Lithuania’s prime minister recently suggested that the country’s students should be taught Polish instead of Russian as a foreign language. The plan, however, might run into logistical difficulties.
Russian as a foreign language remains a popular subject in Lithuania’s schools, with around 70 percent of students opting to learn it as a second foreign language. However, since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some politicians have been suggesting it is a problem. Education Minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė recently said she wanted to reduce the percentage of students opting for Russian as their second foreign language from 70 to 30 percent within five years.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Sport has proposed introducing Polish as a replacement for Russian in schools from the next academic year. This would require deploying more Polish teachers than the country currently has.
Adam Mickiewicz Lyceum is a Polish-language school in Vilnius and employs four teachers of Polish.
“Our school has enough, but I dare to say that in the coming years there will be a shortage. For the same reasons as for teachers of other subjects,” says headmistress Iwona Czerniawska.
Moreover, the four teachers are trained to instruct native Polish speakers and are not necessarily able to teach Polish as a foreign language.
“Different methodology, different tools. And I doubt whether our teachers are ready,” according to Czerniawska.
Read more: Lithuania should phase out Russian language teaching – president’s adviser
Teacher training universities say that up to ten students a year choose to study Polish language pedagogy. That would not be enough to roll-out large-scale programmes in Vilnius alone.
Another concern is the lack of teaching materials.
“We don’t have enough textbooks to have Polish as the second or third most popular foreign language,” explains Lina Kaminskienė, the chancellor of the Academy of Education at Vytautas Magnus University.
Textbooks could be imported from Poland.
“We are familiar with those textbooks. They would be suitable, but maybe we should add a little more, adapt them, and add some national elements to the textbooks,” says Juzef Kvetkovski, chairman of the Association of Polish School Teachers.
While the Association supports the idea to expand Polish as a foreign language teaching in Lithuania, it suggests that students and parents should be asked for their opinions first.
The Ministry of Education says the idea of rolling out the programme as soon as next academic year is realistic – only Polish would not be taught throughout the country.
“Around 70 percent of all teachers are in Vilnius City or Vilnius Region. These districts are actually the ones where the chances are the highest,” comments Ramūnas Skaudžius, deputy minister of education.
“If there are two or three schools in Vilnius that would like to experiment, to start teaching Polish, I think there would be enough teachers,” says Kinga Geben, a lecturer in Polish language didactics at Vilnius University.
The ministry reassures that ethnic minority schools will not be affected by the changes and will not be restructured. However, these schools are expected to share teachers.
“Not all teachers are employed full-time, it could be an opportunity, especially in the regions, to work in several schools and teach Polish as a native language in one school and as a foreign language in another,” says Skaudžius.
There are some 130 teachers of Polish in Lithuania. According to the Ministry of Education, it also considered expanding the teaching of Latvian, but the idea did not garner enough support.
Read more: Lithuania mulls online language lessons to discourage Russian learning
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