By Marcin Goclowski

WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland could start educating children of refugees at the centres where they live rather than in public schools under a plan the government says will help all students but a newspaper said it would create educational ghettos.

Children who live in refugee centres attend local public schools but under the plan announced on the interior ministry’s website local governments could decide whether to maintain the status quo or send teachers to conduct classes in refugee centres.

The plan is consistent with policies outlined by the nationalist ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), which has refused to accept a quota of refugees relocated from other European Union countries despite pressure from Brussels.

The party ran its 2015 election campaign partly on its opposition to accepting refugees from Muslim countries and at the time PiS head Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who has no formal role in government, said refugees could spread disease and parasites.

There are 1,450 people in Polish refugee centres and 890 are children, according to the spokesman for the Office for Foreigners, Jakub Dudziak. Most people applying for international protection in Poland are from the Russian republic of Chechnya, he said. Islam is the republic’s main religion.

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