State-secretary in the Ministry of Science and Education Tomislav Paljak on Monday informed that there are currently 470 Ukrainian students enrolled in the Croatian school system.

Addressing a conference of elementary school principals, Paljak underscored that as soon as the crisis erupted, schools were sent instructions on how to deal with children from Ukraine.

“Schools received guidelines on how to speak with them and also how to prepare local children to accept them. We are in daily communication and for now, everything is going well. The children are adapting,” said Paljak.

He recalled that Croatia already has experience in this regard when children from the Middle East were integrated in 2015.

“The most important thing is to include them in prepared lessons of the Croatian language as well as to enable them to attend regular classes. We are nearing the end of the school year and we want the children to adapt as easily as possible so that they do not lose a year of schooling. Enrolling children in school is a presumption that they will be staying for a long time and based on current events the presumption is that that will be the case,” said Paljak.