"At A Polish High School, Students Cover Almost The Entire Second-year Curriculum Of The BSUIR."
- 25.09.2026, 15:18
A Belarusian teaches robotics and programming to the children of immigrants in Poland.
Vadim Kryuchkov teaches math and programming to the children of immigrants so that they can preserve their language and maintain their interest in school subjects. At the same time, the Belarusian is building a community of Belarusian teachers in Poland and dreams of creating an online school for robotics. Vadim told Most how he managed to return to his profession after emigrating.
In Belarus, Vadim worked primarily as a tutor in robotics, but he also taught logic and physics to elementary school students.
“I worked on some pretty large-scale projects. For example, I organized robotics competitions for 2,500 people and took our robotics teams to Costa Rica, India, and Qatar,” he recalls.
The Belarusian moved to Poland in the spring of 2022. The emigration took place under rather rushed and chaotic circumstances, but Vadim had a preliminary agreement with the director of one of the online schools—so he wasn’t too worried about finding a job.
“I got in touch with some HR representatives, but after a day or two they replied that they couldn’t offer me anything. It wasn’t clear why.” I contacted the director again to ask what I needed to improve in my resume. It turned out that I was too qualified to work for them as a regular teacher.
Vadim tried to negotiate with the school, arguing that the collaboration could be beneficial for him as well. The teacher wanted to learn Python and also start teaching in English. But it didn’t work out—the online school didn’t hire him as a tutor.
“I was making about 200 rubles—not enough to live on in Poland”
So Vadim took a job in delivery, while also starting to think about how to return to his profession. He tried posting ads in expat Facebook groups and Telegram chats, but got almost no responses.
— My money was gradually running out. For a few more months, I earned about 200 rubles from online lessons with Belarusians, but that’s not enough to live on in Poland. I didn’t know what to do; it was very difficult.
Then, on the advice of an acquaintance, Vadim simplified his recruitment process so that potential students could sign up for a trial lesson via a form without having to contact the tutor first. It worked: people started snapping up the slots. After the free trial lesson, about 40% of clients continued with the lessons.
“In America, the main focus isn’t math—it’s language”
Now Vadim teaches both individual and group lessons. He teaches Belarusian children living in Poland. He also works with a school in Texas that offers classes in Russian to help second-generation immigrants preserve their language.
Russian-speaking immigrants living in the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Spain also turn to Vadim for help. Depending on the country, the specific needs that students bring to the tutor vary.
— In the U.S., the main goal isn’t math or programming itself, but the language. But they frame it in this educational way: if you learn something new—great; if you don’t—that’s fine too.
“In a Polish high school, a child covers almost the entire second-year curriculum of the Belarusian State University of Information Technologies, Electronics, and Radio Engineering”
In Poland, Vadim notes, the situation is different: the specifics of the school’s math curriculum play a role. In his opinion, the subject is taught rather modestly up to eighth grade, even compared to Belarus or Ukraine.
— Some parents turn to me for help so their children don’t lose the level they had achieved in Belarus. Many Belarusian children, after transferring to Polish schools, get higher grades and qualify for math competitions—at a certain point, they simply lose interest in studying what they already know.
People also turn to Vadim when they need help getting into a Polish high school. That’s where the workload really increases.
— In the fourth year of high school, a student covers almost the entire second-year curriculum of the Belarusian State University of Information Technologies and Radioelectronics (BSUIR). In other words, the hard work really begins in high school. But getting in is difficult—you need to start taking extra classes around seventh or eighth grade.
“In Poland, robotics isn’t seen as a path to the future”
Vadim notes that in Poland, demand for robotics among students is lower compared to Belarus. The teacher believes this is due to career prospects, since in Belarus one of the main ways to make a living is to go into the IT sector or engineering.
“Before coming to Poland, I hadn’t even taught high school math. But here I had to retrain, since the subject is in higher demand than programming or robotics. In Poland, a child can go into medicine, literature, or business—and still earn good money. Here, robotics isn’t seen as a path to the future—it’s just an extracurricular activity on the same level as swimming.
Despite this, Vadim dreams of building an online robotics school together with like-minded people.
“I’m almost the most expensive tutor in my community”
Alongside his tutoring work, Vadim is actively involved in the community of Belarusian teachers in Poland: he organizes webinars, manages a themed Telegram channel, and hosts in-person conferences.
Through his interactions with teachers, the Belarusian has concluded that the main challenges they face are the difficulties of re-entering the field after emigrating. Some cannot have their degrees recognized; others lack the language skills needed to teach at Polish educational institutions; and still others work through incubators that take an additional cut.
“Many teachers undervalue their work because they’re used to the Belarusian market. I’m not one of them—on the contrary, I’m almost the most expensive tutor in my community,” Vadim laughs. — My time spent working one-on-one with a student costs 160 zlotys—that’s very expensive. But you have to understand that this amount includes lesson preparation, homework checks, and materials.
“It’s getting harder every year to recruit students”
According to Vadim, despite the challenges, there are still opportunities to remain in the education sector.
— It’s true, it gets harder every year to recruit students. Maybe in another year or two, I won’t be able to find any: I’ll have to switch to teaching in English and Polish. I see other options for Belarusian teachers to stay in the field. For example, they can prepare students for the International Baccalaureate exams—that’s highly valued right now. Or they can prepare students for British or American exams.
Vadim recalls how he helped one of his students prepare for a math exam in Spanish. Neither he nor his student, who was also Belarusian, knew the language—so they translated and worked through the terms in the problems together.
“I showed the student how, even without understanding half of what’s going on, you can still solve a problem. I try to present myself in a way that makes the kids look at me and realize: I’m not some kind of universal genius who knows everything; just like them, I make mistakes.” “When students see this, their trust in me grows immediately—and then they, too, stop being afraid of making mistakes in their own work,” Vadim says with confidence.