30 Europe The Economist April 9th 2022
EducatingrefugeesFrom battleground
to playground
Y
ulia bodar’s classroom was once a
bedroom in a Warsaw flat. Now it
boasts desks at which a dozen small chil
dren, refugees from Ukraine, are learning
to write. Ms Bodar, a new refugee herself, is
a teacher at Materynka, a school that offers
the Ukrainian curriculum from several
makeshift sites in Poland’s capital. Before
the war began it had about 200 pupils,
largely children of economic migrants.
Now it has around 1,000. Larysa Vychivska,
one of its founders, says her school is tak
ing in about 20 new pupils each day.
At least a quarterof Ukraine’s 7.5m chil
dren have left the country since the con
flict started in February. They need not on
ly food and shelter, but brain food, too. So
far more than 160,000 have registered to
attend Polish schools. Przemysław Czar
nek, the education minister, says Poland
may ultimately have to find room for
700,000 new pupils. That would mean ex
panding its school system by 14%.
At Janusz Korczak Primary School in
Warsaw, almost every class has new pupils.
Staff are pleased to help, but no one thinks
it ideal to plonk new arrivals into normal
lessons when few speak Polish. Some
teachers ask Ukrainian children who were
enrolled before the crisis to interpret, or
use Google Translate.
The latest hope is to school newcomers
separately in preparatory classes. Magdale
na Berucka runs one of the few primary
schools in Warsaw that offered such class
es before the conflict started. She is now
short of staff and space. Schools that have
never tried such classes will find it hard to
set them up in a hurry.
In theory online learning could help.
Teenagers nearing graduation see little val
ue in switching to foreign schools, and
those from relatively peaceful parts of Uk
raine can sometimes access remote classes
with their old teachers. But many pupils
are torn between attending Polish classes
in the daytime and trying to keep up with
the Ukrainian curriculum at night, says Te
tiana Ouerghi, a teacher in Warsaw.
Ukraine’s refugee children are receiv
ing more help than migrant kids elsewhere
in the world. The unthinks only about half
of all children who have fled across an in
ternational border are getting lessons of
any kind. Among children old enough for
secondary school, only onethird were in
class. Lost years of schooling damage
youngsters’ prospects long after the turmoil they fled has ended.
Countries that get lots of refugees are
usually poor, and struggle to educate even
their own children. And refugees them
selves do not always think schooling a pri
ority. Many assume they will go home
soon. That is rarely true: globally, half have
been in exile five years or longer, according
to the World Bank. Tackling schooling is
best done at the start of a crisis, before glo
bal attention and funding wane. But in re
cent years only about 3% of humanitarian
aid went to education. Yasmine Sherif ofEducation Cannot Wait, a unschooling
fund, hopes Ukraine will prompt a rethink.
No one knows how long Poland’s new
pupils will stay. Teachers hope things will
get easier after the summer break, when
they expect to have more Ukrainian class
room assistants. So far, Polish parents have
supported the new arrivals. Visitors to Ma
terynka must swerve past stacks of printer
paper donated by wellwishers. Ms Vychiv
skasays she used tohaveto seek out such
gifts. “Now people call up and ask me,
‘What do you need?’” nWARSAW
Polish schools are coping with an
influx of pupils from Ukraine Weeks afterRussiainvadedUk
raine, a couple of superyachts
belonging to Roman Abramovich, a
Russian oligarch sanctioned by Britain,
docked in Turkish ports. Boats linked to
two other oligarchs, Andrey Molchanov
and Maxim Shubarev, and to Dmitry
Medvedev, a former Russian president,
have also been sighted. On March 29th
Mr Abramovich himself surfaced in
Turkey, joining Russian and Ukrainian
negotiators at peace talks in Istanbul.
Turkey is playing more than one role
in the war. A nato member, it backs
Ukraine and continues to sell it armed
drones, which have turned scores of
Russian tanks into scrap. Yet President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s criticism of
Russian atrocities has been mild. And,
more worrrying, there are signs that
Turkey may be circumventing sanctions
against Russia.
On March 26th Mevlut Cavusoglu,
Turkey’s foreign minister, said Russianoligarchs’businesswaswelcomein
Turkey as long as they respected inter
national law. Mr Erdogan said he would
“keep the doors open”. In a phone con
versation with Vladimir Putin, he sug
gested Turkey and Russia conduct their
trade using roubles, the Chinese yuan or
gold. Turkey, which already faced Amer
ican sanctions for buying a Russian
airdefence system, has refused to rule
out new arms deals with Russia.
Most Turks sympathise with Ukraine.
But Mr Erdogan’s habit of provoking the
West and placating Russia has taken a
toll. A recent poll found 73% of Turks
want their country to stay neutral over
Ukraine. Only 34% say Russia is respon
sible for the war: 48% blame America
and nato. Mr Erdogan seems determined
to allow nothing, including war crimes,
to upset his relationship with Mr Putin.
“Our relations with Turkey are excellent,”
Dmitry Peskov, the Russian dictator’s
spokesman, crowed on April 2nd.
Mr Erdogan’s offer to mediate be
tween Russia and Ukraine has earned
him praise. Ukraine’s president, Volody
myr Zelensky, who has dinged other
leaders for going soft on Russia, has had
only kind words for the Turkish leader.
The role of Turkish drones may be tem
pering Ukrainian criticism, says Yev
geniya Gaber of Carleton University’s
Centre of Modern Turkish Studies.
That Turkey refuses to join sanctions
against Russia is no surprise. The coun
try has traditionally opposed sanctions
as a foreignpolicy tool. But frustration
with Mr Erdogan’s opportunism is
mounting in Western capitals. Many feel
Turkey is using the fruitless peace talks
as an excuse. “Nobody here believes in
the success of the negotiations,” says a
European official. “Russia is determined
to destroy Ukraine, and it should be in
Turkey’s interest to prevent this.”UkraineandTurkeyHaving it both ways in Istanbul
A NKARA
Turkey sells weapons to Ukraine, and welcomes Russian moneyRoman’s galley