Ministry Sees Support for Children of Ukrainian Refugees as One of Key Areas

Bratislava, 1 August (TASR) - The Education, Research, Development and Youth Ministry considers support for the children of refugees from Ukraine to be one of the key areas, noting that it has implemented and continues to implement a number of activities in this area, the ministry told TASR on Friday in response to the report by the Supreme Audit Office (NKU), adding that Slovakia is preparing further measures. A new element of support is the formation of adaptation classes. From the beginning of this year, an adaptation class can be set up in a primary school and, with the consent of the legal guardian, a pupil can be enrolled in it for the necessary period of time, up to a maximum of one school year. "They aim to improve the conditions for education of pupils with insufficient knowledge of the Slovak language, help them overcome the language barrier and prepare them for smooth integration into mainstream education," said the ministry. The ministry announced that with the introduction of compulsory education, it will also adjust the conditions for providing an allowance for transportation costs. It also said that it's finalising a new decree on language schools, from which the state education programme for language schools will be derived - including for the area of Slovak as a foreign language. The Supreme Audit Office's findings showed that 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. NKU spokesperson Daniela Bolech Dobakova 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. am/mcs