Ukraine is facing a mass exodus of children who choose to study abroad and never return to the Ukrainian education system.
Volodymyr Strashko, head of a distance commercial school, reported a sharp increase in applications from parents who decided to leave the country with their children for an indefinite period. Previously, most applications concerned boys in high school, whom families tried to take away before they reached adulthood, but today this trend covers children of all age categories.
According to Strashko, students who left a year or two ago initially retained the Ukrainian educational component and even studied in parallel. However, today more and more families are completely abandoning Ukrainian education, having made the decision to stay abroad forever.
According to the data, high school students, particularly 11th graders, are now less likely to plan to enter Ukrainian universities. Among graduates, many will not write the National Multi-Subject Test (NMT) because they do not intend to return to Ukraine to continue their studies.
“Not only boys, but also girls. In some classes, there are 90% of such children,” Strashko noted. “Conventionally, 27 out of 30 students plan to stay abroad.” According to him, this does not only apply to those who are aiming for prestigious universities abroad, families are ready to enroll in any institutions, just so as not to return their children to Ukraine.
Earlier, Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi admitted that with the start of a full-scale war, Ukraine is facing the problem of a mass exodus of schoolchildren. Many of them are leaving the country to avoid mobilization restrictions, while others are seeking to ensure a more stable future for their children. People's Deputy Nina Yuzhanina said that about 300 thousand children left the country before the start of the school year.
