Ukraine is facing serious challenges in the field of education. According to the Ministry of Education and Science, the number of first-graders may decrease by a third by 2029. Deputy Minister of Education and Science Halyna Kuzmychova noted that this trend is already noticeable: current first-graders are 30% less numerous compared to seventh-graders.
Reasons for the decline
The main factors for this decline are the low birth rate in recent years and migration. War and socio-economic difficulties have forced many parents to leave the country with their children. According to Volodymyr Strashko, director of the Unicorn School distance learning school, some schools have lost up to 90% of their students, and this problem has affected both boys and girls.
Indicators show that more than half of Ukrainian schools have an enrollment of less than 200 children. Halyna Kuzmychova emphasized that communities should reconsider their approaches to educational infrastructure. “The illusion that all 13 thousand schools have a future no longer works. Optimization of the school network is becoming a necessary reality,” she emphasized.
The main idea promoted by the Ministry of Education and Science is to focus on the quality of education, even if it means reducing the number of institutions. We need to build schools that meet modern needs, rather than simply maintaining Soviet-era buildings.
Over the past four years, the number of schools in Ukraine has decreased by 2,000. This is especially true of rural institutions, where the population is rapidly decreasing. In cities, this trend is less noticeable, but even there, the demographic decline is becoming obvious.
According to experts, optimizing the school network is inevitable. But communities should approach this issue thoughtfully, ensuring access to quality education even in the most remote corners of the country. Perhaps distance learning will become one of the solutions to the problem.
In times of war and crisis, education reforms become a matter of national security. After all, quality education is the key to the competitiveness of future generations.
