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Polish schools start summer break

24.06.2022 20:00
Polish schools on Friday closed for the summer as the academic year gave way to two-month holidays.
Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek attends an end-of-school-year ceremony at a high school in Siedlce, central Poland, on Friday, June 24, 2022.
Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek attends an end-of-school-year ceremony at a high school in Siedlce, central Poland, on Friday, June 24, 2022. PAP/Paweł Supernak

The break means vacation time for more than 4.7 million school students, Polish state news agency PAP reported.

244,000 pupils from Ukraine in Polish schools

This number includes around 244,000 Ukrainian pupils who have fled the Russian invasion of their country, officials told reporters.

Some of the Ukrainian schoolchildren studied alongside their Polish peers, while others took preparatory courses, according to officials.   

2021/2022 school year ‘much better’ than previous one: education minister

Poland’s Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek recapped the school year just gone, saying it had been “much better” than 2020/2021.

Speaking at an end-of-year ceremony at a high school in Siedlce, central Poland, Czarnek said: “It was a good year, full of challenges, but much better than the previous one.”

He added that in-person classes "continued practically throughout the academic year, with the exception of a few weeks in the winter," while the 2020/2021 school year had been marred by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Czarnek told those at the ceremony that the government had spent PLN 200 million (EUR 43 million) on catch-up classes for students who had struggled with remote learning. 

He also thanked Poland's head teachers, teaching staff and students for "passing the test of empathy and openness" by welcoming pupils from war-torn Ukraine.

‘A year of big investments’

Czarnek called the past year “a year of big investments.” 

He stated that since the autumn of 2021, the government had made over PLN 5 billion (EUR 1.1 billion) available to local governments for investment in school infrastructure. 

In other highlights, the government in March raised the average salary for teachers by 4.4 percent, the PAP news agency reported.

(pm/gs)

Source: IAR, PAP, polsatnews.pl