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Poland The Drive for Education Reform
In the Solidarity movement of 1980, student and teacher
organizations demanded a complete restructuring of the
centralized system and autonomy for local educational
jurisdictions and institutions. In response, the
Jaruzelski
government issued sympathetic statements and appointed
committees, but few meaningful changes ensued in the
1980s.
Although an education crisis was recognized widely and
experts
advised that education could not be viewed in isolation
from
Poland's other social problems, the PZPR continued making
cosmetic changes in the system until the party was voted
out of
office in 1989. The political events of that year were the
catalyst for fundamental change in the Polish education
system.
The round table discussions of early 1989 between the
government and opposition leaders established a special
commission on education questions, which was dominated by
the
Solidarity view that political dogma should be removed
from
education and the heavily bureaucratized state monopoly of
education should end
(see The Round Table Agreement
, ch.
4). That
view also required autonomy for local school
administrations and
comprehensive upgrading of material support. Accordingly,
the
Office of Innovation and Independent Schools was
established in
1990 to create the legislative basis for government
support of
private schools established by individuals and civic
organizations. In a compromise with communists remaining
in
parliament, state subsidies were set at 50 percent of the
state's
per-student cost. The new private schools featured smaller
classes of ten to fifteen students, higher teacher
salaries, and
complete freedom for educational innovation. Tuition was
to be
high, from 40,000 to 50,000 zloty per month (for value of
the
zloty--see Glossary),
with scholarships available for
poorer
students with high grades. In the first eighteen months,
about
250 new private schools appeared, 100 of which were
affiliated
with the Catholic Church. In 1990 the total enrollment of
15,000
reflected parental caution toward the new system, but the
figure
rose steadily in 1992. The Ministry of National Education
viewed
the alternative schools as a stimulus for reform of the
public
school system.
In 1990 Minister of National Education Henryk
Samsonowicz
established interim national minimum requirements while
offering
teachers maximum flexibility in choosing methodology. The
drafts
of new education laws to replace the 1961 law called for
the
"autonomy of schools as societies of students, teachers,
and
parents," with final responsibility for instructional
content and
methods. Controversy over the laws centered not on their
emphasis
on autonomy and democracy, but on the relative status of
interest
groups within the proposed system. Disagreements on such
issues
postponed the effective date of the new Polish education
laws
until September 1991.
The most controversial aspect of the new law was the
status
of religious education in public schools (see
table 5,
Appendix).
A 1991 directive from the Ministry of National Education
required
that every student receive a grade in religion or ethics.
For
many Poles, this meant an invasion of the constitutional
right to
keep silent about religious convictions as well as
recognition of
a church education authority rivaling secular authority.
Many
other Poles, however, considered separation of the church
from
education to be a continuation of communist policies and a
weakening of the national moral fabric.
Data as of October 1992
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