WARSAW: Caught to the door of 1 Warsaw highschool is the signal “Laskavo prosimo do shkoli”, or “Welcome to university” in Ukrainian, in conjunction with the flags of Poland and Ukraine. Chattering in Russian and Ukrainian, youngsters who’ve simply fled their war-torn place of origin use magnetic key playing cards to go into and are welcomed once more with a big yellow-blue flag and the slogan “Slava Ukraini” or “Glory to Ukraine”. It’s their first day of college in Poland, the place the 13- to 15-year-olds have sought safe haven since Russia invaded their nation.
Divided into two teams of 20, they’re greeted through their new trainer, who shuttles from one lecture room to the opposite right through the lesson. From the Ukrainian town of Lviv, a refugee similar to them, Mariana Druchek, lays out the plan for the day and passes out a maths check. “Uh oh,” comes the reaction. Viktoria, 16, and 15-year-olds Polina and Zoriana are in a panic. “It’s on issues we coated 3 years in the past, in grade eight-I forgot all of it,” mentioned Viktoria, to which the others chime in with “similar”.
However they chill out quickly sufficient. By way of wreck time, they’re all smiles, pronouncing the ambience is “actually excellent” and “sure” and “the category and college typically are all proper”. It’s as though their mad sprint out of Kyiv with slightly any luggage-to the backdrop of bombs and blasts-was already fading fairly into the space. However the sense of risk remains to be there. “We’re afraid the Russians will also make their excess of right here, as a result of the whole lot is imaginable,” Viktoria advised AFP.
‘Schooling and peace’
Limanowski Prime College has been in a position to deal with the brand new scholars and rent new lecturers due to investment from the mayor’s place of work. On day one, Renata Kozlowska, a town authentic for the varsity’s group of Zoliborz, got here to welcome the kids. She advised them that “all of Poland is with you” and wired that they’ve the appropriate to “an training and peace”. The teens-who come from quite a lot of towns, together with Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk-will observe a pared-down model of Poland’s curriculum, together with English, Polish, historical past, maths, physics and health club.
The categories can be taught through Ukrainian lecturers who themselves had fled the conflict, with a bilingual educator on the helm of each and every staff. “What’s maximum necessary is to supply them some semblance of normalcy and quiet,” the varsity’s fundamental Andrzej Wyrozembski advised AFP. Druchek, who crossed into Poland along with her 3 youngsters simply after the invasion, concurs. “It’s now not a question of keeping up their wisdom ranges, however to verify they’ve mental improve and buddies, that they know that everybody desires to lend a hand,” she mentioned.
54,000 Ukrainians enrolled
Janusz, a Polish pupil at Limanowski, mentioned he’s inquisitive about the initiative, calling it “cool” to have welcomed the Ukrainians into their college. “It way they may be able to stay going to university and gained’t be considering continuous about what’s occurring in Ukraine,” he added. Whilst the brand new scholars can be attending separate categories from their Polish opposite numbers, the varsity is curious about serving to them combine. Every Ukrainian can be partnered up with a Pole their age to enroll in for after-school actions and the like.
Limanowski is the primary college on the town to have introduced any such programme, however others are because of observe quickly. Wyrozembski wired that it become his lecturers who took the lead at the initiative as soon as refugees started flooding Poland. However he too had his causes to get entangled: when Nazi Germany attacked Poland in September 1939, his father fled Warsaw for Lviv, which become a Polish town on the time. – AFP