Ukrainian Families and Home Education in Ireland: Temporary Protection and School Options

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children arrived in Ireland following the 2022 invasion, and many of their families are navigating education in a country they did not plan to be in, for a duration that remains uncertain. Irish schools absorbed significant numbers of Ukrainian children, but the situation is uneven. Some families have children well-settled in Irish schools and do not need to consider alternatives. Others face a different picture: children who have struggled with the language barrier, schools that are at capacity and cannot enrol additional pupils, families whose return timeline makes full Irish curriculum integration feel futile, or parents who want to preserve their children's connection to the Ukrainian educational system.

For these families, home education under Irish law is available and legally accessible.

Legal Status: Temporary Protection and Home Education

Ukrainian nationals who arrived in Ireland after 24 February 2022 and who hold or are entitled to hold Temporary Protection status under the EU Temporary Protection Directive have a legal right to reside in Ireland. This residency right, for education purposes, is treated equivalently to a standard right of residence: families under Temporary Protection can home educate in Ireland using the same legal framework as Irish citizens or EU residents.

Section 14 of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 is the legal basis for home education in Ireland. It applies to children of compulsory school age (6–16, or after 16 where the child has not completed three years of post-primary education) who are resident in Ireland. Immigration permission remains a separate issue: a Stamp 2 student must be enrolled in a full-time daytime course on the Interim List of Eligible Programmes, and home education or distance learning cannot itself supply that student-permission basis.

Using Ukrainian Curriculum and Online Schools

One of the most practically important aspects of Irish home education law for Ukrainian families is this: you do not have to use the Irish national curriculum. AEARS assesses whether your programme provides the "certain minimum education" required by Irish law, using practical evidence about language and literacy, numeracy, holistic development, and pedagogy and environment. It does not require you to use Irish curriculum materials.

Ukrainian families can, and do, home educate using Ukrainian curriculum materials, including through online Ukrainian state education programmes. Ukraine has maintained an online distance education system throughout the war, and Ukrainian children in Ireland can enrol in Ukrainian online schools that provide instruction in Ukrainian according to the Ukrainian national curriculum.

The R1 application form — the AEARS assessment application — explicitly accommodates online state education from abroad as part of a child's educational programme. An AEARS assessor can assess a programme that includes Ukrainian online school attendance as part of its provision.

In practice, a hybrid can be useful: Ukrainian online school for core academic subjects in Ukrainian, supplemented by English language instruction and social activities in Ireland. This can support both the AEARS assessment and Ukrainian educational continuity.

The Tusla Process

If your child is enrolled in an Irish school and you are withdrawing them:

1. Write formally to the school principal documenting the withdrawal and attendance/registration position. This is a notification. You do not need the principal's agreement.

2. Submit the completed R1 and certified documents to Tusla AEARS. Begin home education only after AEARS confirms in writing that the application is complete and valid, then follow the written attendance and registration instructions.

3. After the family reaches the waiting-list stage, AEARS arranges a Preliminary Assessment. The assessor meets and speaks with the child to ascertain the child's views.

4. The practical assessment areas are language and literacy, numeracy, holistic development, and pedagogy and environment; these support the statutory moral, intellectual and social minimum-education standard.

5. If the assessment establishes that the required minimum education is provided, your child is placed on the Section 14 Register. If registration is refused, follow the refusal notice's appeal instructions and obtain current advice.

If your child has never been enrolled in an Irish school:

You notify Tusla directly without a prior school withdrawal when the child is approaching compulsory school age, age 6. The rest of the process is the same.

Language. If English is limited, contact AEARS in advance to ask what language support or accompanying-person arrangement is acceptable for the assessment.

Irish Language

The Irish language question is the curriculum element that generates most anxiety for non-Irish families. For Ukrainian families under Temporary Protection, this is even less of a concern than it might appear. Home educators are not required to teach Irish or obtain a school-style Irish exemption. Optional Gaeilge provision can be included, but it is not a home-education registration requirement.

What Happens to Ukrainian Online School Attendance

Ukrainian online schools operating for children abroad typically provide attendance records, progress reports, and end-of-year certificates. This documentation is useful for your AEARS assessment: it demonstrates structured educational provision in a recognised curriculum framework. Bring whatever records the Ukrainian school provides to your AEARS assessment.

It is also useful for demonstrating intellectual development — one of the four assessment domains. An assessor who can see that your child is progressing through the Ukrainian national curriculum in core subjects has evidence of educational engagement that is straightforward to assess.

Community and Support

Irish home education community Facebook groups — particularly in Dublin and the commuter counties where most Ukrainian families are resident — include Ukrainian families. Searching for your county's home education Facebook group and introducing yourself is a direct route to finding other families in a similar situation.

HEN Ireland (henireland.org) has fielded questions from Ukrainian families and can provide signposting to relevant local contacts. The organisation is nationality-neutral and does not require that families use Irish curriculum approaches.

Practical Documentation Guidance

For Ukrainian families, documenting your educational programme for AEARS assessment requires translating what you are already doing into the framework that Irish assessors use. The four practical assessment areas — language and literacy, numeracy, holistic development, and pedagogy and environment — need to be addressed, but this does not mean redesigning your programme. Ukrainian online school can support language, literacy and numeracy. Moral development can be addressed through family values and Ukrainian cultural and ethical education; physical development through sports and activity; and social development through contact with other children.

The Ireland Legal Withdrawal Blueprint covers the Section 14 process and AEARS documentation in detail, including how programmes that use non-Irish curriculum frameworks are presented to assessors. Getting this first step right — clear notification and clear documentation — determines whether the assessment process is straightforward or unnecessarily complicated.

If you are planning to return to Ukraine when conditions allow, home education using Ukrainian curriculum materials through an Irish legal framework is the arrangement that preserves both your children's educational continuity and your legal compliance in Ireland for however long you remain here.

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