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Abstract

Between 2022 and 2025, Poland has granted temporary protection to almost 1,000,000 refugees from Ukraine fleeing conflict. Of those refugees, 32% are school-age minors. Poland has the responsibility of integrating these refugee children into the public-school systems, including the children with disabilities (likely around 15% based on worldwide average) into what should be an inclusive education system. However, Poland’s largely decentralized, city-by-city governance when it comes to refugee resource distribution risks segregation of refugee children with disabilities or de facto exclusion from learning.

The Article will argue that avoiding segregation and exclusion requires treating inclusive education as requirement for all children using international, EU, and Polish legal obligations as the basis. Because the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Convention on the Rights of the Child focus on a rights-based paradigm, this Article overlays that framework on Poland as a case study, where central coordination is lacking for resources for the influx of refugees.

The Article will portray education as a gateway-right, contending that education is not just one right among many but that which can act as the primary vehicle for other rights and integration into society for the children with disabilities displaced because of conflict. Then, the Article will evaluate how Poland’s framework has performed under the temporary protection measures in place for Ukrainian refugees.

The aim is to bridge disability rights theory and refugee-governance reality by highlighting Poland’s response, possible gaps, and providing a toolkit for other EU members receiving and supporting Ukrainian refugees to ensure the right to education is guaranteed for all incoming learners.

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