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12 The Krakow Post K R A K O W DECEMBER 13-DECEMBER 19, 2007 New low cost route Krakow-Paris the krakow post The low-cost French-Dutch airline Transavia has begun flying between Krakow and Paris. Transavia’s Vice President Helene Abraham said it is the airline’s only route to Poland. And it will remain that way, the Polish Press Agency said. The reason is that Transavia’s parent, Air France-KLM, does not want the low-cost carrier competing with it on other routes. Air France-KLM already serves the rest of Poland’s major cities. “Thanks to the new connection, French people will be able to discover this beautiful city, and we will take Polish people to the capital of France as well,”Abraham told the Polish Press Agency. The airline’s Boeing 737-800s have 186 seats. They fly to Krakow three times a week – on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Krakow’s French consul, Pascal Vagogne, predicts that the new connection will make Krakow more popular with French tourists. Only 8 percent of the city’s tourists last year were French, the Polish Press Agency said. Transavia is the 21st carrier to serve the Krakow- Balice airport. Last year the facility handled 2.4 mln passengers. Transavia offers 67 flights a week from Paris to a dozen destinations, including cities in Italy , Spain, Greece, Morocco and Tunisia. It has about 164 employees. LUK Agency AGH makes student hostels comfortable LUK Agency Iwona Bojarczuk Staff Journalists AGH University of Science and Technology plans a renovation of its dormitories that will transform the current 10-person units with one shared bathroom into twoperson units with private bathrooms. It will be a huge project because AGH has more dorm rooms than any university in the city. The dorms accommodate up to 4,000 students in each of the fall and spring semesters. Cost of the renovation is estimated at 7 mln to 8 mln zloty per four-story dorm. With five buildings, the overall cost will be about 36 mln zloty. The AGH campus has 20 student hostels. There are plans to rebuild five hostels, starting with buildings: 16, 17, 1, 5, 9. The total number of buildings that will undergo reconstruction is not known. The Ministry of Education will be providing much of the money for the work. The university is making the changes partly because good deals in the privateapartment rental market are luring students away from the dorms. Some students would rather pay more than they would pay for dorm rooms for newer and more private accommodations. Right now each dorm unit has four rooms, some of which accommodate three students and some two. The four rooms are connected to a collective bathroom, which contains two sinks, one shower and one toilet. In the new setup, each unit in the dormitories will have two rooms plus a bathroom. Units will accommodate one or two students. Each of the new units will also have a small kitchen. Although the two-person units will end such traditions as talking with others during tooth-brushing and sock-washing sessions, students want better accommodations, said Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics student Caroline. The new rooms will also have better furnishings, university officials say. The old military-style steel-framed beds will be out, as will bunk beds – unless students in a unit demand a bunk bed. The new furniture will be modern and attractively designed instead of just functional, said Chancellor Henryk Ziolo. If some students want to use a bunkbed to free up more space in their room, they can certainly do that, he said. Renovating the dorms will not only benefit students, but also summer tourists on limited budgets. AGH rents dorm rooms to tourists in summer, becoming the largest “hotel” in Krakow. Half of its guests are foreigners. The university will renovate its oldest buildings first. Dorms buildings 16 and 17 should be ready before the holiday break next year.
DECEMBER 13-DECEMBER 19, 2007 Celebrating the year of Stanislaw Wyspianski the krakow post The year 2007 is the hundredth anniversary of the death of Stanislaw Wyspiański, one of the most intriguing and broad-minded Polish artists. The phenomenon of Wyspainski consisted of his versatile activity, fascinating even today because of the variety of concepts employed during his short 38 years of life. He studied at Krakow’s School of Arts (1884-1885 and 1887-1895) and at Jagiellonian University (1887-1890 and 1896-1897). As a student he helped Matejko (together with J. Mehoffer) to create polychromes of Mariacki Church (1889-1890). His creative activity, realized mainly through pastel technique (portraits, landscapes, flowers) was dominated by symbolism and the secession style. The main means of expression was a twining line along a contour of depicted items, which were marked through colored stains. His polychrome projects and stained glasses characterized the motif of blazing flame and calligraphically treated plants. In literature he is known as one of the best drama writers, especially tragedies. Referring to ancient tragedy, he showed the role of fate as a main motive of action, often localized in national historical reality. In the late period of his artistic activity (from 1900), apart from historical and political polemics against contemporary life (among others “The Wedding,” “Liberation”), there appeared a trend to philosophically interpret Polish history (“The Legion,” “Boleslaw Smialy,” “November Night”) and to show mythological stories (“The Odys Return”). Wyspianski was not submissive; he could be classified as incorrigible and a rude artist. For almost all his short life (he suffered from syphilis) he fought against parochial styles of thinking and middle-class conformism. Stanislaw Wyspianski died on Nov. 28, 1907 and his funeral in Deserved Crypt at the Church on the Rock became a huge national demonstration. The 100th anniversary of his death is the occasion of several artistic events at the National Museum in Krakow: exhibitions, theater plays, multimedia shows. There also are lectures and books about Wyspianski and his artistic activity. The main building of Krakow’s National Museum has an exhibition entitled “Stanislaw Wyspianski’s Great Theater.” The multimedia show runs through March 2 and features static and motion pictures, sounds and light, etc. Video screenings include parts of theater, television and film adaptations of Wyspianski’s dramas. Exhibition visitors can stand inside scenery reconstructing the scene from the premiere of “The Wedding,” built according to the author’s stage direction. Janusz Walek, creator and custodian of the exhibition, says that the unusual character of the show casts a spell on visitors, expanding their imagination and allowing them to see Wyspianski as a whole. Through March 9, the National Museum will display at a Szolayski tenement house in ul. Szczepanska 11 an exhibition entitled “You Pile the Stake Yourself…” The idea is to remind visitors of the ceremonial funeral of the artist and at the same time Krakow’s last huge funeral ceremony organized by the city council. Laznia Nowa, a theater in the Nowa Huta District, joined the celebration of the anniversary. A music-theater festival, “Wyspianski Liberates,” showed Wyspianski’s other faces and ran from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2. Also at the festival was a poster display covering more than 30 billboards with such slogans as “Krakow is not enough developed!” and “I was beaten and that is why I won.” The festival also included a play directed by Paul Passini, “Resting,” and concerts in which artists challenged Wyspianski’s texts. “We do not want to embalm a mummy; we will not close Wyspianski in a crypt” said the artistic director of Laznia Nowa. “He was a Pole who tore off the comfortable masks of A R T S & I D E A S The Krakow Post 13 his compatriots. He was frustrated, furious and defiant.” Another exhibition worth mentioning is “Stanislaw Wyspianski in the Art of the Disabled.” It is at Kotlownia, the Gallery of Krakow University of Technology in the ul. Warszawska 24. The exhibition will continue through Dec. 14 from Monday to Friday at 09:00 to 16:00. There you can find 105 works made in different techniques: painting, drawings, graphics, ceramics, weaving. The cultural events connected with the anniversary of Wyspianski’s death are very popular among foreigners living in Krakow. “I am delighted by the talent presented by Wyspianski,” said Inge, a Swedish student living in Krakow for two years. “I did not know him before. Now after participating in two projects and visiting some galleries I will probably write my MA on the topic of his nonconformist way of living and creating.” Local teacher looks to change face of educational system From SCHOOL on Page 1 The need to improve rural schools is so pressing that Klosowski’s reservations are inane, Lackowski said. “The deterioration of education in rural areas, where year after year more and more students do not pass their exams and thus do not continue school, is a huge problem,” Lackowski said. “With school vouchers, there may be three times more money for rural areas,” he said. “Vouchers improve the equality of education. Better teachers should go to rural areas and be better paid.” Krakow already has a voucher system but it is not the kind that Lackowski and Hall envision. It does not give parents the increase in power and responsibility that the Lackowski-Hall system would because it does not allow students to choose their school. They must go to the one to which they are assigned. “It must be changed,” said Jaroslaw Gowin, a member of the upper house of parliament from Krakow. “Otherwise people will become discouraged about a really good idea.” The Krakow voucher system does include one provision of the system that Lackowski and Hall advocate, however: It bases teachers’ salaries on the number of students they teach rather than the number of classes. Another key difference between the Krakow voucher system and the system that Lackowski and Hall want is that Krakow principals have no authority to manage their schools’ finances. In other words, they can’t shift money from one category of expense to a category where there is a greater need. National educational officials decide how much a school gets – and the categories where it is spent. By being able to send their child to the school of the family’s choice, parents would in effect become managers of public-education funds. “In such a situation parents show their power in the educational market,” Lackowski said. “And the school principal, when talking with parents, is aware that he is speaking with the co-owners of the school.” The Lackowski-Hall system would also improve teaching by pegging teacher salaries to classroom effectiveness. Better teachers would get more money, poorer ones less. Lackowski said vouchers are a tiny part of the educational change Poland needs. Creating public support for reform means convincing Poles to change the way they think about education, he said. “People must see that reform is an opportunity, not a danger,” he said. The key is getting the public to understand that “competition improves the level of education.” Under a voucher system, the best public schools wouldn’t have to beg any more for money for elective courses – those the Education Ministry doesn’t require. Neither would the best schools have to beg for money for facility renovations. Private schools also would be likely to embrace vouchers. That’s because the voucher system would allow students to go to either private or public schools. With money from vouchers, private schools could reduce the fees they charge parents. Henryka Bulat of Krakow, the mother of a junior high school girl, is one parent who likes the idea of vouchers. In deciding which school her daughter attends, she said, the voucher system will let her “take into account the schools’ achievements.” They would include the number of students in a school who had passed their comprehensive exams, the number of students who had won citywide or regionwide academic competitions, the number of electives a school was offering and the condition of the school facility itself, she said. “If I can influence the financing of a school, why not?” she asked. A Krakow teacher who wanted to remain anonymous said it is hard for her to predict what would happen under a voucher system because few details of the system have been made public. However, she said, her sense is that “if there is a good principal who fights for his school then the level of education (under a voucher system) would be raised and that would be good for children.” Without an aggressive principal, however, the voucher system could cause such “huge problems” that a school’s quality could diminish rather than improve, she said. Lackowski has so far offered no timetable for a voucher system or other educational reform. However, he said, “it would be best to introduce reforms gradually.” In the case of vouchers, that would mean introducing them “in big cities at a secondary school level and afterwards gradually extending them.” “Vouchers should have been introduced in cities a long time ago,” he said. “There is no reason to assign students to schools in specific districts when it is possible for them to travel by public means.” Hall said vouchers could show up as early as 2009. “I am sure that any changes should be introduced very carefully, gradually and after having been given thorough consideration,” she said. Educational reform should be reform and not revolution, she said. Many teachers are likely to oppose a voucher system, of course, because it threatens the way they do business. Teacher association leaders are already posturing on the proposed change. Slawomir Broniarz, the chairman of the Polish Teachers Union, contends the voucher system would violate the Constitution in terms of unequal access to education and also laws on how local governments spend their money. Lackowski answers: “There is no need to change the constitution because education would still be free,” Lackowski said. “We need to eliminate the teacher’s card” that gives teachers too much power over education, he said. “Poland needs the determination to succeed, and the question is if Polish politicians will have that same determination.” Another teachers union objection is that, in abolishing the current school assignment system, the voucher system would create problems that would be difficult to deal with. For example, union leaders say, what happens when many more students want to attend a school than it can admit? What would be the criteria for deciding which students would get into that school and which would not? Some student groups dislike the idea of vouchers, too. Artur Juszczyk, co-leader of the student organization Initiative Against Paid Studies, contended that “the educational voucher is the first step to privatizing education. We think that education is a right, not a commodity, so it should not be subject to the rules of free market.” Those who are unsure whether the voucher system will improve schools can get an idea by looking at what happened in Koszalin, in northern Poland. That school system used vouchers to introduce a journalism class, a ballet class, speech therapists, psychological counselors and career specialists. Although vouchers are an interesting idea, many people in and out of education believe that whether they will be a success in Poland will hinge on that old adage “The devil is in the details.” EPE Translations English - Polish - English Agency providing translation services for companies working in multicultural environment as well as for private individuals. Deliver standard, technical and sworn translations at competitive prices. Also provide interpreters located in Ireland, UK and Poland. Check out www.epetranslations.com tel: (0048) (0) 12 4212300 FOR PERMANENT, TEMPORARY AND CONTRACT STAFF IN IRELAND & UK • Ireland tel: (00353) 45 883420 e-mail: claire@issrecruitment.com • Manchester, UK tel: (0044) 0 161 9090050 e-mail: issrecruitment@yourcomms.net www.issrecruitment.com krakowpost.com
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Local superintendent may change face of educational ... - Krakow Post

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