Prime Minister Donald Tusk does not want compulsory health education

Although the Ministry of Education on Monday assured that work is underway and no decisions have yet been made, statements by politicians suggest the opposite.

Certainly, there is no hiding the disappointment of those circles that for years have been calling for the introduction of the subject of health knowledge (health education) in schools, seeing in such a decision the hope of overcoming negative phenomena in the area of public health: waning trust in vaccinations, reluctance to report for preventive examinations or, generally speaking, the poor health choices made by adult Poles (lack of physical activity, diet, stimulants). Health education was also supposed to become an opportunity to take care of the mental health of the younger generation and its sex education, which leaves much to be desired. The latter point has become a (predictable) hotbed of contention, as conservative circles, including the Catholic Church, equate sex education with the sexualization of children or the formation of attitudes, and protest, citing the constitutionally guaranteed right of parents to decide on the upbringing of their children. - Education is not upbringing," retort supporters of health education as a compulsory subject.

The Ministry of National Education has announced since the spring that health education will enter schools as a compulsory subject in the 2025/2026 school year - such a solution was agreed upon by the Ministries of Education and Health, and supported by, among others, the Patient Ombudsman, patient organizations, public health specialists and - actively - a large part of the medical community. Residents protested against the downgrading of the subject of health education on Tuesday. - In an era of extreme disinformation in the medical field, it is necessary to create tools to combat this phenomenon. Such disinformation and the state's negligible response to it are leading to a growing number of vaccination evasions - according to the National Institute of Public Health, in 2019 there were 48,600, while five years later, in 2023, there were already 87,300. We receive with great concern the politicians' declarations about making this subject optional. We perceive this as a kind of surrender to the onslaught of anti-science circles," the statement of the OZZL Residents' Agreement reads.

As of Sunday, however, neither the health ministry nor Minister Izabela Leszczyna had spoken on the issue.