Ukrainian pupils can attend English schools

Ukrainian children arriving in Quebec can enroll in English schools, learned The Press. In particular, they can do so under a temporary resident status granted to them by Ottawa upon their arrival in the country.

Marie-Eve Morasse
The Press

The Ministry of Education has confirmed to The Press that “according to the legislative and regulatory framework in force in Quebec, Ukrainian students whose parent holds a temporary work permit would be eligible for instruction in English”.

A federal emergency temporary immigration program gives Ukrainians such status. The Canada-Ukraine Emergency Travel Authorization (CUA) aims to expedite the entry into the country of Ukrainian families fleeing war. It is valid for three years and can be renewed.

Ukrainians can then apply for permanent residence, or return to their country of origin, explains Stéphane Handfield, a lawyer specializing in immigration.

Eleven Ukrainian students educated in English

So far, about 100 students from Ukraine have enrolled in the three French-language school service centers in Montreal.

Since last March, the Ministry of Education has specified that it has granted authorization to attend an English-language school to 11 Ukrainian children schooled in Quebec.

At the Lester-B.-Pearson school board, in the west of Montreal, it is indicated that to date, “five students [d’origine ukrainienne] who fulfilled the eligibility conditions of the Quebec Ministry of Education were authorized to enroll” in one of its schools.

The English-Montreal school board, for its part, claims that no student who has recently arrived from Ukraine attends one of its schools. “Unfortunately, we have tried and cannot accommodate any of them,” wrote its spokesman, Michael Cohen.

The Riverside School Board, on the South Shore of Montreal, did not call back The Press.

common front

Last March, the province’s nine English-language school boards united to ask Quebec to offer exemptions to young Ukrainian refugees so that they could attend English-language schools.

The school boards then argued that many of these students probably had English as a second language and urged the government to “show compassion”.

Quebec has the capacity to accommodate them in French-speaking schools, had then retorted the Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge. Law 101 applies “to all newcomers regardless of the language used in the country of origin,” Roberge said.

In Quebec, children of families who apply for permanent residence or who arrive with refugee status must attend a French-language school.

Newcomers with a temporary resident permit are allowed to send their children to English schools in Quebec. This is the case, for example, of children of expatriates with a temporary work permit and members of the Canadian Armed Forces called upon to move within the country.

* Simon Bolduc is an intern at the magazine The Itinerary.