When setting up a task force with representatives from all 16 countries to school refugee children from the Ukraine as quickly as possible, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education (KMK) set a pace that was breathtaking by their standards.

On Friday it met for the first time under the chairmanship of the former Rhineland-Palatinate State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Hans Beckmann.

In the future, it will meet twice a week and is in close contact with the KMK heads of department conference.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.

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"We need to know as soon as possible how many Ukrainian children are arriving in the schools and how many teachers of Ukrainian origin are already working in the school," Beckmann told the FAZ. The countries also need to know quickly how many Ukrainian teachers are arriving as refugees.

The Ukrainian teachers have studied a subject and have a bachelor's degree, which does not correspond to a German teaching degree.

“Recognition goes through the Central Office for Foreign Education (ZAB), which takes a relatively long time.

But we need short-term and medium-term solutions.” It would be possible to work as a support teacher, which is paid less.

According to Beckmann, a contact platform for Ukrainian teachers is planned.

The federal government as well as the Bosch Foundation and the Bertelsmann Foundation should be asked for support.

Teaching materials have been digitized due to the pandemic

During the pandemic, Ukraine had digitized almost all teaching materials.

This makes teaching in final classes easier.

The so-called FWU (Institute for Film and Image in Science and Education non-profit GmbH), the media institute of the 16 federal states, may also link the materials.

Further usage questions have not yet been clarified down to the last detail in terms of licensing law.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Education is trying with all its might to provide the host countries with precise information for the individual grades and their own teaching system.

How important education continuity is for Ukraine's fled compatriots in many countries is shown by the fact that an international education alliance set up by the Kiev Ministry of Education met for the second time on Friday.

This shows that the Ukrainian Minister of Education not only hopes that the children and young people will return after the war, but also wants to enable them to immediately re-enter the Ukrainian education system.

According to KMK reports, the optimism of the Ukrainian government that remained in Kyiv commands the utmost respect from the countries involved, but also puts them in a dilemma.

Because on the one hand they should ensure that the children have a regular school routine as quickly as possible, which is not possible without knowledge of German, and on the other hand they should ensure that the children and young people do not lose touch with their Ukrainian identity formation.

What awaits Kyiv

It was therefore a list of maximum demands that the Ukrainian Consul General in Hamburg, Iryna Tublinka, presented to the Ministers of Education a week ago.

Basically, she would like to achieve the continuation of the Ukrainian education system in the respective host countries, also and especially in Germany.

She impressively described what education and culture mean for the identity of a country that is fighting for its existence.

She demanded not only the continuity of all educational processes and protection from any psychological pressure, but also the preservation of the national identity of Ukraine.

Tublinka pointed out that the history of Ukraine is almost entirely absent from German curricula.

"Russia and Russian imperialism still dominate Germany's curricula and guidelines," she criticized, and from her point of view, Ukrainian children should be protected from this and should continue to be taught according to the Ukrainian system and its curricula.

If Ukrainian children are not given access to their language, literature and history, "this will play into the hands of Putin, who dreams of wiping out Ukraine as a state and nation".

And the Consul General went even further, she warned the Ministers of Education against Russian integration associations from the former Eastern bloc, which are nothing more than instruments of Russian propaganda and want to plant the notorious "Russian world" in the minds of the Ukrainian youth.