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War has been raging in Ukraine for two years. Ukrainian refugees in Switzerland have been receiving protection status S for two years now. This also means that refugee children in Switzerland can go straight to school. According to a study, almost all children and young people from Ukraine are educated in this country.
According to a survey by the UN refugee agency UNHCR last year, 69 percent of Ukrainian children and young people between the ages of four and 16 attended exclusively Swiss schools in the spring of 2023. Another 25 percent also attended online distance learning according to Ukrainian curricula. The proportion of those who only followed distance learning was low at three percent.
“The integration of children into regular schools works satisfactorily well,” explains Eliane Engeler, media spokesperson for Swiss Refugee Aid. The schools have done a very good job in accommodating the many children. However, for those who took both Swiss and Ukrainian classes, this could be a major time burden.
Language is a barrier in the beginning
Dagmar Rösler, central chair of the umbrella teachers’ association, said when asked that she could not make representative statements about how well the integration worked. However, there are numerous positive examples of children and young people being integrated into schools and communities. The school is doing very important integration work on this point.
Of course, language is a big barrier when it comes to making friends and getting used to everyday life, says Rösler: “There are children and young people who were able to pick up the German language very quickly, while for others it takes a little longer. ”
The so-called welcome lessons, which aim to get children to concentrate on learning the relevant national language and life abroad, have now been abolished in many places.
Even children with trauma
When asked about the psychological stress for Ukrainian students due to the war at home and the experience of violence, Rösler points to the individual differences and the wide range: some children were able to integrate relatively easily, others suffered trauma. The latter is very difficult for teachers because they have not received specialized psychological training. Teachers rely on the support of specialists.
An even bigger problem is of course the traumatization of children in the war zone itself, which is what the Swiss children’s rights organization Terre des Hommes, based in Lausanne, focuses on in its work.
“The children in Ukraine do not feel safe wherever they are. Whether they are in the East or the West, they are in a permanent state of trauma and stress,” the organization quoted its deputy head of delegation in Ukraine, Olga Dombrovska, as saying in a press release.
Terre des Hommes offers psychosocial support to children, young people and their parents in Ukraine. According to its own information, the organization has provided psychological care to more than 50,000 children in the past two years. She also furnished more than 200 child-friendly rooms. “There, children can play, learn and regain a sense of normality despite the traumatic circumstances,” the statement said. (SDA)
Source:Blick
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