"We had to take shelter in the basement. Food and water were not available. We filled up a bathtub with water just in time, we drank from it for two weeks," a woman recalled.Continue reading
The primary aim of the education of refugee students arriving from Ukraine in Hungary is not so much to focus on specific subjects, but rather on the acquisiton of the Hungarian language. Local schools are also working to help them deal with the traumas they have experienced, according to State Secretary Bence Rétvári.
The direct or indirect experience of a war conflict can be a major source of trauma for children, so it is particularly important that children receive mental and psychological support to help them process the shock, Bence Rétvári, an interior ministry state secretary, stressed in a parliamentary document on the education of refugee children from Ukraine.
According to the politician, a package of methodological tools prepared by Ukrainian psychologists is available for the students concerned and their host schools, which advises on how to talk to the affected youngsters about the war and what parents can do to preserve the mental health of their children.
The state secretary also noted that children who apply for asylum in Hungary are eligible for the support of specialised pedagogical services, where they can talk about the events they have experienced with a child psychologist and other professionals.
Rétvári also drew attention to the fact that refugee children receive free textbooks and that hundreds of Ukrainian-language books, mainly for children in elementary schools, have already been distributed to them in cooperation with the Education Committee of the Transcarpathian Regional Council.
In a recent letter to Hungarian teachers, Zoltán Maruzsa, the state secretary for public education, also pointed out that the most important aspect of the education of refugee students is, above all, that they learn Hungarian as soon as possible.
He stressed that the government does not plan to set up Ukrainian or other foreign language groups in schools, but instead the aim is to enable refugee children to learn together with the Hungarian pupils. They are provided five hours of individual tutoring per week to learn Hungarian, but the children will also receive a Hungarian language book, which was developed by Hungarian teachers in Transcarpathia especially for native speakers of Ukrainian.
The government is trying to take care of not only the students, Maruzsa said, but also of the refugee teachers, trying to find places for them in Hungarian schools. Maruzsa said that those who are looking for work here can go to the school district centers and public education institutions. The school districts near the Ukrainian border are specifically looking for refugee teachers, many of whom have already found jobs.
Featured photo illustration by Zsolt Czeglédi/MTI