Ukrainian refugees: ministry addressing bureaucracy complaints over school

The Ministry of Education has said that 70 applications for Ukrainian children fleeing the war to get access to Maltese public schools have been processed so far, with the process taking up to three days if all documents were provided. 

Ukranian mothers who desperately fled the war in their homeland had spoken to MaltaToday in recent days, explaining they were facing a bureaucratic nightmare when attempting to register their children to Maltese schools. 

They fled their country with very limited resources, which they are exhausting due to the fact that they can’t work whilst their children were out of school. 

As a result, many Ukrainians have been unable to obtain a residence card through Identity Malta, since they were being asked by authorities to provide rental agreement contracts. Yet without their residence card, they are also unable to register for most essential services and benefits. 

The ministry said its Migrant Learners Unit had reviewed the registration process of Ukrainian displaced persons. “Other offices and entities working with possible applicants were informed of this process in order to facilitate the use of this procedure,” the ministry said. 

It said a temporary protection document issued by the International Protection Agency was being accepted and used as a replacement for the birth certificate and residence permits. 

Many Ukrainians might not be able to afford to rent or buy their own place and are mostly being hosted by relatives, friends and people of good will, until they are in a position to get their own place.  

The mothers who were attempting to register their children for school said that they were being asked to provide proof of residence, but this was proving difficult, as they did not have any official rental agreement available. 

“Evidence regarding the proof of residence is requested since the child is registered in a college according to locality of residence.  The Migrant Learners Unit was aware that various families were residing with host families and so accepts a declaration by the host family indicating that the child and parent lives in that particular address,” the ministry told MaltaToday. 

The mothers said one of the documents requested was permission from the other parent for the child to start attending school. They said that due to the fact that their partners were constrained to remain in Ukraine and join the military, providing this document was proving difficult. 

According to the ministry, the Migrant Learners Unit is aware that in most cases only one parent was in Malta with the children. “A short text of a declaration was prepared so that the parent could fill in and attach it and forward to the registration office declaring that the other parent is not present in Malta due to the Ukrainian circumstances.” 

The ministry any crucial documentation still missing such as the IPA documentation, the registration staff and the community liaison team follow it up and support the families. 

The ministry also informs the parent of other parallel processes for access to services present within the educational sphere. It added that a vaccination documentation was not obligatory. “The registration stage at MLU does not depend on the supply of this data and is concluded even when no vaccination records are forwarded.  At school level there may be other practices in place which may necessitate that the parent provides a health screening document,” a spokesperson said.