Polish schools are becoming increasingly multicultural, but the education strategy inactive fails to keep up with social change. Although the number of students with experience of migration is increasing year by year, there are no specialists, tools and long-term solutions to effectively integrate children from different countries.
Multiculturalism in Polish schools – scale of changes
From the data contained in the study of the Centre for Civic Education and global Rescue The Committee shows that 237 1000 abroad students were educated in the erstwhile school year in Polish schools. The vast majority were students from Ukraine.
In the school year 2024/2025 foreigners constituted 5.3 percent of all people covered by the Polish education system, or 353 1000 people. In schools for children and young people alone, 237 000 students from another countries were taught, corresponding to 4.8% of all students. As many as 203 1000 of them are children from Ukraine, already present in all 3rd grade in Poland.
Foreign students learn 67% of all schools, or about 14.1 1000 institutions. This means that more than 4 million Polish students present have regular contact with cultural and linguistic diversity.
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Student relations and barriers to acceptance
– Very often, the first barrier for children to function well in the Polish school is simply relationships. We live in a society that has divided opinions about migration, so not everyone treats these children kindly or with acceptance. This is simply a major problem for people who work in the Polish school, and for children, and for parents – he evaluates Agnieszka Kosowicz, Polish Migration Forum.
Experts point out that the deficiency of acceptance and social tensions translate straight into the functioning of students in the schoolroom and their sense of security. This in turn makes it hard to learn and adapt in a fresh school environment.
Personnel shortages and deficiency of tools in schools
Despite the large experience gained in working with children from Ukraine, schools inactive face serious staff shortages. There are no intercultural assistants, translators and specialists prepared to work in multicultural schoolroom teams.
– A very large problem at the minute in the Polish school is the large level of anxiety and difficulty in building relations between Polish and abroad children. We surely have challenges for teachers' resources to work in an intercultural group. We already have crucial experience in working with children from Ukraine since the outbreak of full-scale war, but we inactive deficiency circumstantial tools or skills, resources for teachers to be able to work in a schoolroom where children do not realize each other, and build a good atmosphere for learning – he explains Agnieszka Kosowicz.
Students in an Emotional Crisis
Many schools besides face emotional difficulties for students who came to Poland as a consequence of war or another traumatic experiences. The CEO study "Students and students from Ukraine in Polish schools – school year 2023/2024" shows that among teachers and school psychologists there is simply a feeling of helplessness in working with trauma and another emotional problems of exile students.
– frequently these children come here due to difficult, traumatic experiences – war or force – and all the time we request more to be able to decently diagnose their needs and respond to their difficulties, including emotional or trauma-related – he stresses Agnieszka Kosowicz.
Integration or assimilation
According to the study of the CEO, activities of an assimilation nature are more common in Polish schools than integration. The most common script is the parallel functioning of 2 separate student communities. The deficiency of integration initiatives, the low intercultural skills of teachers and the advanced number of Ukrainian students in any schools are conducive to this separation.
Teachers and counselling without adequate support
According to the PFM representative, teacher training is surely needed, due to the fact that Poland has become a very culturally diverse country recently. This is our experience of the last fewer years and teachers frequently do not have the skills to work in specified an environment, they do not know how to deal with a kid who does not talk Polish, cannot write, cannot read. We request to build specified competences not only among present teachers, but besides among people who are just aspiring to be teachers.
In many intellectual and pedagogical clinics there are no experts prepared to work with students from another countries or tools adapted to cultural and linguistic differences. Diagnosing educational or emotional difficulties in specified children requires fresh competences – both linguistic and intercultural – which are inactive besides fewer in the Polish education system.
– So far we have not had specified needs, and at the minute this is simply a real challenge – to diagnose the kid who came from India, Colombia or Belarus or Ukraine, whether it has dyslexia, ADHD, or whether it needs peculiar support, how to separate the effects of trauma from developmental disorders. All these skills are now far more needed than before, and we request specialists for this – emphasises Agnieszka Kosowicz.
Source: Newseria Business
