Refugees from Ukraine who are granted protection according to the EU Mass Refugee Directive are not entitled to the adult education Swedish for immigrants, SFI.

Instead, they are referred to study associations and folk high schools.

Their courses Swedish from day one and Everyday Swedish are usually aimed at asylum seekers who are waiting for information.

Unlike SFI, which is full-time, it is often a couple of hours a week.  

In Höganäs municipality in Skåne, they have still chosen to offer SFI to Ukrainians.

The reason is partly that there is no folk high school in the municipality and partly the experiences from the refugee crisis in 2015.

- It is important to be quick about it.

At the same time, it is also a survey of what they have done before and how we should be able to help them further to work.

We do this with a job focus, says Anneli Söderhjelm, principal of adult education in Höganäs municipality.  

Found own accommodation

The requirements for starting the education are that you have arranged your own accommodation in the municipality and submitted an asylum application to the Swedish Migration Board.

The municipality is responsible for the bill, which lands at SEK 3,000 per person a week, and according to Anneli Söderhjelm, they do not expect to receive compensation from the state.

Sweden's municipalities and regions, SKR, say that they are unsure whether municipalities can offer SFI to Ukrainians who receive protection under the Mass Refugee Directive, how do you view that?

- Yes, we know that, but when we made the decision, there had been no information yet.

Then someone may say that we have done wrong and what the alternative is, but we think that it can not be wrong to do more than we need, says Anneli Söderhjälm.     

More people are registering

According to Anneli Söderhjelm, about 15 Ukrainians have started their SFI education, but more are registering all the time.

One of them is Oxana Artykova who came to Sweden with her two children from the city of Dnipro.

- I have a university degree so I want to learn Swedish, get my education verified and then work.

We live in a small town and everyone is so friendly and says "hello hello" all the time.

I want to be able to answer them and have started to learn different phrases, she says.