Poland is a country generally aknowledged in the world for its famous mathematicians, amongst them mainly Stefan Banach, Alfred Tarski, Wladyslaw Orlicz, and their achievements in the field. More so, it is quite disturbing to find that the level of mathematics thaught at schools in Poland has been subsequently dropping since the eighties of the last century. As a result Polish children are falling behind in the tests of understanding mathematics, that are being carried through across Europe.

Poles are trying to find some remedies to the problem – in this upcoming year the secondary school certificate in mathematics is going to be obligatory for everyone. It is worth noting that the certificate in mathemtaics has been voluntary since the early eighties up till now.

However, introducing obligatory certificate in mathematics is no solution to the problem. Secondary school students will get no wiser just because the will be forced to pass the exam. Instead they will turn to various private teachers or courses to seek some help. Unfortunalety, those offer no better instruction than that at the schools. There are but a few institutions, amongst them the School of Mathematics (Szkola Matematyki), that present a unigue program of teaching mathematics. And this exactly is a solution to the problem – it is a way of teaching mathematics that requires changing rather than forcing the students to learn it through compulsory exams. It is a solace that there are private schools like the one where mathematics is thaught by ambitious people with unquestionable achievements in the field. We can only hope that public secondary schools will follow they example and reform their ways of teaching mathematics.