School clubs will be able to stay open until 8 p.m. Preschoolers will benefit

• The Ministry of National Education plans to expand the care function of schools, including by extending the operation of after-school clubs in small schools with up to 70 students.
• Under the new regulations, after-school clubs will operate for no more than 12 hours. It will also be possible to provide after-school care for preschoolers.
• Local government representatives see the positive aspects of the planned solutions, but they wonder why there is no money for them again.

In the draft act amending the Education Law and certain other acts (form UD244) under point 5) it is indicated that the amendment will also cover provisions regulating the care function of the school in terms of after-school club and catering (changes in art. 105 and 106a of the UPO).

1. It is proposed that a primary school with no more than 70 pupils could provide after-school activities for children receiving preschool education in a preschool class organised in that school.
2. In addition, solutions were proposed to make it easier for parents to apply for a place for their child in a daycare centre by introducing the obligation for the school principal to establish a template for an application for a child to participate in daycare centre activities and to indicate the deadline for submitting this application.
3. Taking into account the developmental needs of children using the club, it was proposed to provide them with afternoon snacks at school.

Beata Powłowska from the Ministry of National Education's Department of Cooperation with Local Government, discussing this change at the plenary session of the Joint Government and Local Government Commission, pointed out that these changes stem from parents' expectations. Currently, if a child is in a preschool class that operates 5 hours a day and an older sibling is at school, the preschool child is often denied access to after-school care, claiming that the after-school club is a school-run facility.

Therefore, the Ministry of National Education wants to enable local governments to guarantee after-school care for children in preschool classes , of course in some limited form, either for the school budget or for the local government budget, because it is a matter of choice - either a longer-running preschool class for all children, or the possibility of guaranteeing after-school activities for some of the children who need it.

Powłowska also stressed that, in connection with this, a provision was also added to the draft which states that:

After-school clubs cannot operate for more than 12 hours a day . Parents are increasingly demanding the longest possible after-school care, even exceeding the school's capabilities.

This means that after-school clubs will be able to operate for 12 hours, until 7:00 PM if they start at 7:00 AM, or until 8:00 PM if they start at 8:00 AM. From when? It's hard to say, because according to the plan, the Council of Ministers is not expected to adopt the bill until the third quarter, i.e., from September 2026. However, the Ministry of National Education says it is significantly accelerating the legislation.

There can be no mistake, because the displayed slide about changes to the act clearly indicated:

• the possibility of providing after-school activities for children from preschool classes in a small school;
• the possibility of providing a paid afternoon snack for children under the care of the after-school club ;
• the work of the common room no more than 12 hours a day .

Unfortunately, there was no mention of funding for this project. What do local government officials say?

"This solution obviously entails costs, as teachers who work longer hours will have to be paid . This means that further expenditures from the municipal budget are being prepared, as I haven't heard of any additional funds being allocated for after-school club operations. So this is something that's supposed to be helpful to local governments, but it could cause serious problems," says Grzegorz Cichy, mayor of Proszowice and chairman of the Union of Polish Towns.

In his opinion, municipalities can finance this after-school care from other resources, for example from addiction prevention measures, or from so-called director's hours for after-school activities, but this is another task for which money should be allocated.

Extended operation of after-school clubs may also lead to staffing problems.

- Teachers are becoming less and less willing to take extra hours for after-school care, as they already have quite good benefits in terms of teaching load and overtime hours - he says.

However, he sees a need to adapt the operation of after-school clubs to the realities of the labor market, even in rural communities . In rural areas, more and more people are opting out of the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS) and opting for full-time employment, often in larger cities. And sometimes their return from work is later than 4 or 5 p.m.

That's why he believes that a project that reconciles educational regulations with parents' working hours is perfectly fine. However, the lack of funding for this new task is not.

The lack of additional funding could be reconciled if these after-school centers were subsidized in some way—not necessarily from education funds, but, for example, from social assistance, like nurseries or children's clubs. Parents returning home late from work is now a common occurrence, even in rural communities.

According to Marian Buras, mayor of Morawica, local governments cannot expect funds for this task.

"If we have a gap of over 44 billion złoty between subsidies and the costs of operating education, then all this talk is nonsense. We need to be clear that the government won't allocate the necessary funds for education. At most, they'll say: 'Now we're allocating 500 or 600 million złoty for this or that,' and the gap will only grow," he explains.

Nevertheless, in his opinion, the lack of additional funds for this purpose should not significantly affect the condition of local governments, because the scale of the phenomenon will not be large.

"Small schools with up to 70 children typically operate in rural areas, where there's little need for after-school clubs to operate for 12 hours, for example, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. or from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. However, there is, of course, a need for after-school clubs to operate until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m., so that parents can take their children home after work. So, financial considerations aside, after-school clubs, if necessary, should operate longer. And that needs to be done," he says.

Like Grzegorz Cichy, he anticipates a problem securing staff for this task. "There's already a shortage of teachers, and they definitely won't want to work until 7 p.m. In real life. This is also because most of them already work part-time, part-time jobs, with 20-odd hours. So they're doing their normal teaching load under different rules," he says.

According to the mayor of Morawica, a good solution would be to allow people without pedagogical education to work in community centers , preferably employed under the Labor Code.

Such a person would be tasked solely with supervising the children. Of course, the school principal would have to decide if they were suitable for the job. But such people would surely be found.

In this context, the planned change in the Teachers' Charter, allowing the employment of students, i.e. people without qualifications, is considered a beneficial solution.

Marian Buras, however, sees no problem with providing afternoon snacks for children, as this issue can be resolved similarly to many preschools, where parents pay for their children's meals. "If parents request afternoon snacks, there's catering; food will be brought in, and of course, there will be a menu to ensure a certain dietary requirement is met, and parents will pay," he adds.

The increase in the number of children (including preschoolers) covered by after-school care did not raise any major objections from our interlocutors.