More First-Graders Will Go to Polish Schools This Year

One thousand one hundred first-grade students will start this school year in schools with Polish as the language of instruction. In Vilnius the number of first-graders is to increase by 30 in Polish schools.

 “Already five years in a row the number of first-grade students oscillates between 1,000 and 1,050, and also this year, according to the enrolment record, we have 1,100 first-graders, so it’s a certain increase,” said Chairman of the Polish Educational Society Józef Kwiatkowski when interviewed by the Znad Wilii radio. As he added, the exact number of the first-graders will be known only from 1st-2nd September on.

Kwiatkowski informed that, similarly to the previous years, every first-grade student is going to receive a school set, financed by the Foundation “Help for the Poles in the East”.

Let us keep in mind that only last year Jan Dziedziczak, the Polish Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (MSZ), assured that from 1st September 2016 every Polish child attending a Polish school would get a financial support from the Polish state in the amount of 500 złoty.

The programme is to cost approx. one million złoty per annum. The help is going to be given every year by the consulate in Vilnius in cooperation with the Educational Society.

 “What’s happening with the Polish education in Lithuania worries the MSZ and Polish government a lot. At least in this temporary way we want to relieve our countrymen, who, being loyal citizens of Lithuania, want to improve the language of their origin, want to speak Polish, learn in Polish, get to know Polish history and geography. These means will help them do this,” said Dziedziczak.