“Every year, pupils in the fourth year of primary school will receive laptops to use them for the next years of their education. This school year 370,000 laptops will be delivered to pupils. The equipment will be passed on as family property”, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced. ‘Today, a computer is already an indispensable instrument to take full advantage of the benefits of the modern education system’, said the head of the Polish government.
The Prime Minister announced a new programme for education, which, as he put it, “is supposed to bring the Polish school into the 21st century and take the system of teaching children to the highest possible level”.
“We are planning to buy laptops for 4th graders every year. This is an important investment in the education of young people and a significant relief to family budgets. Pupils who receive the new equipment will be able to use the laptops in the following years of sub-primary school. We will allocate PLN 760 million for this project”, the Prime Minister informed.
The government stresses that investments in education, digitisation or technology are crucial for Poland’s future. Changes and developments in the field of technology necessitate the need for different access to appropriate equipment so that students can participate in these changes.
This is not the first government support for the development of digital competence among children. In 2022, approximately 218,000 pupils from closed-down areas of state-owned farms (PGR) were equipped with laptops, computers or tablets. Nearly PLN 600 million was allocated for that purpose, as part of a grant competition.
The Minister of Education and Science, Przemysław Czarnek, recalled that the government had allocated PLN 5 billion for modern and digital education in recent years. “In addition to the ‘Laboratories of the Future’, there is a complementary programme – the Mobile Laboratories of the Future. Sixteen teams of educators who have been touring all over Poland since September 2022. They have already visited 700 schools and 40,000 pupils in order to ensure that the equipment delivered to schools, is used as effectively as possible. We will continue this programme”, assured Czarnek.
Adrian Andrzejewski