As we reported earlier in an audio report, the new Minister of Education Barbara Nowacka announced the government's plan to abolish compulsory graded homework in junior schools in Poland (currently grades 1 to 8 from age 7 to 14).
Is the new government so different from the last in education policy?
Perhaps surprisingly, in the context of a political conflict between the current ruling coalition and the current opposition that has evolved into a fully fledged culture war and constitutional crisis, the previous education minister, Przemysław Czarnek proposed a similar reduction in the workload for Polish school children.
Czarnek proposed to reduce the scope of the curriculum to allow school children to engage in extra-curricular activities developing emotional intelligence.
Is educational success and widespread dissatisfaction compatible?
Although Poland is regularly ranked high in terms of educational levels reached by pupils, these results mask widespread dissatisfaction with the education system. Recent research from LiveCareer confirms this, highlighting dissatisfaction with teaching methods (51% of respondents) and irrelevance of the curriculum to the job market (47%).
So how does Poland rank so highly in international comparisons of education systems? (For example placed 10th globally and 5th in Europe in the Pearson Ranking.)
Two answers: there is an extremely high emphasis on testing in Polish schools, making school a pressured environment but perhaps making children good at passing exams; secondly and relatedly, Polish families make very regular use of "prep" classes - private extra classes to help pass the frequent tests (Polish: "korki").
For example, this article in a local government website referring to the one in four Polish families paying for extra private classes for their children is entitled "Schooling failure. One in four families uses private tutorials".
So it is not surprising that children and parents perceive poor teaching and an out of date curriculum as essentially compensated by constant testing, extra private classes and a culture of monitoring children by parents.
Conservative opinions out of touch
Conservative approaches in education, such as the opinions of then Minister of Education Roman Giertych (2006-2007), have emphasized the need to read national literature, especially when this literature is "patriotic". However, the emphasis on tests and homework (combined with easy internet access) has led to the current scenario where students do not usually even read the set novels, but simply practice exam questions and read or listen to summaries. In this way they are unlikely to "imbibe" a sense of national pride e.g. from Sienkiewicz.
Deep change or superficial reforms?
In her first press briefing as Minister of Education, Barbara Nowacka criticised the previous government's record on education precisely for its failure to address deeper questions of education. The PiS dominated government, for example, reformed the structure of secondary education - turning 3 school stages into 2 by eliminating "middle school". This change represented considerable logistic challenges for school buildings and timetables for example, but did not touch core educational issues like recruitment of teachers, salaries or curriculum.
Scepticism about new education plans
Yet the new minister has already faced similar criticisms herself. Her pre-Christmas announcement that children are not to get "holiday homework" or that from April 2024 primary school children will not get compulsory graded homework has been seen as exactly the kind of populist policy making the previous government was criticised for.
The far-right opposition party Konfederacja called a press conference where Krzysztof Bosak accused the current administration of a lack of "homework" in presenting education plans, evidenced by contradictory statements by different government representatives.
Nowacka has, however, emphasized in her first statements as minister that some reforms will take "not weeks or months but years".
Research into homework from other countries
Homework and its effectiveness in raising education standards is in fact one of the most frequently researched subjects internationally. Research in the US, for example, has not been conclusive. However, tentative conclusions seem to be that a moderate amount of homework (e.g. around one hour a day for Grade 8 pupils) has a positive impact on attainment without "side effects" in the form of increased stress levels or increasing inequality because of e.g. varying access to broadband at home.
Sources: Radio Poland, Frontiers in Psychology, Rzeczpospolita, wp.pl, portalsamorzadowy.pl, edulider.pl
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