We do not want party people carrying out political orders in schools. There will be an exchange of education superintendents – said Barbara Nowacka, appointed by the Sejm as Minister of Education, in “Rozmowa Piaseckiego” on TVN24. She also said that she would propose “limiting religion lessons to one hour paid from the state budget.”
Nowacka was asked on Wednesday in “Piasecki’s Rozmowa” whether education superintendents can expect to lose their positions at any moment. She said that education superintendents were “executors of the political will” of Minister Przemysław Czarnek. – They were prosecuting school principals and teachers – she added.
– We declared that we do not want party people, party people carrying out political orders in schools. We want people who work for schools, for management, for teachers, so yes, there will be an exchange of education superintendents, she said.
She noted that the education superintendent is selected through a competition.
Nowacka: I propose limiting religion classes to one hour paid from the budget
Nowacka was also asked whether she supported eliminating religion from Polish schools, or at least having the Church pay for lessons.
She said that “two hours of religion lessons are too much, because children have more religion classes than other subjects.” – Therefore, my proposal will be to limit religion classes to one hour paid from the state budget. If the local government or parents decide that they would like more of these hours, it will be their decision, including the financial decision, she said.
– However, the proposal to limit the beginning of religion lessons to one hour, I think, will be widely agreed, to ensure that she is present at the first or last lesson and that the grades in religion are not counted in the average on the school certificates and not at all appeared on certificates, that is what I will declare today, that we will start working in the first days – she added.
Barbara NowackaTVN24
Nowacka about housework
Nowacka also said that the goal is to “relieve students, free them from heavy backpacks, overloaded curricula and homework.”
In her opinion, “the amount of homework that primary school children have today, because that’s what we talk about in our program, is sometimes absurd.” – This does not mean that 100 percent of home learning should be abolished – she noted.
– In grades 1-3, children receive a lot of cut-outs and pasting papers. The nightmare of these children because they get nervous, the nightmare of the parents because then they sit and help with gluing. This absolutely shouldn’t happen, Nowacka said.
In response to the comment that it is difficult to imagine learning to write Polish essays differently than when writing them at home, she emphasized that “you have to approach homework calmly.”
– There should be no absurd homework that overloads students. I would think about it, but again I would like to discuss with specialists, educators and methodologists how to drastically limit this housework. In grades 1-3, I would not grade homework at all and I will strive for this model, she said.
She emphasized that a lot needs to be done in Polish education.
Nowacka: Tusk suggested the Ministry of Education to me
Nowacka was also asked in “Piasecki’s Interview” how strong the competition was for who would become a minister in a given ministry.
– Of course there are ambitions, dreams, plans, ideas. However, we also know that we are not appointed for a long time and that the person who will be nominated today will not be replaced by someone else in a year or a year and a half, she said.
She admitted that Donald Tusk he offered her the position of head of the Ministry of Education.
Main photo source: TVN24