In Gothenburg, Karlstad and Trollhättan a few weeks ago there was a new education – academic Swedish for Ukrainian citizens.
The hope is to be able to quickly get college and university-educated refugees from Ukraine into the Swedish labor market.
It has been just over ten months since Olena Maliavska came to Sweden from Ukraine. She is trained in both pedagogy and psychology, and when the chance came to extend the first six months of studies in Swedish for beginners with another six months of Swedish for graduates, she did not hesitate.
– I think I can validate my diploma and continue my education in Sweden.
However, it is not always easy to learn Swedish, she says.
Difficult to distinguish between glass and ice cream
– The most difficult is the pronunciation. Glass or ice cream is very difficult for Ukrainians, we don’t have long and short vowels like that, says Olena Maliavska.
Refugees from Ukraine are allowed to stay in Sweden temporarily according to the mass migration directive, which means, among other things, that they do not have the right to all the education that other immigrant groups have – something responsible at Folkuniversitetet in Gothenburg considered to be partly problematic.
– It reinforces alienation, but also if we look at us in Sweden, we see the companies’ need for competent labor, and many from Ukraine have a good education, says Mikael Nordberg, Regional Director Folkuniversitetet.
Get jobs faster
In this particular class there are teachers, engineers, healthcare staff and graphic artists, among others, and the idea is that after the education they will be able to get a job here in Sweden more quickly.
Olena hopes so too. When she came here with her daughter at the beginning of this, the plan was that the stay here would be short, but now she has changed her mind.
– I can find work, I can build my new life in Sweden. For my daughter and I, it is better to stay in Sweden, says Olena Maliavska.