“The ministries will form a joint expert-level group that will analyze all challenges, such as what causes differences in achievements and what are the challenges when it comes to teaching tools, textbooks, programs and teachers’ competence,” Lithuanian Education and Science Minister Jurgita Petrauskienė said on Friday after meeting with her Polish counterpart, Anna Zalewska, in Vilnius.
“Having analyzed these challenges, (…) we’ll propose concrete measures to the prime ministers by the end of the year,” she said.
Zalewska also met with Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis.
“Experts are working. We are assessing how Poland ensures the education of the Lithuanian minority and minorities in general. We’ll try to compare this,” the Polish minister said after the meeting with Skvernelis.
“We are friends and partners. I’m sure that we’ll meet in December and have the results of our analysis ready,” she added.
Petrauskienė underlined that the governments of both countries saw education as a top priority.
“In the strategic partnership between Lithuania and Poland, education is the area that creates big bridges,” she said.
According to the Lithuanian Education and Science Ministry, Polish was the main teaching language for 11,200 students in 77 schools in Lithuania in the 2017-2018 school year. In Poland, there are four Lithuanian-language schools with a total of over 400 students.