Brief summaries on what countries are doing to support refugees fleeing from the war in Ukraine.
During its April meeting, ReferNet members presented and discussed ways to mitigate the negative effects of the war in Ukraine. The Network’s newest publication is a summary of the discussion - presenting the situation in each country as well as the activities undertaken to support persons fleeing from the armed conflict in Ukraine. It is a compilation of snapshots showing the influx of refugees to EU countries and the ways governments and VET education systems are supporting them through access to education and the labour market. Among the actions taken by national authorities are:
- Speeding up access of refugees to schooling and VET, adjusting enrolment requirements and even providing scholarships,
- Providing support to refugees and their families as well as to institutions responding to their needs,
- Helping refugees acquire necessary language skills,
- Enabling refugees’ access to the labour market through simplified procedures and job-skills matching initiatives.
The ReferNet Poland team has also prepared a brief report on the situation in Poland, summarising the most important actions of the government and NGOs in support of Ukrainians, especially regarding:
- Changes in regulations on legalising their stay, social support and access to the Polish labour market,
- Simplification of school admission procedures,
- Increasing the limits of learners per class in pre-schools and grades 1-3 as well as amending the regulations on preparatory classes to accommodate the inflow of new learners,
- Making scholarships and allowances available to Ukrainian refugee learners,
- Enabling the employment of non-Polish citizens as teacher assistants to provide linguistic support to Ukrainian children and learners.
The Polish summary also presents data[1] on the inclusion of children and learners from Ukraine in the education system. As of April 4, the vast majority (73%) of Ukrainian learners included in the education system attended primary school, while 21% attended pre-school. Only 1.5% of this group was admitted to IVET schools.
The full report is available at Cedefop's webpage.
[1] Data from the Educational Data System (SIO).