Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in June 2024, undergraduate student Michelle Hadebe (SFS’25) interviewed Professor Artur Wolek, a member of the Ignatianum Foundation board, which partners with Aspire for the educational programming of the EduHubs. In this interview, Professor Wolek discusses the beginnings of the EduHubs, Ignatianum Foundation’s role, and the opportunities and challenges faced by students when integrating into Polish society.
So, this is an interview with Professor Artur Wollek. And as a valued member of the EduHub who is involved on the part of the university, I just have a few questions to ask about your involvement and some of the other issues related to language, culture, integration, and support systems for the students. Could you briefly just describe your role with Aspire Education Hubs?
Aspire Education Hubs are a joint initiative of Aspire Business Alliance, Ignatianum Foundation, which is the university foundation. And it's basically designed as a vehicle for social initiatives of the university. And corporations who act as hosts for different EduHubs. So, the responsibilities are now—because previously, it was quite more complicated—so, responsibilities are more or less like this: that Aspire secures the corporation. I mean, they prefer the legal framework and solicit the corporation. And they also try to bring money for the specific app. And we are responsible for the whole operation and for the programmatic side of the EduHub, which means that the coordinators are employed by the foundation, that every EduHub has a separate contract, three-party contract: the corporation, Aspire, and foundation. And we are responsible for the operation. We sign contracts with the coordinator and volunteers. We are insured for civil liability. We sign contracts with parents. I don't know what else. We have a day-to-day operation is basically on us. And I'm a member of the board of the foundation. Foundation is not that big. In fact, there are three people who work there. So, I'm one of the three.
How long have you been on the board? Working with the EduHubs?
I'm on the board, I can't remember, six years.
Six years now, okay.
Something like six to seven years. Because I was vice-rector of the university, and I became a member of the board, like ex-officio, as a vice-rector. And then, I ceased to be vice-rector, but I stayed on the board, say, representing the university. So, it's like six to seven years. Basically, we have like, say, dozen of programs in the foundation. So, it's not that many. It's not a big foundation. So, we don't have a strict, like, corporate governance that I only oversee something. But, basically, I'm more in this, say, programmatic side. And the president of the foundation, who is the only person to work full-time. Well, in fact, not full-time, because he's got also a position at the university. But more full-time than not.
Okay, so the next questions that I'm going to ask are going to be more centered around the students and what you've observed since the start of the EduHub. So they're going to relate, or they're gonna touch on different things, including language, cultural differences or similarities, the programming, educational programming, and support systems, and general challenges around integration. So, those are more so the questions, what the questions are going to be revolving around. So, the question that I have is, from EduHub's point of view and from your observation, what are the most common challenges that are related, that hinder integration for the students? And that's if they hinder the integration for the Ukrainian students in the EduHubs.
You know, probably the single most important issue is that they don't know what the future will be. And they don't know whether they are going to stay in Poland or return. So, the longer the war continues, the more people realize that they will stay in Poland, at least until the end of university education. But, I would say this kind of psychological insecurity is something most important, because unlike the pre-war migrants who basically, most of them, if they would come with children, they definitely would come forever or for a longer period of time. And these war refugees, mostly women, came with children and the husbands are probably in Ukraine. So, there is no simple answer to what the future of these students will be.
So, some of them, okay, most of those who come to our EduHubs are middle-class children from families that appreciate education, okay? That's because in the first period, we had plenty of backgrounds. I mean, plenty of students from plenty of backgrounds, because we were teaching Polish, and this was something really important at that time, just after the war broke out. But now, it's not that attractive because they basically speak Polish, and it's not that difficult to find Polish classes. So, now, they come basically because they borrow from their mothers or their grandmothers, because some of them came with grandmothers and not with mothers. Their families think that education is important, and they should not spend free time wandering around, but doing something positive.
So, you mentioned the issue of language and I wanted to kind of touch on that. And I wanted to ask, so you said initially, when there was the first influx of migrants from the war, refugees from the war, that EduHub's teaching Polish was very attractive because people needed to learn Polish. So, what would you, if you could just touch back on, what would you say has changed since then? One, and what did the indication to learn Polish speak to the desire to integrate or a form of integration?
You know, that's probably the basic difference between Ukrainians and any other kind of migrants, a big group of migrants, because Ukrainian and Polish are as close as you can, especially if you are from Western Ukraine. Okay, because some of Ukrainians don't speak Ukrainian, but Russian. But if you speak Ukrainian at home, especially if you're from Western Ukraine, you can communicate with Poles with certain obstacles, but they can try, like, it's doable. Yes, that's understandable language, okay? But obviously, it's not Polish. And if you want to work in Poland, you have to speak Polish because Poles tend to stick to Polish, okay? I mean, not in big cities, but normally. We prefer to talk Polish and not any other language. But if you have a background in Ukrainian, you learn Polish on your way. You don't have to have classes. If you are immersed in Polish speaking environment, you simply pick words, grammatical constructions. So, having spent like two years in Poland, you have to be dumb not to speak Polish, at least, you know, communicate in Polish. So, this is not an issue. And it's not an indication for integration, I would say. Because, okay, if you don't speak Polish after two years, it's either you have really kind of, you know, cognitive obstacles, because there are people who are not skilled to learn any language. But it's a tiny minority.
Because the languages are very close?
Yes, yes. They are separated by the alphabet. That's the problem, the script. Because Ukrainian is really script. Yes. But in spoken language, you can really learn Polish just by being around Poles. So, if you don't speak Polish after two years, this means that either you have cognitive problems, but it's a minority, or you spend all your time, not in Polish-speaking community, but in Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking community. Which is an indicator that you have problems with integration because normally, well, we don't have ghettos, okay? It's not possible to spend all the day not meeting a Pole. No ghettos at all. We've got quite extensive data of where Ukrainians live in Krakow. You may find it in one of these background readings.
Mm-hmm.
And they really are scattered all over Krakow. There are no Ukrainian quarters.
So, you can't just stay in one place where you just only interact with Ukrainians?
Yeah, yeah. And if you do stay in a kind of closed Ukrainian bubble, that's an indicator that you have a problem with integration, but it doesn't apply to our pupils in EduHubs.
What about English? So, what is the student's relationship with the English language?
I don't know. I don't have a knowledge on this. My impression would be that most of them considers immigration further west.
Mm, okay.
And probably, I mean, our pupils. This means that they really invest into learning English. And also, they know that in order to have a good job in Poland, you have to speak English. I mean, you can work somewhere, I don't know, in a shop as a shop assistant without English, but apart from this, you really have to at least communicate in English, so especially in big cities. So this was, okay, after the period that they were most interested in learning Polish, there was a period where they pressed us to be as much of English as possible.
Oh.
Okay, so we had in EduHub dedicated to pupils living in a kind of student house, but they were students from vocational school. And they lived in a closed Russian-speaking community in the outskirts of Kraków.
This was a ghetto, correct?
This was crazy. So, director of this student house asked us to do something for them.
For the students?
And they were attracted only by English, okay? They were coming only for English classes. We had more integration workshops for them just to, you know, seize this ghetto thinking. They were not interested. They were interested in English.
In English...I see.
So, it didn't work that good, okay. Because...
What ended up happening to that Eduhub? Is it still running?
No, no, no. This is what I'm saying. That after two or three months, it turned out that it doesn't work because they don't come regularly. Okay, they declared that they want to have English. We organize English. And they don't come. And obviously, the corporations, the hosts, want to have really a life, EduHub, and not only on paper when two or three people come. So, the contract wasn't brought with this host.
Oh, interesting, okay.
So, yes, English is a kind of, you know, pass for a better future or a better job. So, yes, they are very eager to learn English. But, as I said, more or less one year, or maybe more, we get mostly like middle-class students.
So, just on that, you said before then, you had students from different backgrounds, and then after, I think you kind of had students from one specific class. What do you think perhaps led to that shift?
So, first of all, those early comers emigrated further west.
Ah, okay.
They were coming for one month. To pass through. And then, they found something, I don't know, in Spain or in Switzerland. So, we were also helping to find them some jobs. Somewhere else. So, that's one. Second, at that time, it was quite difficult for Ukrainian pupils to go to Polish schools. I mean, they were allowed to come. They had, but, okay, the government left this on the school directors or headteachers, because we have only one position, which is director of the school, and he's also headteacher. And it doesn't work. Because you're either a teacher or an instructor. But this was in this early period. And now most of the Ukrainian pupils go to Polish schools, even though something like 20% to 30% don't. But those who are not middle class, at that time, would come to our education. And now they just go to Polish schools, and they don't need an extra curriculum or extra school.
So, just to clarify, so, were the students coming to the EduHub, in their mind, kind of like as a placeholder for school, or until they were able to get into a Polish school? And then, when they got into the Polish school, then they're like, okay, there's no need for this.
Yes, yes. Ah, okay. And those who stayed appreciate this extra curriculum.
Okay.
And other activities. For instance, in fact, all June, they get, like, half-day excursions around Krakow, like museums. Okay, so that's something, I mean, it's educational. That's true, but on the other hand, some, yes, they have to pay for some. It's a minor fee, but yes, you have to pay this. A few zloty. So, you have to appreciate this somehow, that it's worth spending even 10 zloty.
Oh.
It's worth going, I don't know, somewhere, to a museum that doesn't seem to be attractive, and then it turns out, yes, it's attractive.
It's attractive, it's interesting. So, what aspect of the Polish, just picking up from what you were talking about, about the inaccessibility at that time of Polish schools, now, what would you say are some of the remaining challenges in the Polish education system that could be resulting in those 20% or 30% of students not enrolled?
I'm not quite sure if it's...Okay, so it's not only the problem with the Polish school system, but it's also the problem with parents and mothers who come and work like 12 hours a day and don't have the capacity to impress young men to go to school, to check if he really goes, he or she does the homework. And they always have this excuse that they can't participate in this Ukrainian distance learning because the Ukrainian government opened distance learning for the refugees, and they can formally sign up for this. But, obviously, there is no control over. So, you don't know whether students are actually learning or they are open the computer and do whatever they want. So, the problem with Polish school system is, well, versatile, I would say. So, first, the idea was to organize kind of preparation classes for Ukrainian pupils.
To transition to Polish schools?
Yes.
I see, okay.
And it was done like this in the early period and in the second year of their stay here. And it was mostly about teaching Polish. And now, I'm not quite sure, but there are very few of those preparation classes. But, this meant that they don't participate in regular schooling, but they have their separate classes where there are only Ukrainian or Russian speakers. So, they were not integrated. So, everybody agreed, okay, this was a stupid idea. Let's cancel this.
Oh, okay.
Because they are not integrated, they don't learn. Except for Polish, they learn nothing. So, now they simply go to Polish school. Parents go to Polish schools and say, "Okay, I want my child here." We get this school, what is it called in English? In America, the school districts, yes, school districts. So, if you live in the district, you have the right to go to the school, okay? If you live outside the district, the director decides. They can accept you, but they can refuse you. So, if there is a good school, we are talking about elementary schools. If there is a good school, it's probably overcrowded, or what? There are a lot of people who want to come out of the district to the school. And Ukrainians are clever enough to know that it's always better to go to good school than to bad school. Okay, so we've got good schools and not good schools. And it's difficult for Ukrainians to get into good schools. So, that's the first problem.
Why is that?
Because of the districts. Because, yes, they are out of district, and directors don't have spare places. So, they are refused. But, some people move to, like in America, some people move in order to be in a good school district. But again, this applies mostly to middle-class education. And if you are not, you may end up in a bad Polish school with a lot of Ukrainian colleagues. Okay, because they don't have enough Polish pupils, so they are happy to accept Ukrainians coming out of the district, okay? So, and it may be done somehow intelligently because directors get extra money for Ukrainian pupils. Not big money, but like 25% more than for Polish students. So, some of the directors of bad schools realize that they can earn money on Ukrainian pupils. So, they recruit them more. So, they recruit them more, and there is more Ukrainian pupils. And, sometimes, it works well because they have some dedicated classes. They are integrated into a Polish school, but they have some extra teaching. Sometimes, it works, but sometimes, it doesn't. It doesn't, but there are two or three schools where there is visibly more Ukrainians than on average. Interesting. It's on purpose, okay?
Ah. Mm-hmm. So I was going to ask, this is gonna be my last question, because I know you have to dash. Oh, are we already cutting on time?
Look, I don't know what your schedule is, because I've got an exam.
Okay, then we can do it at a later stage. Perfect, perfect. Thank you so much, Professor.
