Across the Western world, education has increasingly drifted from its historic mission. Schools, once understood as the guardians of truth, culture, and moral formation, are now too often reduced to instruments of social engineering or mere training grounds for the labour market. Competence is measured by standardized testing, values are relativized or dismissed altogether, and tradition is regarded as an obstacle to ‘progress’. Against this backdrop, the Ordo Iuris educational reform proposal in Poland offers a strikingly countercultural vision: a deliberate return to the classical and Christian roots of European education.
This is not a modest adjustment or technical reform. It is a civilizational statement. The reform insists that education is not value-neutral, it inevitably shapes the kind of society we build, the kind of citizens we raise, and ultimately, the kind of civilization we sustain. The question is whether education will shape people grounded in truth and tradition, or leave them as individuals lost in relativism.
Religion as Cultural Foundation
At the heart of the Ordo Iuris proposal lies the recognition that religion—especially Christianity—is not a private option, but the cultural foundation of Europe itself. The plan calls for two hours of religious education weekly at every stage of schooling, not as indoctrination but as the transmission of a civilizational legacy. This vision recalls the Polish and broader European experience: Christianity gave birth to the continent’s moral imagination, legal systems, and cultural achievements. To strip schools of this heritage is not neutrality; it is amnesia.
This approach may appear bold in secularized Europe, but it is not unprecedented. Italy still offers Catholic religious instruction as an optional subject within state schools. Norway mandates teaching Christianity alongside other religions and philosophies, seeing it as indispensable to cultural literacy. Hungary, too, provides a flexible model: public primary schools offer either compulsory ethics classes or optional Religious and Moral Education, while secondary students may continue with electives or attend church-run schools, which generally provide two hours of faith-based instruction weekly. France, while more secular, follows the same idea, emphasizing that schools should teach values that reflect the nation’s civilizational identity. Ordo Iuris simply argues the same for Poland, except the values to be instilled are Christian, cultural, and national.
Classical Humanism Restored
The reform draws inspiration from the great European tradition of paideia—education as the cultivation of free and noble persons. It emphasizes the trivium and quadrivium, the seven liberal arts that shaped Western civilization by training reason, rhetoric, and imagination. By insisting on these disciplines, Ordo Iuris places itself in continuity with centuries of European pedagogy that viewed knowledge not as fragmented utility, but as an integrated pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty.
In practice, this means schools would emphasize philosophy, rhetoric, and dialectic, teaching pupils how to argue, reflect, and judge. It means reintroducing a canon of great literature and thought, from the Polish classics to European masterpieces. It means that education will not be limited to producing ‘competent workers’, but cultured individuals capable of critical thought, civic responsibility, and moral discernment.
‘Ordo Iuris reminds us that the human being is not simply a tool for the economy, but a moral and cultural being’
This vision is radically different from today’s utilitarian model, which often reduces learning to ‘skills acquisition’. Ordo Iuris reminds us that the human being is not simply a tool for the economy, but a moral and cultural being, whose flourishing requires formation, not just training.
The Polish Language and National Canon
The proposal makes the Polish language central to education: not merely as a subject, but as the organising principle of thought itself. Mastery of one’s native language is key to logical reasoning, clear communication, and cultural belonging.
This focus has broader implications. A nation without deep familiarity with its literature, history, and myths becomes detached from its mission and roots. As the reform clearly puts it, such people risk becoming ‘barbarians’: educated perhaps in technical matters, but rootless in culture and spirit.
The Role of Authority in Education
Modern schooling often portrays itself as ‘democratic’ in structure, with pupils treated as miniature adults and teachers as mere facilitators. Ordo Iuris completely rejects this model. Schools are not democratic assemblies, but ordered communities in which authority must be acknowledged and respected. Teachers are not neutral ‘guides on the side’, but guardians of truth, charged with leading pupils toward intellectual and moral maturity.
The proposal calls for restoring the dignity of teachers, both morally and materially. Salaries should be tied to national averages and flexible enough to reward excellence, not simply seniority. Discipline should return as a core educational principle, reminding pupils that freedom is inseparable from responsibility. As the medieval Polish chronicler Kadłubek wrote: ‘He who has not learnt to command himself badly commands others.’
This is a powerful counterpoint to the prevailing ethos in much of Western education, where authority is diluted and pupil rights are expanded at the expense of order and respect. Ordo Iuris insists that without authority, there is no education, only chaos.
Ending the Tyranny of Testing
One of the reform’s sharpest critiques is directed at the ‘testomania’ that dominates European and global education as well. Standardized tests, rankings, and numerical indicators have become the primary measure of success, flattening human development into data points. This, the proposal argues, is a profound distortion. Literature, philosophy, and history cannot be reduced to multiple-choice answers without losing their soul.
‘Ordo Iuris calls for oral examinations, substantive essays, and qualitative assessments that measure genuine understanding and wisdom’
Instead, Ordo Iuris calls for oral examinations, substantive essays, and qualitative assessments that measure genuine understanding and wisdom. In this, it aligns with a broader conservative critique of modern education: that it prioritizes form over substance, technique over content, and metrics over meaning.
A Cautious Embrace of Technology
In alignment with the conservative approach, the proposal also addresses digital technology with refreshing realism. While many governments—sometimes uncritically—rush to digitize schools, Ordo Iuris warns against allowing technology to dominate education. As we in Hungary also affirm, digital tools—whether tablets, electronic textbooks, or even artificial intelligence—must remain in the service of pedagogy rather than replace it. Their role is to ease the teacher’s burden, allowing less time spent on bureaucracy and more on direct engagement with students. They should support teachers’ professional development, offer students opportunities for deeper learning, and foster more effective communication with parents and families. Technology can be a valuable partner in education, provided it serves rather than rules the classroom.
Here, Poland is not alone. Amongst many others, Hungary, France, Finland, Austria, and Germany have already restricted mobile phone use in schools, citing evidence that constant connectivity undermines concentration and academic achievement. Ordo Iuris places Poland firmly within this emerging consensus: technology should supplement, not supplant, the teacher and the book.
A Civilizational Choice
Taken together, these proposals are more than a national reform plan. They constitute a civilizational manifesto. They remind us that education cannot be separated from culture, identity, and morality. The question is not whether schools will transmit values, but which values they will transmit.
For Poland, the answer offered by Ordo Iuris is clear: the values of Christianity, classical culture, and national tradition. For others in Europe, the lesson is equally clear. If we neglect our own roots, others will supply alternative narratives, whether through aggressive secularism, relativism, or ideological reprogramming.
‘The question is not whether schools will transmit values, but which values they will transmit’
Hungary, too, has long understood this. Our own education debates echo many of the same concerns: how to balance modern competencies with national identity, how to protect culture from globalist homogenization, how to ensure that schools form citizens rather than consumers. The Polish proposal is therefore not just a Polish debate; it is part of a broader European conversation on the future of our civilization.
The Ordo Iuris education reform may not be implemented in full. It may spark controversy, opposition, or compromise. But its significance lies in its boldness. At a time when much of Europe passively accepts the erosion of tradition in schools, Poland has dared to articulate a counter-vision: one rooted in truth, order, faith, and cultural continuity. This is not nostalgia, it is realism. For without roots, there is no growth. Without memory, there is no identity. And without a clear moral and cultural foundation, education ceases to form free citizens and instead produces fragmented individuals, incapable of sustaining civilization.
The Ordo Iuris reform is therefore more than a policy proposal. It is a clarion call to Europe: to reclaim the true mission of education as the formation of the human person in light of truth, goodness, and beauty. How we respond will determine not just the fate of our schools, but the future of Western civilization itself.
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