“If we managed to deal with communism, nothing can stop us.” So says Alina Kozinska-Baldyga, director of the Warsaw-based Federation of Educational Initiatives, of her campaign to open hundreds of small rural schools throughout Poland following government closures.
In mid-October, a contingent of Polish headteachers, led by Kozinska-Baldyga, arrived in Britain and threw their support behind campaigners currently battling to save rural schools, warning that plans to close or merge them are misguided and should be reversed.
Schools are at the heart of village life in Poland — 38 percent of the population lives in rural areas. But over the past decade the government has closed thousands of kindergartens and primaries. In protest, the federation has set up 130 community-run kindergartens and over 300 small schools. The schools are run by associations and parents are very involved. Their efforts have since gained government recognition and funding.
“Of course small schools are more expensive than larger ones,” says Kozinska-Baldyga. But she strongly believes that they are worthwhile investments. “The liquidation of small rural schools is a problem in every country. But you can see how this kind of education is changing rural society in Poland where rural communities are almost always poor, and they are the ones who have been most active in schools — it is a revolution in the countryside.”
In one new school, teachers and parents worked for a year with no funding. Staff had to raise money to heat the building. Now the school receives a grant from the state. Although most of Poland’s new small schools are in rural areas, they have also been established in cities where a traditional sense of community has vanished. Anna Florek, head and founder of a civic kindergarten in Warsaw, says the school has made a huge difference to the lives of children and their parents.
The federation plans to seek further recognition from the Polish government and aims to make rural schools a key issue during Poland’s 2011 EU presidency.
(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education Supplement)