• The head of the ministry said it is undoubtedly necessary to work on slimming down the core curriculum of some subjects so that the lesson plan does not take more than 6.7 hours in school
• He emphasized that, in addition to its educational, caring and educational function, the school should also educate patriotically
• – No one forbids a teacher to autonomously decide which methods he or she will pass on knowledge and skills, in order to build an increasing level of knowledge and skills of his students – assured Piontkowski.
• More information can be found on the Onet homepage

On Tuesday, during the meeting of the Education, Science and Youth Committee, MEPs discussed the planned changes to the school curriculum.

The opposition deputies were inspired to convene this meeting – as Katarzyna Lubnauer, the deputy chairman of the KO club, was inspired by the statement of Minister Przemysław Czarnek for PAP, given at the Economic Forum in Karpacz in September of this year. The head of the ministry said it is undoubtedly necessary to work on slimming down the core curriculum of some subjects so that the lesson plan does not take more than 6 or 7 hours in school. Experts determine which items this applies to.

– We have often said that, especially since distance education started, it is high time to downsize the core curriculum and give teachers more autonomy. To introduce the Polish school in the 21st century in general, that is to change the approach to education – said Lubnauer.

She asked which experts would make these changes, as it was up to them to decide if they were going in the right direction. She also asked how the team that decided on the core curricula was selected.

– I wanted to say to Minister Czarnek, who is not here: do not be afraid. He may want to come to the program committee at least once. We’re really not that dangerous. We are convinced that if he had come to answer questions from opposition MPs, nothing bad would have happened to him,” she added.

The deputy head of MEiN, Dariusz Piontkowski, appealed to Lubnauer not to draw conclusions based solely on an excerpt from the interview.

– At the moment there is no work being done on changing the core curriculum, with one exception – the history curriculum – he said.

He emphasized that in addition to its educational, care and educational function, the school must also educate in a patriotic way. “This patriotic upbringing should, to a large extent, include history classes, and to a large extent also be based on the knowledge of modern history.” He judged that she was not the best of the students who were with her.

Speaking about the work on core curricula as a result of the Polish deal, the director of the MEiN Curriculum and Textbooks Department, Artur Górecki, announced that the Minister of Education and Science had appointed a team of experts to cover the core curriculum for history” and the possible reinforcement of the modern history component”.

In turn, Piontkowski added that among the experts in the team working on the correction of the core curriculum in history, there are scientists from various academic centers in Poland.

– People living and working in Warsaw dominate there – he said. He added that there are – in addition to scientists – authors of textbooks and experts from the Central Examination Board.

Lubnauer also asked representatives of the ministry whether the intention was to separate education in Polish history from world history.

– The works in no way go in the direction of separating the two-part history reading in the history of Poland and general history. It seems to me that from a didactic point of view it would be a mistake – said Górecki.

According to Lubnauer, today’s school should focus on skills and attitudes that are important “in the new, changing world”. – We all see that the times of memory education must end. It also doesn’t make sense to focus on a permanent reading canon, because then people will unfortunately start using scripts and bricks — she said.

Piontkowski pointed to opposition deputies’ objection that teachers must work within an increasingly tight framework.

– No one forbids a teacher to autonomously decide which methods to pass on knowledge and skills, and to build an increasing level of knowledge and skills of his students. There are no restrictions on the teachers’ working methods, Piontkowski said.

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