Entries just to the eye. Schools for Ukrainian children must do, even if they are full
On Wednesday, enrollments of Ukrainian children in primary classes began in primary schools. From September, compulsory schooling will also apply to them. However, schools in large cities, such as Prague or Brno, cannot handle them. Experts therefore talk about the photo of redistributing refugees to all regions. The Ministry of Education also wants schools to continue to set up special classes for Ukrainian children.
While Czech freshmen already know what school they will attend in September, the Ukrainian enrollment in the first grades is still waiting. They started on Wednesday, June 1 and will run until mid-July. Thanks to this, the state wants to get an overview of how many children are interested in starting first grades from September. However, in many schools, especially in large cities, future freshmen will not march. It is already clear that they do not have a vacancy there.
For example, in Prague 10, not a single child who escaped before the war in Ukraine will succeed. “We already know that we have filled the capacities of the first classes with Czech children. Although there are enrollments for the first class and kindergarten, we do not have one vacancy for them, nor in another year,” says the mayor of Prague 10 and Senator Renata Chmelová (Homeland).
There is no place for little Ukrainians elsewhere in Prague. Schools with the capacity to receive refugee children in the spring. Now they are mostly full or they have the last few places left. “The capacity is almost full. We will accept two children in the first year, the other years have been supplemented by Ukrainian refugees since March,” says Marie Suchá, director of the Jaroslav Seifert Primary and Kindergarten in Prague 3.
The experiences of other addressed school principals are similar. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, which are not accurate due to the possible migration of refugees, there are up to 16,000 children of compulsory school age in Prague. Roughly another 14 percent should be added to the 112,000 pupils in Prague’s primary schools.
“It could be frozen in Prague in September, because a lot of children from Ukraine will not find a place at school. It is a cruel reality, but it is so. It turns out that accommodation capacities were mainly addressed and no one dealt with places in schools, “admits the mayor of Prague 6 Ondřej Kolář (TOP 09).
His words are confirmed by the director of the Antonín Čermák Primary School in Prague 6, Petr Karvánek, who accepted fifty Ukrainian children in the spring and has no place for others. He describes the situation in Prague 6 as critical. “I am worried that we will integrate children’s units into schools throughout the city district. Our concerns are insufficient and we cannot solve them,” he added.
There are plenty of places, but not in big cities
However, only Prague has no problem. According to analyst at the sociological society PAQ Research, Štěpán Kment, there is also a shortage of places in Brno, Pilsen and some parts of the Central Bohemian Region. “Capacities in the Czech Republic are sufficient in absolute numbers, but it is very uneven regionally and we will see the problem especially in large cities,” explains Kment.
According to Michal Černý, director of the Department of Basic Education and Youth of the Ministry of Education, there are now about 70,000 primary-age children from Ukraine in the Czech Republic. And also a few thousand more children who are just getting ready for first grade. According to a survey by the Czech School Inspectorate, a third of children started school in the spring.
“So we are talking about about 50,000 children who will need to be admitted to primary schools. At the same time, we have a reserve of more than 100,000 places in schools. So if children can be divided according to vacancies, schools have a large reserve and no problems,” he said. Black.
According to him, the ideal solution would be for the state to relocate Ukrainian families to regions where there are places in schools, and at the same time to increase existing capacities where possible.
Cell construction and bus
The state is now considering how to do it. One of the variants is that children, even pre-school children, could be educated in modular units. However, it is not yet clear what their construction would pay for. Nevertheless, for example, Prague 15 has already submitted an intention to build two buildings for kindergartens. Classes for 112 children will be mixed. If the number of Ukrainian children decreases in the future, they will use the modules of the city district as outdoor classes and clubs.
Another possible solution is the so-called busing, ie transporting children by bus to schools with vacancies. “If the ministry gives us money for transport and for accompanying children, I can imagine that we will organize the transport of children to schools in the Central Bohemian Region,” Mayor Chmelová thinks. However, schools in the vicinity of Prague are often also crowded.
The Ministry of Education is now working on a law called Lex Ukraine 2, in which the conditions should be set. “The evaluation of the possible variant will depend on the number of refugees who will want to stay here from the new school year. It will depend on the development in the coming weeks,” says Ministry of Education spokeswoman Aneta Lednová.
According to the director of Černý’s basic education department, the resort also wants to allow independent Ukrainian classes to emerge from September. They now work in schools, but at the end of June they were to end and Ukrainian children were to join the Czech classes. “We still clearly prefer the integration of pupils into mainstream classes. It is an emergency solution that we will temporarily allow where the situation cannot be resolved otherwise,” he said.
Inspector: Separate classes bring problems
However, the emergence of classes in which only Ukrainian children are educated is criticized by some experts. “Each segregated group brings far more problems than positives after a certain time. Therefore, from the beginning there is an emphasis on the fact that groups of Ukrainian children will only form during the adaptation period until the end of the school year and that they will be integrated from the new school year. however, it is necessary to meet the distribution capacity, “Central School Inspector Tomáš Zatloukal.
Mayor Chmelová does not agree with the establishment of Ukrainian classes. “Ukrainian classes in Czech schools are completely useless because we do not have space for these classes. It will always be necessary to provide space for teaching and teachers,” he notes.
However, analyst Kment said that it is better for children to be educated in the Ukrainian years than if they did not get out and drop out of the educational process.
Video: Schools are required by law to take care of all children. Capacity should be enough, says Černý
We wanted the children of Ukrainian refugees to be included in the Czech educational system. There will definitely be places where there is an overhang of children locally. | Video: Martin Veselovský