AWS Senator Wittbrodt appointed to replace Handke as Education Minister

Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek appointed senator Edmund Wittbrodt from the ruling Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) to be Poland's new Education Minister after errors in the school budget forced the resignation of his predecessor Miroslaw Handke. On Monday, Handke admitted he had underestimated the costs of the subsidy for the teachers' salary hikes granted to local authorities, who as a result found themselves short zl. 800 million. Wittbrodt who was considered a potential candidate for the post in 1997 is 53, head of the upper house's education committee and dean of an engineering university in Gdansk. The new Minister pledged to press on with the reforms started under his predecessor and pledged to find the money for the promised salary hikes for the teachers, but did not say how. (Reuters, Gazeta Wyborcza, page 2,4) P.S.