The Polish Government has suffered a set-back with the introduction of a new school subject called “health studies”, which includes sex education.
The centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk has found a majority of parents followed the lead of the opposition Conservatives (PiS)-aligned President Karol Nawrocki and stopped their children attending the classes.
Nawrocki announced on September 20 that he had decided to pull his son out of the government’s new health education classes, saying they “smuggle ideology into schools” despite the “innocent-sounding name of the subject”.
In his remarks, Nawrocki said that, while “school is primarily a place of learning, [it is] also a space for building respect for the culture, traditions and Christian values from which our civilisation emerges”.
His views echoed those of both the PiS and the Catholic Church that have claimed such “health education” will morally corrupt the young via the introduction of “anti-family” sex education and “gender ideology”.
Just ahead of the start of the school year, the Church’s Episcopate appealed to parents to withdraw their children from the classes.
Nawrocki was criticised for his stance by education minister Barbara Nowacka. She accused him of being unaware of the subject’s curriculum covering prevention of disease and addiction, mental health, building relationships and respect for others. She claimed the PiS was “playing politics in schools” and the Church was “lying from the pulpit”.
Nowacka admitted, though, that the lessons were to include examining gender identity and sexual orientation.
The government had originally intended to make the classes mandatory but backed down after protests from parents, the Church and Conservative groups.
Many claimed that making sex education compulsory would have violated Poland’s Constitution, which gives parents the right to have their children educated according to their personal beliefs and values.
There were also concerns in teaching circles about the fact that there were no textbooks on the subject available and nor had there been any training for those assigned to teach it.
Parents had until September 25 to decide whether their children in primary and secondary schools would participate in the new classes. According to data from schools across the country, the majority opted out.
Even in relatively Liberal cities such as Gdańsk and Kraków, where Tusk’s party controls the local authority, fewer than a third of parents decided to let their children participate in the health studies classes.
No city or region reported attendance to be above 50 per cent and in many it was below 25 per cent. In some more rural and small-town areas, registration for the subject was below 20 per cent.
The result is another blow for the education ministry, already under pressure to reveal results of a survey on the decision last year to stop teachers setting homework for primary school children.
Following criticism from both teachers and parents, it is expected it will show the measure has proved highly unpopular and so may soon be withdrawn.
