Polish schools make room for tens of thousands of Ukrainian students

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  Christian Paauwe

  correspondent for Central and Eastern Europe

Polish schools have to make room for tens of thousands of new students starting this school year. These are Ukrainian refugees who have been in Poland for some time, but have so far received a Ukrainian education. These children did this online or at Ukrainian schools in Poland, but due to new legislation they all have to go to Polish school now.

Compulsory education is welcomed by experts who were very concerned about this group of children. But it will also bring challenges to Poland – one of the main host countries for Ukrainian refugees.

They also have new Ukrainian students at the Tadeusz Gajcy school in Warsaw, such as Danylo (14). “At the beginning of the war we thought it would be over quickly,” he says in his new weekly class. Danylo continued to study Ukrainian online and later at a Ukrainian school in Warsaw until this summer.

His new class is a small group of foreign students who don’t speak Polish yet, mostly children from Ukraine. The teacher is supported by the assistant Irina – Ukrainian herself – who translates here and there for the group. “The language is still the biggest challenge,” says Irina. “But also the different culture and traditions in Poland. We help with that.”

Danylo says he missed going to school:

The children spend a year in this transitional class to learn Polish, and then they have to join a regular group. It shows how Polish schools have gained experience in integrating Ukrainian children. At the beginning of the war, society welcomed more than a million refugees in a short period of time. The already overburdened school system had to educate over 130,000 additional children.

The fact that Ukraine offered online distance education suited the Polish government at the time as an alternative. “This worked well the first year because of the emergency situation,” said Jędrzej Witkowski from the Civic Education Center in Warsaw, an organization that supports teachers in Poland. “But after that the children had to go to school.”

However, Ukraine opposed such an obligation, Witkowski says. Kyiv is said to fear that many refugee citizens will not return if they continue to assimilate in other countries. At the same time, Poland still did not want to implement such an obligation for refugees. The government is now going to do this by denying families a monthly child allowance if children do not report to school.

Before the school year started, Prime Minister Tusk emphasized that school is important for the social development of these children. “We don’t know how many Ukrainian families want to stay with us longer,” Tusk said. “They may stay here forever so we look forward to educating these children like their Polish peers.” According to the latest figures, around 40,000 new Ukrainian children have enrollment in Polish schools, Witkowski says.

“This is an important step, especially when you consider that due to the pandemic before the war, some children only had online education for four years,” Witkowski emphasizes. “We know this has a huge impact on development.”

Assistant director Anna Lebek from the Tadeusz Gajcy school recognizes these problems. “All these children have to learn to work again at school in a group with peers,” says Lebek. The new children receive psychological and educational support.

The school also has activities to talk to students about diversity in the school. One of the challenges that Ukrainians struggle with is discrimination and racism by their Polish peers, according to research. Poland opened its arms to refugees at the beginning of the war, but at the same time the history of Poland-Ukraine also has dark chapters. Children bring prejudices with them from home.

All this means more work for schools, and Poland, like the Netherlands, is struggling with a major teacher shortage. The number of students has increased significantly in recent years, especially in Warsaw. At the same time, Ukrainian children often struggle with trauma or loss that requires extra attention. “Fortunately, we still have enough teachers,” said Lebek. “And we ask them to work more hours for the extra activities.”

Danylo was scared to go to his new Polish school, but after the first few weeks it wasn’t so much. He can play games with his new classmates in the second part of the lesson. They choose Rummikub. “I miss Ukraine,” says Danylo. “I miss my city, my grandparents, my cat and my dog. And I miss my school and my friends. But it’s not so bad here either.”