For years, Poland has been an attractive academic destination for foreign students. This is best demonstrated by the numbers. In 2019/2020, there were more than 82 thousand international students from 179 countries at our universities. The number of African students in Poland has quadrupled in the last ten years.
Polish universities, by participating in programmes for the internationalization of academic life, have been improving the quality of services provided to foreign students, doctoral students, teaching and research staff, as well as promoting attitudes of openness and tolerance, and facilitating the integration of students of foreign origin not only into the academic community, but also into the local community. All this is done through programmes such as Welcome to Poland, prepared by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. Among the projects that have received funding so far are a mobile application that allows you to navigate around the University of Wrocław. The app is also an informational guide about the city and provides information about Polish history and culture. It is a kind of guide with basic information for foreign students at the University of Gdańsk too. It provides English-language signage on buildings and foreign-language versions of the homepage of the University of Szczecin, as well as events promoting interculturalism at the Nicolaus Copernicus University. On top of that, it offers training in cultural differences and language courses for academic and administrative staff. All this is intended to make Polish universities more friendly to students from different parts of the world.
On the other hand, in the Banach NAWA programme, which was created as a Polish scholarship scheme for people from developing countries and enables them to study at Polish universities, a large group of applicants comes from African countries, among others. In last year’s edition of the programme, youth from this continent accounted for 30% of all participants. There were 193 of them. The largest number of participants came from Nigeria (104) and Ethiopia (54).
What is more, individuals from African countries are still eligible to participate in the new call for the programme announced just today. Those studying in the now war-stricken Ukraine may apply to study in Poland.
It should also be noted that citizens of African countries – upon arrival in Poland – are able to return to their homeland at the expense of the Polish government.
This is why we consider reports by Al Jazeera television, including those about unequal treatment of citizens of African countries on the Polish-Ukrainian border, which are part of Russian propaganda, to be untrue and to be putting Poland in an unfavourable light. We expect reliable presentation of facts that reflect the real situation in Poland. As assured by the Ministry of Education and Science, no pupil or student will be left without assistance.