Today, Ukrainian schools are rapidly emptying, and universities are reducing the number of future students. The demographic crisis, which for decades seemed a distant prospect, is now directly affecting the education system. A decline in the birth rate will not only affect class sizes, but will inevitably lead to reduced teacher rates, the closing of small schools, and the struggle of universities for every applicant. Educational infrastructure built for completely different demographic realities is now forced to adapt, often chaotically and painfully.
Silent statistics
Over the past ten years, the birth rate in Ukraine has decreased by almost a third. War, economic instability, migration and psychological fatigue of society took their toll. In 2023, the birth rate in Ukraine was one of the lowest in Europe and amounted to 0.7, and in 2024 – 0.6. data Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, in 2024, 87,655 children were born in Ukraine. This indicator is 9% less than in the same period of 2023 and 1.5 times less than in the first half of 2021. In total, in 2023, the number of newborns did not exceed 187,000. If we compare this figure with 2022, when about 207 thousand children were born, and 2021 (277.8 thousand), then we have the lowest figure in the history of modern Ukraine.
According to McKinsey Global Institute research, on the world demographic map, Ukraine is marked as one of the worst zones in terms of birth rate, on the same level as Great China. Families rarely dare to have children, and large families have already become an exception to the rule.
Today, there are about 13,000 schools in Ukraine, but more than half of them have 200 or fewer students. In low-staffed institutions, there are often difficulties with high-quality teaching due to the lack of specialized classrooms and qualified teachers for all subjects.
In peacetime, this would already be a problem, but now it is part of a systemic crisis. This situation is especially acute in rural areas and small towns, where schools are closed not because there is no money to maintain them, but because there are simply no children. According to the estimates of experts from the Ministry of Education and Culture, by 2029, the number of first-graders should be reduced by a third compared to the current figure. So, in the 2024/2025 school year, the number of first graders is 278,083 children, which is 36,198 less than last school year. The smallest number of first-grade students was recorded in Sumy (79%) and Kherson (56%) regions.
Falling birth rates are an invisible but influential factor that has been changing Ukrainian schools long before the sirens sounded. After the 90s, the demographic decline became a chronic problem for Ukraine, however, if it could still be attributed to the crisis of the transition period, then in the 2010s it became obvious: the number of children is drastically decreasing, and this is not a temporary phenomenon. At the same time, schools began to operate in the villages for several dozen students, sometimes for one or two children per class. So far, the cities have survived thanks to internal migration, but even there microdistricts appeared where the number of students did not justify the costs of maintaining educational institutions.
In response to these trends, officials of the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) came up with, in their opinion, effective optimization. Under such a beautiful word, they started the practice of closing schools and reducing teachers’ wages. Formally, everything looked like a desire for efficiency, but in reality it was a banal survival of the system in the conditions of a demographic drought.
The old Soviet buildings, designed for hundreds of children, stood half-empty. But the problem was not only in physical walls. Ukrainian education, built on the idea of mass, was not ready for the fact that there is no more mass. Instead of innovative adaptation, patching of holes began: combining classes, overloading teachers and creating support schools, where children were taken tens of kilometers away. In the villages, this meant the actual death of the community. Because when the school disappears, so does the future of the village as such. Young families do not stay where there is no place for their children. Closing a school becomes a real sentence for an entire settlement.
The drop in the birth rate hit the teaching community hard. Young teachers, who still had illusions about stable work, faced the reality, where competition is not only for positions, but also for students. Without students there is no class, without class there is no rate. Experienced teachers faced the dilemma of choosing whether to work in a school where there are only formally enough students, or to look for new ways where their experience will be in demand.
Demography as a mirror of the systemic crisis
Falling birth rate is not only a decrease in the number of children in classes, but an indicator of much deeper problems: migration, economic instability, lack of confidence in the future. The educational system, instead of being the answer to these challenges, often only states the facts.
Even before the war, it was clear that without a comprehensive approach, the demographic crisis would turn into an identity crisis for the Ukrainian school. The war only accelerated this process, but the roots of the problem were laid long before it – in the silence of empty classrooms and reports of yet another “optimization”, which was supposed to hide what could no longer be hidden. Now the question is not how many schools will remain. The question is whether the education system can survive where there is less and less room for it.
However, facing the same problem, officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture do not draw conclusions, do not learn from the mistakes of previous choices, and in fact step on the same rake. Instead of effective modernization of the educational system, the process of its reorganization continues – combining classes, reducing teaching rates, distance learning even where it seemed unthinkable before. Reforms lose their strategic vision, becoming a reaction to demographic reality. At the same time, a decrease in the number of students does not necessarily mean an improvement in the quality of education. Instead of an individual approach and focusing on the development of students’ potential, the system is fighting for survival.
Educators face double pressure: on the one hand, a reduction in workload, and on the other hand, the need to fulfill the same administrative requirements as before. In conditions of declining birth rates, another problem arises — competition not for the quality of knowledge, but for the number of students. Some schools actually fight for every student, trying to keep him at all costs, even if it is to the detriment of educational standards.
But it is worth understanding that education should become both a reaction to the demographic crisis and a tool for overcoming it. But this requires more than just reorganization plans. We need a vision that goes beyond statistics and political reports, and which will finally put not only numbers in the foreground, but actually the participants of the educational process themselves, whose interests are for some reason constantly neglected in the high offices of the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Challenges faced by Ukrainian schoolchildren in foreign schools
Another negative factor affecting the decrease in the number of Ukrainian schoolchildren is forced emigration. By data According to the report “Education of Ukrainian children abroad during the war in Ukraine” by the State Service for the Quality of Education (SQES), since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, a significant number of citizens have left Ukraine, including 378,617 schoolchildren who continue to receive education through distance, family or external forms of education in Ukrainian schools.
However, as noted in the Ministry of Education and Culture, there are also students who are outside the Ukrainian education system – approximately 200,000 to 250,000 students. Children continue to study in the schools of the countries where they are, and do not study in Ukrainian ones. The legislation of the countries to which families from Ukraine have moved provides for the integration of foreigners into their educational systems. But this integration is quite painful for our students and also creates an excessive load.
According to the last ones data from February 24, 2022 to December 12, 2023, 831,431 Ukrainian students were integrated into EU schools. But the real numbers could be much higher. After all, there are also students who study remotely from abroad only in a Ukrainian school and have not been integrated into the school system of EU countries, so they are not included in these statistics, since they do not have the obligation to attend a school in the host country.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of October 2024, there are Ukrainian schoolchildren abroad:
- in Ireland – 97%;
- in Romania – 83%;
- in France – 69%;
- in Germany and Austria – 63% each;
- in Moldova – 8%;
- in Croatia – 16%
- In Great Britain – 17%.
For data MES, as of January 2025, almost 356,000 Ukrainian children live abroad and study under two educational systems.
Despite the fact that children are forced to master the curriculum of the country where they currently live, many try to keep up with the Ukrainian school curriculum. This is a challenge for students who literally live “on two fronts”. The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine sent letters to the education authorities of all countries where there are refugee children, with a request to promote education according to Ukrainian standards. Most European countries allow distance learning in local schools after standard classes. After all, distance learning is not provided in all institutions, but where it is, the class time coincides with lessons in a foreign school.
At the same time, the position in France and the Netherlands is special, where they are convinced that this hinders integration, so remote classes in Ukrainian are allowed only at home in their free time. In Luxembourg, Ukrainian language classes are encouraged as an extracurricular activity. In such countries as Sweden and Serbia, nothing is done to maintain the connection of refugees with their native country.
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Ministry of Education of Ukraine has significantly expanded the capabilities of the International Ukrainian School (IUS), an institution that provides external education for children who are abroad. Thanks to studying at the Moscow State University, students can get a Ukrainian certificate of the state standard, which opens the way for them to enter Ukrainian universities, vocational and technical schools, and professional colleges. As of January 2025, there are 8,877 students studying at the Moscow State University, who use a flexible educational program adapted for children living outside of Ukraine.
Also, in 2023, the Ministry of Education and Culture introduced measures to reduce the educational burden on children who are abroad. A program with a Ukrainian studies component was created, allowing students to choose only the main subjects in Ukrainian school, such as Ukrainian language, literature and history. This helps to keep in touch with the national education and culture, while avoiding the excessive stress of dual studies. For subjects such as mathematics and natural sciences, it is possible to credit grades obtained in local schools abroad. According to MES experts, this approach makes the educational process more flexible and allows children to better combine the two educational systems.
But in reality, the situation has developed in such a way that during the day Ukrainian schoolchildren study mathematics, history or biology in a foreign school, and in the evening they sit over Ukrainian textbooks in order not to lose contact with their native education system. One of the biggest disappointments for many families is that the Ukrainian state does not provide enough support for children who find themselves abroad. Online classes are often overloaded or poorly organized, and funding for additional initiatives for such students is almost non-existent. As the parents tell in a private conversation, all education is reduced to sending control papers once every three months, and the study of the material is carried out by the children on their own.
So parents are either forced to look for tutors for their children or help themselves. And to do this, when you also have to go to work, turns out to be a difficult task. In both the first and second cases, it negatively affects the family budget. Parents, who already live in a state of constant stress, are forced to independently find ways to ensure that their children have access to education. And this despite the fact that the authorities announce the creation of a Ukrainian component for children studying abroad. This component combined the programs of the Ukrainian language and literature, as well as the history of Ukraine. But it is quite clear that such a general volume cannot give children full knowledge of subjects. However, there is an excessive load on schoolchildren. This double burden is exhausting for children. They study 10-12 hours a day, but they know that this is necessary in order not to lose contact with Ukraine and to have a chance to return to normal studies after the war.
How the decrease in the birth rate affects education abroad: an experience that should be taken into account in Ukraine
The demographic crisis is not a unique problem for Ukraine. Falling birth rates have become a global trend, especially in the developed countries of Europe, Asia and North America. However, different countries respond to these challenges in different ways, and their experiences can show how the educational landscape is changing when there are fewer and fewer children.
Japan is a vivid example of a country where falling birth rates have become a national problem. Hundreds of schools are closed there every year, especially in rural areas. Some are being turned into community centers or tourist attractions, but many are just standing empty. To maintain the quality of education, Japan is betting on technology. Distance learning and digital platforms help compensate for the lack of students and teachers in remote regions. However, this technological response has its price: the social function of the school as a place of live interaction, which is important for the child’s development, is disappearing.
In Italy, falling birth rates have forced the government to rethink its approach to school funding. In rural regions such as Calabria or Sicily, schools are closing or merging, leading to “educational derivation” for children in remote communities. The Italian answer is to attract migrants. Some small towns literally save their schools thanks to children from migrant families. This creates new challenges related to integration, but at the same time it allows to preserve the basic educational infrastructure.
Germany faced a declining birth rate as early as the 1990s. Here they made a bet on the flexibility of the educational system. Small schools integrate with out-of-school education centers, actively develop inclusive programs to ensure the most efficient use of resources. In addition, the country adapted curricula, focusing on the individualization of learning. When there are fewer students, there is an opportunity to work with each one more deeply, which in the long run can improve the quality of education.
South Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. This creates a paradoxical situation. After all, despite the smaller number of children, the pressure on students is only increasing. Educational competition remains fierce, as parents strive to provide their children with access to the best educational institutions. The country is heavily investing in technology, robotics and artificial intelligence in schools in an effort to make up for the shortage of students and teachers. But it also increases the problem of psychological burden on children, who are faced with high expectations in the conditions of decreasing “competition of numbers”.
In the United States, the decline in birth rates varies from state to state. In some states, schools are forced to fight for students because their funding depends on it. This stimulates the development of alternative models – charter schools, private institutions and home schooling programs. The American approach shows how the educational system can become a part of market relations, where the student is a “customer” to compete for. This approach has both advantages, when competition often increases the quality of education, but at the same time disadvantages, because not everyone has equal access to quality education.
As we can see, the drop in the birth rate has become not just a demographic challenge for Ukraine, but a catalyst for deeper changes in the educational system. Schools are closing, classrooms are empty, teachers are looking for new ways to survive, but at the center of this transformation is the student who, instead of being the subject of learning, increasingly becomes the object of educational experiments.
However, instead of creating conditions for quality assimilation of knowledge, the system gives birth to successive reforms that often look more like laboratory tests than well-thought-out strategies. Students are forced to adapt to endless innovations: new programs, formats, methods that rarely take into account the real needs of children. As a result, education ceases to be a space of opportunities and increasingly turns into an obstacle course, where you need not to learn, but to survive. It erects new barriers where bridges to knowledge should appear. And if this trend continues, Ukraine risks getting not just fewer graduates, but a whole generation that has learned from childhood to fight not for knowledge, but with education itself.
