We now know as a fact that the flagship project of Poland’s Education Minister Barbara Nowacka has ended in spectacular failure. The mass withdrawal of children from “health education” is a genuine vote of no confidence expressed by parents. However, instead of scrapping the ill-conceived subject that has been poorly received by parents, the deputy minister of education is now accusing defenders of children and parents’ rights of “disinformation” and has announced that in the future, “health education” with comprehensive sex ed may be… mandatory. These announcements are accompanied by a new law. The aim of the “REFORMA26 – KOMPAS JUTRA” (REFORM26 – COMPASS OF TOMORROW) Act is clear: to subject schools to increasing ideological control and turn them (including Catholic, community, and private schools) into factories of radicalized youth.
The failure of Minister Barbara Nowacka’s flagship idea
In mid-November, the Polish Ministry of Education made public the full, official data on the extent of the parental boycott of the new “health education” curriculum with comprehensive sex ed. We now know as a fact that the flagship project of Poland’s Education Minister Barbara Nowacka has ended in spectacular failure. As many as 70% of students have dropped the new course! The big winner is the Subcarpathian region, where 83% of parents opted their children out of those harmful classes. Even in liberal-minded Warsaw, only 27% of students attend “health education.” The figure is 26% in Wroclaw and 29% in Gdansk, two other big cities where people vote more to the left.
Our effort was crucial in bringing about the defeat of the ministerial project to sexualize children through “health education.” Once again, we have proven that the cooperation of the entire Ordo Iuris community bears beautiful fruit.
The mass withdrawal of children from “health education” is a genuine vote of no confidence expressed by parents toward the Minister of Education. However, instead of scrapping the ill-conceived subject that has been poorly received by parents, the deputy minister of education is now accusing defenders of children and parents’ rights of “disinformation” and has announced that in the future “health education” with comprehensive sex ed may be… mandatory. The decision will be made later this year!
Will schools become factories that radicalize children and youth?
Accompanying these announcements is a new bill that the Sejm is expected to pass soon, which introduces the largest organizational and curricular reform in the Polish education system in decades. Polish schools are to abandon the mission of promoting Christian and national identity. The entire education system is to be completely transformed. The Polish media are silent about this revolutionary change, but every Pole ought to learn more about it.
The purpose of the “REFORMA26 – KOMPAS JUTRA” act is clear – to subject schools to increasing ideological control and turn them (including Catholic, community, or private schools) into factories turning out radicalized youth. The school is supposed to distance children from patriotism and their parents’ faith; it is to become an instrument of the ideological abduction of children. In pursuit of this goal, the government does not shy away from further restricting the curriculum, removing patriotic content, and even… eliminating required reading.
Under the EU-backed government of Donald Tusk, Polish school will shape young people according to the guidelines contained in the “Graduate Profile”—created at the ministry’s request by the Educational Research Institute—which implements a program of radical ideologies, such as gender ideology, internationalism, and climatism, that stand in stark opposition to facts and reality.
The reform completely changes the language used to describe the education system. To understand it, teachers will have to undergo special training. This creates an opportunity for various training centers and companies specializing in this type of training to earn significant amounts of public funds. Reading ministerial documents, it’s hard not to get the impression that this is one of the hidden goals of the changes.
A new European Union identity is supposed to replace Polish and Christian identities.
The ministry’s proposals are heading toward the definitive elimination of the identity-shaping character of Polish education. In Minister Nowacka’s school, Polish and Christian identities are to make way for and dissolve into the EU identity artificially created in Brussels by Eurocrats. This change has been very clearly set out in the already introduced civics education and in the draft core curriculum for history.
Minister Nowacka’s reform also carries the risk of a drastic decline in the level of education. In the proposed definition of the core curriculum, the term “required instructional content” will be replaced by the imprecise wording “expected learning outcomes and requirements for educational experiences”. According to experts, teachers, and educators, in practice, this will lead to lowering the level of instruction and adjusting it to that of the weakest. The more able students and the overall level of instruction will suffer as a result.
To force the implementation of the reform, Barbara Nowacka—contrary to official announcements—seeks to strengthen the ministry’s authority at the expense of schools and parents. The new law weakens the position of schools, undermining their educational autonomy by taking away their right to independently determine students’ rights and responsibilities, which will henceforth be defined in a separate statute. This will impact schools that, in their bylaws, require students, for example, to dress neatly.
At the same time, the principle of parental consent by default for a student’s participation in elective classes will be introduced. As a result, many parents may only find out after the fact that their son or daughter attended, for example, a ‘talk’ about gender transition.
The proposal to introduce a mandatory Student Functional Assessment is facing opposition. The ministry wants students to be analyzed and evaluated based on their home environment, family relationships, living conditions, and emotional state. Numerous examples from European countries clearly show that such measures lead to serious consequences, including surveillance of families, increased control over them, and the initiation by schools of unfounded proceedings to restrict parental rights.
Ordo Iuris in defense of the Polish school
Defending the Polish school, Ordo Iuris experts—together with partners from the Coalition to Save the Polish School (KROPS), which now includes nearly 90 organizations—prepared a critical analysis of the government’s draft bill, which is the central element of Minister Nowacka’s reform. In our position paper, which we submitted to the Education Ministry, we provided a thorough justification for why the Ministry’s proposals should be rejected. We also took the floor during the meeting of the Sejm Committee on Education and Science, at which the government’s bill received its first reading.
Poland’s Education Ministry has also received our position on the draft law, which provides for introducing a statutory catalog of student rights and freedoms and establishing the office of the “Student Rights Ombudsman”.
We have also published a series of analyses on changes in the education system. Two of them discuss in detail the risks associated with the government bill amending the education law. One analyzes concerns regarding the proposal for a mandatory Student Functional Assessment. Another describes the prewar education system in the Second Polish Republic, in which the goal of the school was not only to impart sound knowledge, but also to shape national consciousness and to lay the foundations for a society integrated around shared values and language. Artur Górecki. Ph.D., also commented on the recommendations of the Educational Research Institute (IBE) regarding homework, as well as on the Institute’s decision to withdraw those recommendations after a wave of criticism.
Thanks to these publications, many members of parliament, journalists, school principals, and parents themselves can feel more confident in criticizing destructive government projects.
We are currently working on an analysis of the core curriculum for teaching history. In it, we will emphasize that Polish schools must educate students in a spirit of affirming national traditions, culture, language, and values, rather than “turning” young Poles into EU citizens. At the same time, we are monitoring the continued legislative work in the Sejm on amending the key education laws.
Minister Nowacka makes no secret that her goal is to completely overhaul, and even rebuild from scratch, the Polish education system—on ideological foundations that are contrary to Christian values.
We will not allow parents to be deprived of their right to decide on their children’s education. We will not allow schools to be turned into hotbeds of left-wing radicals. Ordo Iuris will safeguard parents’ rights and the safety of our children.
Advocate Jerzy Kwaśniewski – President of the Ordo Iuris Institute.
Source of cover photo: Ordo Iuris
