Andrzej Polaszek, an elder from the ERChurch in Poznan and a lawyer, was one of speakers at a meeting organized by a city council member in Krakow and concerning homeschooling (Nov 27th, 2008). He spoke about actual regulations on homeschooling in Poland and planned changes in the regulations. A new Educatin Act was prepared by the Polish secretary of education. It is now being discussed by an education commmittee in the parliament. According to present regulations a permit issued by a local school headmaster is needed to homeschool. The headmaster also specifies conditions under which a child may be homeschooled. The problem is that while some headmesters are quite open to homeschooling, many are not. The main change in the new regulation is that it will no longer be a local school headmester to give a permit but ANY school headmaster (also private school headmaster). This will make it much easier to obtain such a permit.
At the meeting in Krakow there were also some homeschoolers who talked about their experiences. A follow up meeting is planned to inform school headmasters about homeschooling and to encourage them to allow any willing people to homeschool their children. This is a local initiative aimed mostly at Krakow and vicinity. But the city council member who organized it is quite an important figure in the ruling party in Poland and we hope that her support for the new regulations will be helpful.
On April 28th a conference on homeschooling took place in Warsaw, Poland. It was organized by Sobieski Institute, one of Polish think tanks. One of the speakers was Dennis Tuuri, who spoke on American, and especially Oregonian, experiences in implementation of hmeschooling. Another speaker was Andrzej Polaszek, CREC elder from Poznan, Poland, who spoke about suggested changes in Polish law to make homeschooling safer and more accesable. All talks will be included into a report made by Sobieski Instituted for Polish secretary of education.
On March 7th Andrzej Polaszek, an elder in Evangelical Reformed Church in Poznan, Poland, met with Polish Sercretary of Education and talked about the planned National Conference on Home Education. Andrzej spent with her 1 1/2 hours talking about the National Homeschool Conference, where Dennis Tuuri will be one of the speakers (it is scheduled for April, 28th). It was a very good meeting, very promising. The Secretary used to be a headmaster of a private high-school and is very sympathetic towards any non-state form of education. Thanks to her, the conference will take place in the Polish parliament building which means it will receive much media-attention. She also invited Andrzej to take part on the outworking of a new education act that will include a more liberal regulations on homeschooling and will make it much easier to start small private schools. We hope it will be received by our parliament within a year.
On February 9th a Conference on Christian Education took place in Gdansk, Poland. It was organized by Pawel Bartosik and the Evangelical Reformed Church in Gdansk. There were three speakers: Pawel Bartosik, Mary Dunlop (teacher at King David School in Poznan), and Jacek Weigl (headmaster of Samuel School in Warsaw). The goal of the conference was to engourage local Christians to get involved in a new project: to start a Christian school in Gdansk.
Andrzej Polaszek, an elder from the ERChurch in Poznan and a lawyer, was one of speakers at a meeting organized by a city council member in Krakow and concerning homeschooling (Nov 27th, 2008). He spoke about actual regulations on homeschooling in Poland and planned changes in the regulations. A new Educatin Act was prepared by the Polish secretary of education. It is now being discussed by an education commmittee in the parliament. According to present regulations a permit issued by a local school headmaster is needed to homeschool. The headmaster also specifies conditions under which a child may be homeschooled. The problem is that while some headmesters are quite open to homeschooling, many are not. The main change in the new regulation is that it will no longer be a local school headmester to give a permit but ANY school headmaster (also private school headmaster). This will make it much easier to obtain such a permit.