During the 17th Congress of Clubs of “Gazeta Polska” in Spała, Minister of Education and Science Przemysław Czarnek said that students will be allowed to not to attend religion, but then they will be obliged to attend ethics classes. He also added that a draft of changes in the organization of teaching religion and ethics will soon be submitted to the Sejm.

These changes were announced by the head of the Ministry of Education and Science last year, when he stated that “someone who will not want to attend religion classes because religion has never been, is not and will not be compulsory in schools, will attend ethics”. Minister Czarnek emphasized that several thousand ethics teachers should be educated before the choice between ethics and religion is introduced. He also informed that the Ministry of Education and Science commissioned universities to organize postgraduate studies of ethics.

The universities selected by the ministry to educate ethics teachers include: the University of Social and Media Culture in Toruń, Academia Ignatianum in Kraków, Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Catholic University of Lublin, University of Szczecin, University of Wrocław and Collegium Intermarium in Warsaw.

In Spała, Przemysław Czarnek also spoke about a new subject, History and Present, which will be taught in secondary schools from the new school year.

The author of the textbook for this subject is Prof. Wojciech Roszkowski.

“The professor wrote an excellent textbook that will be of great service to young people, to make them aware of those historical processes from 1945, with reference to World War II, which have a direct impact on where we are here and now, in Poland and in the world”, said Czarnek.

Adrian Andrzejewski