Comparing education systems

After visiting with some of my Polish students, they confirmed my impression that Polish education focuses heavily on memorization of facts, and less on critical analysis.  They admitted that this kind of thinking is more challenging in college after the emphasis on factual knowledge in primary and secondary school.  In the US, there is a strong shift toward teaching analytical and critical thinking skills, partly because in this information age there are simply too many facts to memorize and they are often changing.  What is important is being able to locate good factual information (not all information available is accurate or useful), effectively evaluate it, and then analyze it.  I find that my students in the US are pretty good at thinking critically, but often do so without having adequate information on which to base their assessments.  I guess there needs to be a better balance in both systems between gaining content knowledge and developing the competence to analyze it.