The board of the Ukrainian primary school at the shelter in Papenvoort wants the school to remain open after the summer holidays. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science will then stop the temporary education provision for Ukrainians, but the board in Papenvoort does not like this.
After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the government started a scheme that allowed children of refugees from that country to quickly receive education in the Netherlands. That arrangement expires this summer.
All special schools for Ukrainian children therefore had to submit a plan to DUO today stating how the students will transfer to regular education or schools for newcomers after the summer. Not a good idea, according to the school board in Papenvoort.
“We still regularly receive new students and it is important that they end up in a pleasant environment,” says Marike Vast, school director in Papenvoort. “Here the teachers and other children speak their language and can therefore express their emotions better.”
According to Vast, not everyone is ready to leave the reception school yet. “We work with learning goals and once the students have achieved them, they are ready for a regular primary school. Moreover, these are often children who have been through a lot. Then it is not good to let them move on quickly.”
However, the children who go to school in Papenvoort also eventually move on to regular education. The nearest primary schools are in Grolloo and Rolde, but they cannot handle a massive influx of Ukrainian children.
“There are currently almost eighty students at our school. That is about as many as go to school in Grolloo,” says Vast. According to her, the village schools would face a significant challenge in terms of space and providing appropriate education for Ukrainians.
According to the school director, it is true that the children in Papenvoort now learn Dutch less quickly than if they went to a newcomers’ school. However, a transfer to such a school is not an ideal option.
The International Transition Class (ISK) of Dr. Nassau College in Assen is the only newcomer school in the area and it is already packed. The school suffers from a lack of space and staff and had a long waiting list for new students.
This week, the municipalities of Assen, Aa and Hunze, Tynaarlo and Noordenveld decided that the ISK will have an additional location in the provincial capital, but the question remains whether there is enough room at the new location for all applications.
All in all, the school board in Papenvoort hopes that the primary school there can remain open. It now remains to be seen what the ministry thinks of the board’s plans.