“Currently, there are already 45,000 children from Ukraine in Polish schools. Every day, school principals accept 10-15 thousand children; their number is growing rapidly”, said Przemysław Czarnek, Minister of Education and Science during an on-line conversation with the European Union Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel.

Commissioner Gabriel expressed her gratitude and respect for Poles’ commitment to helping refugees from Ukraine, she also indicated the possibilities and means by which European institutions can support students and scientists from Ukraine.

During the conversation, Minister Czarnek also presented the solutions that were adopted for admitting Ukrainian children to Polish schools, including creating preparatory departments for children to participate in classes of individual subjects and also learn Polish, employing Ukrainian and Polish teachers, and the system of admitting volunteers who help with translation from Ukrainian into Polish.

“I presented the Commissioner with the whole situation of Ukrainian children attending Polish schools, what are the challenges and the related costs because today we have 500-600 thousand children in Poland, but there may be a million of them soon”, said the head of the Ministry of Education and Science at a press conference in Chełm.

“We do not know what will happen in the next days. We hope that the war will end and these children will return to Ukraine, but as the conflict continues, we will host even more refugees,” said Przemysław Czarnek.

Adrian Andrzejewski