Jaromira Labudda (Linia School)
Kashubian Education Yesterday and Today
In September 1991 in two schools (primary and junior high school) Kashubian languageand bilingual teaching was introduced. Gradually the challenge was taken up by otherschools, mainly primary schools.
In 1997 on order of the Ministry of National Education two first teaching
programmes for Kashubian language were woked out and in 2000 the first textbook
appeared, it was a primer. The teaching programme and the primer were important,because they constituted help to teachers teaching so far relying on their own intuitionand pedagogical qualification.
Kashubian Education Today
Now the teaching of Kashubian language is organised by the headmaster, on parents'written application( in secondary schools on students' application). Education contains
in one educational level( 3 years). Students have three compulsory lessons every week.
Learnig is organised in class, between class and between unit groups. Grades thatstudents get are counted in the grade- point average.
Teaching Kashubian constitutes a great source of income for schools, because thesubvention given for one child is a few times higher than subvention given for a child
who isn't learning Kashubian. In result of these regulations schools admit up to 84
students in primary schools and up to 42 students in junior high schools.
The number of schools teaching Kashubian and the number of students learning
this language is increasing. There are teaching programmes for all kinds of schools,kindergartens and a few textbooks. Teachers get their qualifications on courses andstudies.
Present-day Problems in Education••••••Kashubian language is done as the last lesson
not enough of motivation
students stop learning Kashubian after the first educational level
not every student who want to learn Kashubian can be admitted
lack of texbooks and teaching aids
not enough hours for teachers' linguistic preparations•

insufficient realizing of the society by media and scientific communities about
importance of small languages•

education doesn't achive its' goal: retaining language for future generations

Education of Uncodified Language
1. Dialect and slang differences.
The problem occurs when the teacher uses oher dialect than the students. Consequently
students mix dialectical standards. That's why the teacher should come from students'communities.
A student that came from other dialectical territory is corrected by other children.
In this case the role of the teacher is important to make students aware that it's different,
but rightful variety of a language.
In connection with these problems there is a great necessity that the teacher
sholud be well prepared and should have the knowledge of all of the language varieties
and should know how to distinguish them from linguistic errors.
2. Spelling differences
Till now Kashubian peolpe didn't have any spelling dictionary. The main source ofspelling information for the teacher is Polish – Kashubian, Kashubian – Polishdictionary. However in these elaborations we can find differences in spelling.
In connection with it the teacher must allow different spelling versions.
3. Spelling differences of two linguistic systems
Between many the same Kashubian and Polish words there are differences in spelling.
The teacher must make students aware of the necessity of spelling correctness, the sameor similar sounding words in both linguistic systems.
4. Inflectional differences
As a result of efforts of language standardization the teacher was forced to use
inflectional linguistic standards inconsistent with users standards. Finally, a rule ofalternative suffixes was elaborated.