The Press in Poland | The challenge of educating 81,000 refugees

Poland, the most important host country for Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the war, must now face the challenge of providing schooling for more than 81,000 Ukrainian and Russian-speaking children, without knowing for how long. A major challenge, reports our collaborator.

(Legionowo) In the entrance to the number 2 school complex in Legionowo, a large sign displays a blue and yellow bird – symbolizing the bicolor Ukrainian flag – taking flight. “Hope gives wings”, can we read in Polish, on one side, and in Ukrainian, on the other.

Throughout the school, other banners made by students aged 7 to 15, with the help of their teachers, display unfailing bilingual solidarity with their Ukrainian comrades who are refugees from the war and who are already educated in this school. .

While the lunch break is in full swing, children, eyes glued to their phones, exchange a few words thanks to the application Google Translatemoving with impressive speed from Ukrainian to Polish, two relatively close Slavic languages.

“Our pupils had prepared for the arrival of their new Ukrainian classmates”, explains Dorota Kuchta, director of this school in the suburbs of Warsaw.

“preparatory” classes

More than 81,000 Ukrainian children who have arrived in Poland since the start of the war are enrolled in Polish schools, revealed the Polish Minister of Education, Przemyslaw Czarnek, visiting a school in Lublin, in the east of the country. “There will be more and more students. This is why I call for the creation of preparatory educational units,” added the same minister from this large city 100 km from the Ukrainian border.

These “preparatory” classes already existed in some Polish schools. They consist of teaching the Polish language for six hours per week. Other subjects are taught in Polish and translated with the help of linguistic assistants to allow the rapid integration of non-native speaking children.

The creation of these classes – which mix several age groups – is now facilitated by two recent changes to the regulations. In particular, it will be possible for them to take place outside schools. Added to this is legislation facilitating the work and residence of Ukrainians, which entered into force on March 12, which allows the employment of teachers of Ukrainian nationality.

In her school, which welcomes more than 85 Ukrainian children who have arrived since the war, Dorota Kuchta has already set up 3 of these classes and stresses that she is lucky: among the mothers of the newcomers are many of her future employees.

“We have a teacher who will teach Polish as a foreign language, who is herself a refugee from this war. And we have two Ukrainian mothers, who also arrived within the last four weeks. I will be able to employ them as school assistants, because they speak Polish,” she explains.

“They come with trauma”

The list of professionals hired to meet the needs of these Ukrainian children is long. Starting with two employees in charge of preparing meals in the canteen as well as a Ukrainian-speaking psychologist – a refugee mother in Legionowo.

“The children who arrived in the first days of the war were relatively spared,” explains Dorota Kuchta. “But since then, we have children who come from places that have been bombed, they have stayed in bomb shelters, they have seen horrible things. They come with traumas that require special psychological help, ”insists the director, from her office. “There are children who cry all the time. At another school in Legionowo, the headmistress told me that she has children who, when they hear the bell, hide under the table because they think it’s a bomb threat. »

Lesia Khomyn, a school assistant who arrived on February 26 from western Ukraine and was hired immediately by Dorota Kuchta, prefers to put things into perspective. “Yes, there was a little girl from Ukraine, from primary school, who cried on her first day, but there is a schoolgirl from Kharkiv who received flowers from her Polish classmates for her first day. She and her mother were very touched. Polish children really do everything to make their Ukrainian friends feel comfortable. I have no words to express my gratitude”, is moved by this mother before adding that “the children try to forget the war”.

A colossal challenge

Dorota Kuchta, who had to refresh her rudiments of Russian – a compulsory language during the communist era – admits that if schoolchildren continue to flock to her school, she may soon have to refuse them. “For the moment, we are doing well. We still have some room in our classes. But if we double the number of children, that will no longer be possible. And then we are already facing a shortage of teachers. However, the law does not authorize us to hire teachers without an original of their diploma and without knowledge of Polish. We should open international classes in Ukrainian, which follow the Ukrainian curriculum, because it is possible that these children will return home quickly, we need an elastic system ”, further pleads the director.

Same story with Sławomir Broniarz, head of ZNP, the largest teachers’ union in Poland, who speaks of a colossal challenge for the education sector. “There are two fundamental parameters that we don’t know: how long will it take to educate these children and how many children will arrive? In any case, all these new classes and these hirings will be expensive for the municipalities responsible for them. Warsaw is a wealthy city, it may be able to get by, but elsewhere there is the risk that other municipal spending will be sacrificed,” he notes.