NKU: Foreigners' Children Need Help to Integrate into Society

Bratislava, 1 August (TASR) - The children of foreigners in Slovakia need to be helped to integrate into society, but public institutions lack schemes for dealing with critical migration waves and a strategy for educating these children, according to the findings of the Supreme Audit Office (NKU) provided to TASR by its spokesperson Daniela Bolech Dobakova. She pointed out that Slovakia is set to launch compulsory education for the children of foreigners as late as from September 2025, three and a half years after the war in Ukraine started and the associated migration waves. In the Czech Republic it was introduced in September 2022. "It's gradually becoming clear that some children are outside of education in our school system. They are thus at risk of isolation, exclusion, and later, due to insufficient knowledge of the language, reduced chances on the labour market, poverty and other associated social risks. An active approach and efforts to ensure mandatory participation in education is a way to exploit their potential in Slovakia, and it's also in the interests of the state," said NKU vice-chair Jaroslav Ivanco. NKU auditors recommend that MPs of the parliamentary education committee should ask the Education Ministry to develop a concept for educating the children of foreigners. According to them, the government should propose legislative measures to introduce a system for exchanging data on foreigners aged between five and 16. Slovakia plans to introduce compulsory education for refugees as of September. Children of foreigners are to be taught alongside Slovak pupils in order to make sure that they can fully join regular education as soon as possible. Basic and advanced Slovak language courses will continue to be available to them for free. ko/df