Everything in Polish from early days

Polish schools in Vilnius and Vilnius region came up shortly after the end of World War II. Such were will and aspirations of Poles of Lithuania whose new borders separated them from their Homeland. The model of Polish schools in Lithuania foresaw from the very beginning that all subjects, except the Lithuanian language and literature, would be in Polish. The Lithuanian language (and Russian in Soviet period) was taught according to a different program than that practised in Lithuanian schools. This model survived all the Soviet period and two decades of the independent Lithuania until a few years ago, when the Seimas has adopted the new version of the Lithuanian Law on Education.

The new law destroys previous, proven by 60 years of experience model of education by introducing two important changes. Firstly, according to the requirements of the new law some of the most important subjects (including history) have to be taught in the state language, and not in the native language. Secondly, the matriculation exam of the Lithuanian language should be unified within 2 years after the adoption of the new law in all schools regardless the language of teaching and differences in programs, which are actually present in the schools with the Lithuanian teaching language and the schools of national minorities.

Such law, unprepared and adopted without consent and in principle without consultation with affected communities of national minority schools, has become a hotbed of national conflict in Lithuania.

Graduation exam from native language discarded

Polish schools in Lithuania suffered another blow even earlier. The Ministry of Education and Science liquidated the obligatory graduation exam of the native language in national minority school stating that the only exam that should be obligatory is the Lithuanian language exam. Polish schools received this change with a complete disapproval, saying that it will lower the status of the Polish language and prestige of Polish schools. Chairman of the Association of Polish Schools Teachers in Lithuania 'Macierz Szkolna' (Polish Educational Society) Juzef Kvetkovskij declared that since authorities liquidated the native language exam, students will be taking a patriotism exam instead. The exam remained in practically all Polish schools in Lithuania, whose School Councils autonomously decided that the native language exam will be considered obligatory despite the decision of the Ministry of Education and Science.

Latvian model in a gesture of solidarity?

When adopting the new version of the Law on Education, its initiators explained the changes for national minority schools introduced in the law by saying that such education model is already functioning in Latvia. In the same time, however, they admitted that Latvia has huge problems in the international arena due to oppressive educational rights of national minorities. According to Lithuania 'nationalists' (who mainly were the initiators of the matters), an adoption of this model would show a gesture of solidarity with Latvian state.
Despite the fact that in this particular case solidarity is not in place, the Committee on Education of the Seimas supported the amendment. This shows that the change of the Law on Education was only of a political character from the very beginning. Nationalists did not care about raising the level of education of the state language; what they really wanted was a gradual implementation of oppressing model of education, the target of which is a gradual assimilation of national minorities.

True aims of the new education law

We should reflect on true aims of the new Lithuanian educational law. In my opinion, politically motivated changes were introduced for a couple of reasons. Firstly, authorities wanted to show that national minority schools are on a low level of schooling when speaking about teaching the state language. If they could prove it, a lot of schools would be discredited which in consequence would scare new students from joining them.

This is the only explanation for the actions of Ministry of Education and Science that imposed the two-year term for the unifications of exams against all the principals of rational reasoning. It means that the students of national minority schools have to cover all the program differences in just two years, while students of Lithuanian schools have twelve years for doing this. The difference between the two schools is 800 hours. It is not a surprise that independent and apolitical experts of the Council of Europe Advisory Committee, which monitors how states implement the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, considered such actions of the Lithuanian government as 'discriminatory' against national minorities. The Ministry of Education and Science responded to such notice only with an enigmatic entrusting that exams taken by students of national minority schools would be assessed a bit milder (more mistakes accepted).

In reality, the new graduation exam of the Lithuanian language resulted in a significant decrease of score among students of national minority schools. Number of failed exams increased from 8 to 15 percent. Here we can see another political reason for changing the educational law, the actual result of which is closing of the doors leading to higher studies in Lithuania for graduates of national minority schools. It has to be noted, that failed exam of the state language excludes a student from the opportunity to study in the country.

Road to assimilation

Concluding the discussion about the new model of Polish education in Lithuania, which was imposed on Polish community by politicians, I would like to appeal to the knowledge and experience of the people most familiar with this issue. I am talking about teachers and psychologists who unanimously agree that psychological and spiritual development of a child unfolds best when a child is educated in his or her mother tongue.

Meanwhile the introduction of teaching of certain important subjects in Lithuanian from the lowest grades in the schools of national minorities disrupts this process. A child is forced to think in the state language instead than in his mother tongue from the earliest years. This process will lead to a situation where child's first language will be no longer a native one, but the state language. Before, the state language was a mastered language for a Polish student, while the Polish language - a mother tongue. Authorities of educational sector are trying to reverse this order.

It is a very serious situation from the point of view of preserving and maintaining the national identity of Polish youth in Lithuania. There is a need to understand the importance of state language, but it cannot be made at the cost of people's native language.
We should develop another model of Polish education in Lithuania, which would allow parallel language learning - both native and state, keeping at the same time a proper gradation of these languages in the life of a student. Representatives of the concerned communities of national minorities and Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science are capable of creating such model together. The only condition is depoliticizing of the process and some good will...

Tadeuš Andžejevski

"This project is co-financed from the funds granted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland."