We do like it when people visit us! On 22 October 2018 the head of KPCEN, Sławomir Żebrowski, along with the staff of the Department of Information and Promotion received a group of students from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Moldova thanks to the cooperation launched with Stowarzyszenie Inicjatyw Niemożliwych „Motyka” [ English: Association of Infeasible Initiatives “Motyka”].
In KPCEN the young people got familiar with the Polish system of education. Danuta Potręć prepared a presentation addressing all the stages of the Polish education system. The young people asked many questions. What aroused their interest was the issue of the relationship between state education and private education ( differences, functioning, financing, curriculum, proportions – what is the percentage of private schools in Poland as against state school), foreign language teaching (which languages are most popular and at which stages of education they are introduced, how many languages children study in the primary school and whether they are given a choice of the language they want to study), rules which govern tertiary education. The students asked about the system of university studies in Poland; they inquired whether it was possible for foreigners to study at Polish universities.
The curiosity of the youth made the discussion about the Polish system of education very lively. As we ran out of time to present the work of our organization – KPCEN in Toruń, our guests were given our promotional materials, including the multimedia presentation in English with the information about the functioning of KPCEN.
The Ukrainian group visited Toruń as part of the Program “Study Tours to Poland – wizyty studyjne w Polsce”. The project was financed by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation. The aim of the visit was to present the most important socio-political aspects of Poland to the young people from beyond the eastern border of our country. The programme of their stay in Toruń included also a visit at Nicolaus Copernicus University and in the editorial office of our local daily paper Nowości. The guests also met with members of our local authorities.
Dominika Wojtasińska – Department of Information and Promotion KPCEN in Toruń
Trans. Agnieszka Chabros - Department of Information and Promotion KPCEN in Toruń