Weekend classes for Polish children have begun at Claddagh National School in Galway, amid fears that youngsters don’t know enough about their parental country.
A group of 130 children are taking part in an eight-week pilot programme which includes integration teaching, lessons in the Polish language, history and culture, as well as reading and media education classes.
The Polish school – the first of its kind in the west of Ireland - is the brainchild of Agnieszka Grochola, one of 11 teacher members of the Polska SzkoÅ‚a w Galway association – and is supported by the Galway Irish Polish Association (GIPA). There is a small fee for those attending the school, but all children registered have been offered a free English class.
It is hoped that the school will address concerns in Galway’s Polish community concerning lack of knowledge of their native culture among younger generations.
Elsewhere in Co Galway, a second Polish weekend school is set to open in Ballinasloe this coming September. And like the Claddagh initiative, it will be a private school as neither is supported by funding from the Polish Ministry for Education (MEN).
The planned primary school and gymnasium (for teens aged 13–16) will have lessons prepared according to MEN supplementary education standards, and appointed teachers will be required to have the necessary education qualifications.
As yet the Ballinasloe school does not have a premises, according to the project’s recruitment co-ordinator Magdalena Ciastko.
“At the moment I’m talking with Ballinasloe schools’ directors about the possibility of them lending classrooms, and hopefully I will have more details by the end of this month when the first meeting with parents will take place,” she said.
