More specialists in schools is the basis for expanding support for young people

From 1 September, there are more specialist teachers in mainstream schools. A new position of special educator has been created - its tasks and qualifications have been defined. We have also introduced a minimum total number of full-time specialist teachers employed in educational institutions. We have secured almost PLN 520 million in the state budget for this purpose in 2022 alone.

“We have employed several thousand additional specialists in pedagogy, speech therapy, but also especially child psychologists. We employ them in larger establishments, larger school and preschool units or school complexes in order to ensure that specialist assistance is available on site as quickly as possible,” stressed the head of government.

Thanks to the introduced changes, it will be possible to increase the number of specialists in preschools and mainstream schools by 143 per cent by 2024. The number of specialist teachers will depend on the number of children in the institution.

A new non-educational position - an assistant for students with special educational needs - is also being piloted. It is planned to prepare 640 assistants.

3 million additional hours of psychological and pedagogical assistance classes for students

From 1 March 2022, primary and secondary schools have been implementing psychological and pedagogical assistance classes in additional hours. In 2022, we allocated PLN 180 million for this purpose. This amount will make it possible to realise approximately 3 million additional hours of classes for students.

“Close to 30% of children and young people need some kind of support. These are children, these are young people we need to treat with as much sensitivity, compassion and empathy as possible. And we also need to structure the system accordingly,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The support includes the organisation of corrective-compensatory classes, speech therapy, classes developing emotional and social competences and other classes of a therapeutic nature. They are aimed at pupils who have been identified as needing psychological and pedagogical support in this area. The classes are conducted by qualified teachers.

PLN 13.4 billion for the education of pupils with special educational needs

There is a growing proportion of pupils with more challenging educational needs. This group includes, among others, socially maladjusted pupils, blind pupils, pupils with autism, including Asperger's syndrome, and pupils with multiple disabilities. The educational subsidy to support these pupils has been increasing for many years. Based on the preliminary distribution for 2023, it will amount to approximately PLN 13.4 billion and will be 21.1 per cent higher than in 2022.

“We want to help as a state to ensure that the school education system guides our children, our young people, in the best possible way through these difficult years of reaching maturity, reaching adulthood,” concluded the Prime Minister.

PLN 64.4 billion - record increase in educational subsidy

The educational subsidy in 2015 was PLN 40.4 billion. In 2023, our government will allocate PLN 64.4 billion for this purpose. It is an increase of almost 60 per cent. Despite the huge expenditure of the state budget, e.g. on armaments and health care, we are allocating record funds for education next year.

“It is not only on the physical condition, not only the health condition, not only the intellectual condition, but precisely on the condition related to sensitivity, to compassion, to the spirituality of our children, that is, the broadly understood mental condition, that the future of Poland, the future of our nation, of our society, depends,” said the head of the Polish government.