‘90% of students are planning to go abroad, probably permanently’: headmaster says school situation is catastrophic

The war in Ukraine has created unprecedented challenges for the education system and families seeking to keep their children connected to learning. It is particularly difficult for families who are forced to leave the country in search of safety. As a result, many children are forced to study remotely or leave the Ukrainian education system altogether. This decision, motivated by the desire to protect children, has serious consequences for society, as a significant part of the younger generation is gradually abandoning Ukrainian education.

In a Facebook post, Volodymyr Strashko, head of the VirtualUnicornSchool distance learning school, shared his observation about the abnormal increase in the number of requests from parents seeking to take their children out of Ukraine. He noted that while previously most of these requests concerned boys studying in grades 10-11, as their parents tried to leave the country before their children reached the age of majority, the trend has changed: parents of children, regardless of their age and gender, now want to complete their education remotely. This new trend is a continuation of the earlier trend, but now it has reached a new level.

Strashko also emphasises that children who went abroad one or two years ago are gradually abandoning Ukrainian education. At first, they studied in parallel or, when it was allowed by law, studied exclusively at a distance school, but later they stayed only at the Ukrainian educational component. Now, many of them are refusing to do so altogether. According to Strashko, the motivation for such refusals is often very simple: families decide to stay abroad forever, so, in their opinion, their children no longer need Ukrainian education.

An additional sign that more and more students are leaving the country for good is the situation among 11th grade graduates. The head of the school notes that more and more of these students are not planning to take the National Multiple Subject Test (NMT) and enter Ukrainian higher education institutions. This applies not only to boys but also to girls. In some classes, as many as 90% of students, relatively speaking, out of 30 children, 27 plan to go abroad, and probably forever. And, as Strashko notes, these are not stories where parents send their children to well-known universities for a quality education. Instead, children enter any foreign university to avoid staying in Ukraine.

In his conclusions, Strashko points out that this situation has very serious consequences, and it is the result not only of the hostilities, but also of the general situation in society. He emphasises that, although it is difficult to find up-to-date state statistics on this issue, he relies on his own data collected through requests from his school. For example, in 2022, distance schools experienced a significant increase in demand. At the beginning of 2023, there was a feeling that the war might end soon, and many clients talked about a possible return to Ukraine, while those who had not yet left were postponing their decision to study until the last minute. However, in late August and early September, when it became clear that the war would last for a long time, the demand for distance learning increased dramatically again.

“This is my own demographic statistics. While we are talking about educational losses and the quality of education, there are other losses that are happening. And if this trend continues to gain momentum, there will simply be no one to teach. And there are no simple solutions. After all, studying in another country is not about the quality of education today. No, it’s not. It’s about something else. It’s about awareness of prospects. It’s about parental choice. It’s about trying not to get mobilised for a father or a boy in the future. We hear these phrases with our own ears. Ultimately, it is about the mood in society. We know that motivation does not even depend on what we have today. It depends on what tomorrow will bring us.

There will be no conclusions. Let everyone draw their own,” summarises the head of the VirtualUnicornSchool distance learning school.