- Poland is introducing reforms to its education system beginning in September 2017, including closing junior high schools, extending elementary schools to 8 years, and restructuring its vocational schools. - The new system will consist of 8-year elementary schools, 4-year high schools, and various technical and vocational schools of different lengths. - As the first step, junior high school recruitment was suspended and students completing 6th grade elementary school will now continue to 7th grade rather than transferring to junior high school.

1. Education in
Poland

2. • Since the beginning of the school year
2017/2018 new changes are going to be
introduced into polish education system. This
September, among the others, the following
reforms will be awating the students:
• - the reformed vocational schools will be opening
• - the junior schools will start closing
• - the first year of junior high school students will
remain in grade 7 of the elementary schools

3. New school system
• Until now, the school system consisted of the elementary schools (6
years),
junior high schools (3 years),
high schools (3 years),
technical colleges (3 years),
vocational and post-secondary schools (3 years). Ultimately it will
transition into the following:
elementary schools (8 years),
high schools (4 years),
technical colleges (5 years),
I grade vocational schools (3 years),
II grade vocational schools (2 years),
specialistic qualifying schools (3 years) and post-secondary schools.

4. Termination of junior high schools
• This Spring, as the first step towards
closing junior high schools - the
recruitment was suspended. Instead of
starting their education in the first grade of
junior high school, all the students who
finished their education in grade 6 of the
elementary school will remain in grade 7.
Next year they will continue their
education in grade 8 and will finish it by
taking a nation-wide 8-grader exam.

5. New core curriculum
• The new core curriculum was prepared for the
updated elementary schools. It was agreed on
by the minister of education and it describes all
the contents that the students should be
familiarised with on a certain level of education.
The teachers need to meet all the requirements
described in the document and use the new
textbooks adapted to cover the updated
contents. The updated curriculum will be used
for the first time by students of 1, 4, 7 grade
elementary schools.

6. Subject based teaching
• The subject based teaching begins in grade 4 of elementary school
and the students will take on the following subjects: polish language,
mathematics, information technology, history, nature science,
music, art, foreign language and physical education. Nearly all of
these subjects will be continued up till the end of the elementary
school, however the history lessons in grade 4 won’t be focused on
historical events in chronological order, but on the introduction to the
subject and getting to know the famous historical personas. In grade
5 the nature science will be replaced by geography and biology. In
grade 7 new subjects will be introduced – second foreign language,
chemistry and physics. Grade 8 curriculum will also be extended for
social studies and education for safety. The technology will be
conitnued till grade 6 and arts and music – till grade 7.

7. Complimentary textbooks
• In the school year of 2017/2018 the
government budget will continue supplying
the books for the schools. The books will
be lent out to the students and are
supposed to be used at least by 3 age
groups.

8. Bilingual divisions
• In some of the elementary schools
bilingual divisions will be introduced in
grade 7 (until now they used to function
only in junior high schools). The main
requirement to be assigned to such
division is passing an exam checking the
students’ language predispositons. The
students currently being in a certain
elementary school will have priority during
the recruitment process.

9. Vocational schools
• This September the vocational schools will
be replaced with the I grade vocational
schools (3 years).

10. • Disestablishing the payments for 6 year
old’s parents
• Starting from the beginning of this school
year, parents of 6 years old children will
not have to pay for the kindergarten. The
only cost required will be the schoolmeal.