UK government urged to introduce GCSE in Ukrainian for child refugees

The children’s commissioner has joined Kyiv in lobbying the UK government to introduce a new GCSE in Ukrainian to help child refugees cope with the “immense upheaval” of fleeing war in their country. Since then Ukraine’s education minister, Oksen Lisovyi, has met the UK education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to underline his government’s fear that being taught Russian is retraumatising Ukrainian teenagers who have fled Vladimir Putin’s invasion. She intervened after visiting St Mary’s, a network of 13 Ukrainian language schools in the UK, founded at the trust’s headquarters in west London. “As an education charity, we stand ready to do what we can to support Ukrainian students. That’s why we have, last week, asked exam boards to consider introducing a Ukrainian GCSE – giving these young people the chance to celebrate their heritage and their native language.”