School education will also become obligatory for children from other countries. Schools will have time to prepare for the next school year. Foreign children, including those from Ukraine, will have to go to school from the 2024/2025 school year. Therefore, children will not have to go to school yet in the upcoming semester. The Ministry of Education said that thorough preparations are needed to fulfill this obligation.
The Na Gorka elementary school in Nitra has 500 children, 70 of whom are from Ukraine. The school began accepting these children immediately after the conflict began, which forced many to seek asylum in Slovakia.
"We expected 20-25 children to come, but in the end 80 came. Because of their large number, we immediately integrated them into the existing groups, where they adapted quickly," said Dana Halajova, the principal of "Na Gorke" elementary school in Nitra.
Slovak pupils reported that their Ukrainian classmates achieve good results, behave respectfully towards them and say they are close friends.
Thousands of children are not enrolled in the education system
Some 10,500 children from Ukraine currently attend school in Slovakia, but an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 more are still out of the education system. "These children live in different communities and do not have the opportunity to socialize with their peers, which can create problems in the future," says Director Halajova.
Therefore, in the upcoming school year, the Ministry of Education plans to strengthen the teaching of Slovak language to children from abroad directly in classrooms and involve them in various leisure activities. Compulsory school attendance for these children should be introduced a year later. "The state has certain obligations towards these children, but it is also necessary to have a realistic plan for this. Schools have not been sufficiently prepared for the introduction of obligatory attendance in the 2023/2024 school year. However, starting in 2024, we will recommend that new governments follow this path," said Education Minister Daniel Bútora.
Before that date, schools must prepare for a possible increase in the number of pupils from abroad. However, it is not only the schools that need to prepare, but also the children. Many children from abroad do not have a sufficient level of the Slovak language, which is why we at the iCan language school offer them our services and assistance in learning Slovak.
the information was taken from the website spravy.rtvs.sk