Slovakia has made changes to its education laws to address the needs of children displaced from Ukraine. The new amendments, part of the Lex Ukraine 4 legislation package, aim to provide better educational support for Ukrainian refugee children by allowing municipalities to maintain a temporary register of school-age refugees living in their areas. This legal framework helps municipalities collect and process data to ensure that these children can attend compulsory or pre-primary education, even if they do not have permanent residency in Slovakia.
Previously, the law only applied to children with permanent residency, leaving refugees outside the compulsory education system. The changes now allow municipalities to track the number of refugee children enrolled in local schools, ensuring their educational needs are met.
Additionally, the revised legislation outlines the process for refugee children or their legal guardians to formally discontinue education, such as when leaving Slovakia permanently. If a refugee does not attend school for 30 days without notifying the school, they will be removed from the student register.
These new legal provisions for refugee children came into effect on 1 September 2024.
