An attack on Polish schools in the Vilnius Region has started this year. Last March, the local government of the Trakai District decided to ‘reorganize’, or rather degrade two Polish schools. Actions, that were unfavourable to Polishness and were aimed at limiting education of centuries-old traditions, started intensifying. The existence of schools is threatened mainly in the Trakai District, but the situation in the Šalčininkai District is also bad, as it is threatened by the Lithuanian government with financial restrictions simply for maintaining Polish schools.

Polish authorities and the Polish community abroad stood up in defence of Polish education in Lithuania. A group of Members of the European Parliament sent a letter of support to many thousands of people who took part in the rally of Poles that was organised in Vilnius.

In the near future, the issue of destroying Polish education will be discussed again in the Senate of the Republic of Poland and in the European Parliament. Tomorrow there will be a meeting on the discrimination of Polish education in the Committee on Emigration Affairs and Contacts with Poles Abroad of the Polish Senate. Chairman of the Committee Kazimierz Ujazdowski has invited Valdemar Tomasevski, President of the Association of Poles in Lithuania, who, together with Agnieska Rynkevic, representative of the Parents’ Committee in the Trakai District, will present the issue of discrimination during the Committee meeting.

During the last plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on 6th October, Member of the EP Valdemar Tomasevski once again described the problem of the discrimination of Polish schools for the chairmen of the Intergroup for Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages. Tomasevski was assured, that a special item of the agenda of the intergroup will be devoted to the subject of the Polish education discrimination  during the November plenary session of the European Parliament. There will be 45 minutes dedicated for the subject, including 25 minutes for MEP Tomasevski to report on the matter.

2022-10-12