School Uniforms in Poland

School uniforms are not compulsory in Poland and absent from the vast majority of Polish schools. The idea of school uniforms in Poland did not exist before the early 20th century. In the People's Republic of Poland, uniform ceased to be compulsory in most schools during the 1980s due to economic issues. Since then, there has been made only one effort to reintroduce uniform into Polish schools - by the former minister of education Roman Giertych, in 2006. It was then decided that school uniform would not be enforced by the state onto the whole country, but would be a matter decided upon by the principal of each school respectively. Initially this was meant to permit only a dress code, but this was later modified in 2007 to address school uniform. From 2007, all primary schools and middle schools were to enforce compulsory uniform, whilst high schools and other forms of further education were given the choice to decide on their own. The appearance of school uniform was decided upon locally, which meant that "uniform" in most schools consisted of a jacket or shirt only - selected by the school management purely to avoid breaking regulations (the rest of clothing was still up to the students to decide). By mid-2008, compulsory school uniforms were repealed and it remains so to this day.