Since coming to power in 2015, the conservative national PiS (Law and Justice) party has accustomed public opinion to a permanent “conservative revolution”. It is now preparing to interfere in the education system. On Thursday 13 January, the Lower House of Parliament adopted a highly controversial education reform, which stipulates a strong centralization of primary school, in a system where local authorities, parents’ councils and school directors benefited until then of a significant autonomy.
The text, which provoked a considerable outcry from the teaching staff, parents’ associations and educational experts, arouses all fears, in particular because of the profile of its author. The Minister of Education and Higher Education, Przemyslaw Czarnek, is renowned for his closeness to fundamentalist Catholic circles and his promotion of the most retrograde theses. In June 2020, in the midst of the government’s crusade against LGBT circles, he declared that it was necessary “defend the family against this kind of depravity and stop listening to this nonsense about any human rights or any equality”, speaking of “LGBT ideology” like “emanating from neo-Marxism and Hitler’s National Socialism”.
Removal of openness to otherness workshops
It is now the Minister who will have greater control over the nature of the teaching provided, both in substance and in form. The law in fact grants considerable powers to school superintendents – representatives of the regional prefects under the orders of the minister – who will be able to dismiss school principals at will and without justification. For the “Free School” initiative, which mobilized dozens of organizations against the bill, the text aims to create “a partisan school” and to “limit freedom of expression” both teachers and students.
Among the main subjects of concern: the planned abolition of certain extracurricular lessons, provided until now by NGOs on the concerted decisions of the parents of pupils and the directors of establishments. This is, for example, the case of anti-discrimination and tolerance workshops, supposed to raise children’s awareness of the issue of ethnic or sexual minorities, or sex education classes. The Minister and his close associates consider these initiatives to be “attacks from leftist ideologies on youth.
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