Open-borders Ireland looks set to start teaching some of its children Ukrainian, as the country struggles to take in large numbers of migrants claiming to be from the war torn nation.
Ireland’s open-borders approach to the ongoing Ukraine migrant crisis appears to now be experiencing chronic difficulties, with authorities in the country even suggesting that elementary schools start teaching kids Ukrainian in the hopes of integrating the large number of new arrivals entering the country.
Having recently seen some of its towns and villages double in population in just four weeks, the Irish system has begun to buckle under pressure, with officials now looking to move incoming migrants and refugees into entertainment venues as temporary accommodation as the country runs out of free hotel space.
According to a report by The Irish Times, schools now look set to be drafted into the effort to integrate some of the tens of thousands of people arriving into the country, with officials now encouraging elementary level institutions to teach children Ukrainian, seemingly in the hopes of boosting social cohesion.
Under a foreign language learning programme titled “Say Yes to Languages”, the government is to give participating schools funding to conduct 8-week long learning modules, which have previously featured tongues such as Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, and Tamil.
Officials are now also specifically encouraging schools to consider Ukrainian as the language to be taught, citing benefits to the integration of refugee pupils.
“The 2022/23 module could be used to support the integration of newly arrived Ukrainian pupils to our schools by acknowledging Ukrainian as one of the languages of the classroom or by choosing to teach Ukrainian for the duration of the module,” a post on the Irish government’s official website reads.
Speaking on the module, the country’s education minister, Norma Foley, praised the project as helping to better prepare children for a ‘globalised world’.
“Being able to speak a foreign language, and learning about other cultures is an enormous advantage to our children and young people,” the Minister said. “This programme gives them a unique opportunity to be exposed to foreign language learning at a young age.”
“We want to equip our students with the skills that they will need to live in our globalised world, and foreign languages provide our students not only with a skill but with a broader access to and appreciation of a wide range of culture,” she is also reported as saying.
Compared to the extremely conservative approach that neighbouring Britain is taking to the crisis, Ireland has openly embraced an open borders attitude to the Ukrainian migrant crisis, saying that they will not put any upward limit on the number of refugees the island nation is willing to take.
However, it now appears that this approach may be significantly backfiring, with authorities struggling to find accommodation for the tens of thousands of people entering the country.
Having now reportedly run out of available hotel rooms to house what are ostensibly Ukrainian asylum seekers, the government has now resorted to housing new arrivals in buildings used to host public events.
How long this stop-gap measure can alleviate mounting pressures though is yet to be seen, with some politicians suggesting that Ireland could see as many as 200,000 people land on its shores — roughly equivalent to four per cent of its total population — during a period when Ireland is already experiencing a crippling housing crisis.