During an interview yesterday, president Andrzej Duda was asked about the recently signed pledge called a "Family Card".
He said, that it has its roots in the Constitution. - The Constitution clearly states that the family is protected by the state and that parents have the right to raise children in accordance with their beliefs - said the president.
Andrzej Duda pointed out that parents have the right to control what content is passed on to their children.
The interviewer, Katarzyna Gójska, said that there are parents who would like sex education for children. However, the overwhelming majority of parents will not want such education, which is currently being promoted - even by organizations sponsored in Warsaw by Mayor, and presidential candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski.
The host reminded Trzaskowski's argument that "after all, parents have no influence on the school curriculum, they do not decide at school what is taught in Polish language or math classes".
There is also the opinion of the Ombudsman who says that "parents' authority actually ends at the school door, because it is the state that decides at school."
"Madam, this is some neo-communism, neo-Bolshevism. I grew up in times when they tried to force on us ideologies in our schools. Fortunately, many teachers did not comply, because that was not the country they wanted to be. But we know very well that in the time period before 1989, when Poland was in the Soviet sphere of influence, when the authorities were appointed from Moscow, it was a expected from teachers to inject ideological content. (...) These were the times of widespread indoctrination, and my parents fought against it, and they went to prison so that we would not be indoctrinated, so that the school would not serve this foreign ideology and would brainwash us.
It was our parents who wanted the guarantee for the right to raise children at home, according to their beliefs, and so it happened. As usual in difficult times, the Polish family was the mainstay in which our culture, our mentality survived, thanks to the stubbornness and hardness of the family.
I would not like us to come back to these times. That is why it is necessary to make sure that school is not a place where any ideology is pushed on children, because school is not a place to ideologically indoctrinate children, but is a place for children's education and possibly their upbringing, but above all education. The school is to pass the knowledge on to the child" - said the president.