Poland’s President Vetoed the Tusk Government’s Strongly Left-Liberal Education Bill

Public consultations on the new core curriculum for Polish schools ran until December 18. The Ordo Iuris Institute submitted its position on this matter to the Ministry of National Education. The new core curriculum for elementary schools is part of the revolutionary changes being introduced by the Ministry of National Education under the reform known as “Reform26. Tomorrow’s Compass.” The Polish Ministry of National Education wants to discontinue mandatory instructional content that is no longer included in the new definition of the core curriculum contained in the Act of November 21, 2025, amending the Education Law and certain other acts, which was vetoed yesterday by the President of the Republic of Poland. The new framework is intended to set out, among other things, the expected “learning outcomes” as well as the requirements regarding “educational experiences.” The introduction of these, especially the latter, limits the teacher’s freedom to apply those teaching and educational methods that they consider most appropriate from among those recognized in contemporary pedagogy, which is guaranteed to them by Article 12(2) of Poland’s Teachers’ Charter.

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In the draft core curriculum for primary schools, particularly alarming is the significant reduction in the role of the Polish language throughout all of primary education. The focus mainly on the communicative function of language marginalizes its culture-shaping and identity-forming role. This risks future generations of Poles failing to identify with the Polish language as the key binding force of the national community.

Moreover, in grades 1-3, there are plans to remove the sample, optional reading list, which today plays an important role in passing on the cultural code and connecting generations, as well as in students’ cognitive and emotional development. In grades 4-6, the mandatory reading list is to be completely eliminated and replaced by an unstructured list of various texts as optional reading suggestions, from which the student will make a selection in cooperation with the teacher. In grades 7–8, the number of required readings has been reduced to four longer texts per year, which means that until the end of elementary school a student may limit their familiarity with and exposure to Polish literature to, in total, just a few of the simplest titles from a short list.

Moreover, in grades 4-8, among the objectives of Polish language instruction, the issue of “identity” is addressed only in the last, rather than the first, of the listed objectives, and only in a rudimentary form, in relation to national culture, alongside which local, European, and global culture are also mentioned. Furthermore, the implementation of this goal has been supplemented with a requirement that it be carried out taking into account the human impact on the environment and climate.

The assumptions of the draft history core curriculum not only fail to repair the damage from the 2024 content reductions but also deepen the crisis of history education in Poland. According to Ordo Iuris, the measures undertaken by Poland’s education ministry should be considered destructive, since they promote a rupture with a rooted cultural tradition by rejecting elements central to Latin civilization and Polish national culture. Ordo Iuris also points out that the Ministry of National Education has submitted proposals for new framework teaching plans that provide for reducing the number of hours of history instruction in grades 4–8 by at least one hour throughout this entire stage of education.

Analyzing the draft regulation defining the core curriculum for elementary schools, Ordo Iuris notes a reduction in the coverage of puberty in science and biology classes and its presence in health education. Such a shift may indicate that groundwork is being laid to make health education, which in Poland now contains elements of comprehensive (permissive, gender-ideology oriented) sex education, a required subject starting next school year. This is all the more likely because the education ministry leadership does not hide that, in its view, these classes should be mandatory—although this would run counter to the will of the majority of parents in Poland, as evidenced by only a 30 percent attendance rate at “health education” classes nationwide.

In the analysis submitted to the Ministry of National Education, aside from detailed comments concerning selected subjects, Ordo Iuris also pointed out the inappropriate structure of the new core curriculum, which more closely resembles a centrally mandated program of instruction that should be determined at the level of the individual school, as well as erroneous anthropological, didactic, and pedagogical assumptions.

It was also noted that at the center of the changes being introduced in the education system—including the core curriculum for general education—is the “Profile of Preschool and Primary School Graduates,” which, according to the authors, is intended to “define what competencies, knowledge, and attitudes a student completing a given stage of education should possess,” as well as to serve as a “compass” that organizes educational objectives and makes them more transparent for students, parents, and teachers. An analysis of the content and the way this document was introduced indicates, however, that its function goes far beyond a purely declarative ordering of learning objectives. In fact, this is a document that reorients the entire education system, basing it on an ideologized vision of the human person detached from realistic anthropology, and, moreover, it lacks any grounding in the provisions of Poland’s education law.

Along with comments on the core curricula, the results of research conducted by the Coalition to Save the Polish School (KROPS), concerning the reforms being implemented by the education ministry, were submitted to the Ministry of National Education. In this survey, conducted from November 23 to December 14, 2025, 2,057 respondents took part, which is only slightly fewer than in the consultations for the “Graduate Profile of female and male graduates,” conducted by the Educational Research Institute subordinate to the ministry (from September 27 to October 31, 2024, and thus lasting longer), in which about 2,900 people allegedly participated.

KROPS surveys revealed widespread criticism among Poles of the changes proposed by the Ministry of National Education. Respondents expressed strong opposition to detailed changes to the foundations, to the entirety of “Reform26,” to the way consultations were conducted and the credibility of the consultation process, and to the necessity of implementing the reform at such a rapid pace.

In the final part of the comments submitted to the Ministry of National Education, it was emphasized that in the event that the President of the Republic of Poland vetoes the Act of 21 November 2025 amending the Education Law and certain other acts, which changes the definition of the core curriculum, the draft regulation in its current form would go beyond the statutory delegation set out in Article 47(1)(1)(a) and (b) of the Act of 14 December 2016 – Education Law.

On December 18, President Karol Nawrocki decided to veto the bill. The day before, representatives of KROPS, including those from the Ordo Iuris Institute, had taken part in a meeting with the President’s representatives devoted to education reforms. The event took place at the Presidential Palace and brought together a delegation from numerous organizations and communities.

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