim of the article was to indicate the cultural and social factors that determine the use of private tutoring by the surveyed students. The University of Rzeszów is the largest public institution of higher education in south-eastern Poland. The research provided interesting conclusions for the discussion on the development of informal education in the form of additional paid lessons and their impact on the formal education system in Poland.