“Safe” learning in dangerous conditions: elimination of distance education and its consequences

For several days in a row, the heated discussion in the educational community about the intention of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine to return Ukrainian schoolchildren to face-to-face education has not subsided. On the air of the telethon, the Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi, referring to “colossal educational losses”, commented the department’s plans to resume full-time education for 300,000 schoolchildren.

The Ministry of Education drew attention to the results of the PISA – 2022 study, according to which our children lag behind their peers from other countries in education by 1.5-2.5 years, and came to the conclusion that distance education is to blame for this. Officials reacted immediately and began to create special conditions for training.

“We have our policy and that order (draft order No. 850, – order.) were developed in order to profile education for each category and make it as high-quality as possible. Overcome educational losses and other losses. Because there are losses in the psycho-emotional development of children, in the formation of strong-willed qualities, losses in health due to a long stay without physical activity in online education. Many bad things that will be reflected in the success of our citizens in the future“, Oksen Lisovyi explained the ministry’s intentions.

It seems that everything is completely justified and understandable. But why is society so worried? Let’s try to understand the expediency of the promising plans of the Ministry of Education.

“School offline” project

The Ministry of Education and Science, together with the Office of the Special Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, launched the implementation of the “School Offline” project, the purpose of which is not only to return schoolchildren to full-time education, but also to ensure the conditions of organized education for various categories of students: both displaced as a result of hostilities, and those , who are in the temporarily occupied territories and abroad. This initiative consists of 4 components that take into account the specifics of each category of students and teachers:

• Component 1 – Infrastructure: shelter – buses – devices;
• Component 2 – Training at the place of stay;
• Component 3 – Review of distance schools;
• Component 4 – Education of children at TOT and abroad.

Therefore, the first step to the implementation of offline training is the construction of shelters in the frontline areas. For this, the state allocated 2.35 billion subventions, and 57 projects have already received funding.

The state of affairs with shelters in schools

Despite the amount of money allocated by the state, the needs turned out to be much greater, as another 165 institutions must be provided with funds for the construction of shelters. By data ZN.UA has 10,111 shelters in schools in Ukraine, but currently the Ministry of Education and Culture does not monitor the situation in schools where there are no shelters at all, and therefore cannot give a clear assessment of the extent to which educational institutions are equipped with shelters. Is this approach of educational officials correct? The question is rhetorical.

The condition of the existing protective structures is also questionable. Still fresh in my mind cases the emergency condition of the shelters: in one of the Kyiv schools, the ceiling collapsed during the air raid, a wall collapsed in the shelter of another school, and in one of the schools of Cherkasy region, the shelter turned into a swimming pool because the ceiling began to leak.

At the request of the Ministry, the protective shelter must be in the building of the institution or at a distance of no more than 500 m. The question arises, will the children have time to get to this shelter in a timely and organized manner in case of danger? For example, in Sumy Oblast during the air raid, students were left standing in the open because the shelter of one of the schools was closed at that moment for repairs. So is it worth relying so much on the availability of shelters in educational institutions? And staying in them, well, let’s say, does not contribute to the educational process at all. The room is overcrowded, the material base does not contribute to the realization of educational goals. As a rule, the shelters are designed only to fit all the students there, and then the children, being in such shelters, just go about their business. There is no question of any training at this moment.

Marina Grebinets, the mother of a schoolboy from Zaporozhye, expressed the general opinion of many parents:

“If they tell you to go offline, we will transfer the child to a family form of education. Because school basements are not shelters, but mass graves. History with Okhmadit did not teach anything”.

What else is the MES planning?

In addition to funding the shelters, the government is allocating $1 billion in state subsidies for the purchase of school buses that will transport children to schools with shelters. It is likely that schools near the front have been working remotely all this time for a reason. After all, the front-line territories are under constant threat due to shelling. Most of the roads in such areas are destroyed. So how can the route to safe places of study be considered safe under such conditions? Common sense says no way.

Also, after the opening of schools with shelters, the state promises to provide the necessary devices to children and teachers who will not be able to attend school offline. This practice was already carried out in 2022. According to the Ministry of Education and Culture, more than 128,000 students and 98,000 teachers are provided with laptops. Ukrainian schoolchildren who will continue to study remotely will be given used gadgets collected from educational districts and private companies in the USA, Great Britain and the EU. The Ministry of Education and Culture assures that each device will be thoroughly checked, cleaned from previous use, and the software will be updated. For some reason, after such news that our children will be forced to work on used equipment, some unpleasant feeling of second-rateness creeps into the soul. Can’t the state announce a tender among companies engaged in the production of digital devices to provide schoolchildren with new modern equipment?

“As long as the Ukrainian authorities rob the state, Ukrainian schoolchildren will be provided with used gadgets from the USA and Europe. They are extremely happy that they will work at METALOLOM.”, he left indignantly comment user of the website osvita.ua under the nickname 399.

Are our children destined to be brought up in the conditions of using means that should not be luxury items, “from a gentleman’s shoulder”, as a norm?

According to the terms of the second component of the project, if the child has moved to the territory of Ukraine where the security situation allows full-time education, the parents must transfer the child to such an educational institution. The state leaves the possibility of continuing education remotely only if there are no places for IDP children in the actual place of stay, or “in-person classes” are not available at all.  It is obvious that children and parents of IDPs are deprived of the right to choose a school and form of education. Factors such as the need for a child who is already under stress to adapt to a new team, get used to new teachers, experience property inequality, for some reason no one was interested in making such a decision.

Lyudmila Khmara, mother of a schoolboy from Kharkiv Oblast:

“I am the mother of a fifth-grader and I am against offline learning. Stop the war, then do offline learning! Parents have the right to decide in what form their children should study. There is no guarantee that a rocket will not fly into the school tomorrow”.

But one should not forget that displaced persons tend to change their place of residence often due to the uncertainty of their situation: the search for a safer place, the inability to find housing or employment. So how many such schools will the IDP child have to change? Meanwhile, the MES claims the need for integration into the new community and the development of soft skills.

Kateryna Bondarenko, a migrant from Sumy Oblast:

“Do you understand that the children of the UPO can change their location several times during the war? Because they were evicted somewhere, the house was sold there, the parents did not find a job there, because there is nothing of their own, people are searching, almost homeless. And every time the child has to go to the school where they settled? And it can even be in the middle of the school year. Lose friends, your favorite teacher, stress EVEN more, join a new team. Some children want to be near their parents after the shelling at home. Maybe it’s not time for such reforms? Maybe you will still give the parents a choice?”.

In Component 3, new requirements for distance schools are revealed:

• the minimum number of classes is 20 students;
• presence in each school of at least one class for all years of study: from 1 to 9 grades or from 5 to 11 grades (or from 8 to 11 grades for lyceums);
• conducting synchronous training using digital technologies.

Such requirements make it impossible to continue the existence of schools that provided education using the distance form. And, therefore, such a situation will lead to the closing of most schools, of which there are fewer and fewer every day due to wartime.

Component 4 discusses the possibility of introducing new learning formats for children at TOT:

• individual study plan (pedagogical patronage);
• distance learning;
• the possibility of transferring together with the teacher to another institution.

Under such conditions, schoolchildren will have to switch to external or home education. And this means that the child will be forced to master the program on his own with reduced material. What quality of education and overcoming educational losses are we talking about?

The Association of Cities of Ukraine is sounding the alarm: the Ministry of Education and Culture is destroying the connection between the controlled territory of Ukraine and the occupied territory of communities with its own reckless plans.

“The destruction of education will lead to irreparable consequences, namely: the despair of students, their parents and teachers that they are needed by their state, the actual victory of Russian propaganda at the TOT, the growth of social tension in the educational environment”, – the public comments with concern on the situation.

400,000 students, staying abroad, combine studies in local schools with distance learning in Ukrainian schools. Under the pretext of relieving the burden on children, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science offers only the program of the Ukrainian studies component for study. This is a shortened educational program that involves studying only those subjects that are not in the program of local schools abroad. Is it really possible to gallop through the rules of one’s native language, study the works of Ukrainian classics, or comprehend all the stages of the historical development of one’s native country? Such a step leads to the conclusion that native education is not so important.

What is left for educators to do in such a situation?

The Minister of Education, Oksen Lisovyi, assures that a solution has been found and, although teachers will lose their workload, they will be included in the personnel reserve while maintaining the minimum wage. Teachers are promised:

• creation of a single job portal;
• assistance from employment services;
• support by career consultants;
• preparation for work in the de-occupied territories.

To implement all these measures, you must first find funds. It is worth knowing that the salary system for educators provides for a small base rate and a lot of allowances. Average salary salary teacher depends on the category, workload and teaching experience. If we exclude all possible allowances, then the salary of a young teacher without experience is UAH 6,349. Such crumbs are unlikely to be able to ensure the existence of teachers who will be at risk of losing their jobs. And sit in that reserve, as they say, wait for the weather from the sea. One gets the impression that despite all the efforts of teachers to carry out the educational process in excessively difficult conditions, to provide children with knowledge, they themselves turned out to be useless to the state, like old toys thrown out on the balcony, with which no one plays anymore.

Svitlana, a teacher from Kharkiv Oblast:

“Of course, schools will be closed. And where should teachers go to work? who remain unemployed? Just don’t make fun of the “personnel reserve”. There are fewer teachers, fewer students and schools every day. What is the reserve? And what are the vacancies? Schools in the villages will be closed. Where are the vacancies? To drive the wind through the streets?”.

Halyna, a teacher from Vovchansk, Kharkiv region:

“Write in simple words: 90 percent of schools that were online will be closed. And the teachers will be thrown out into the street like barking dogs. Because even a fool understands that they will not be able to get a job nowadays, especially in the frontline regions.”

Lyudmila, a teacher from Kherson:

“If the educational institution is closed, where will the teachers go to work? You say that there will be a personnel register from which they will be sent to other schools. But there are no free places in schools anyway, so where to go? To another city? And who will find housing in another city? What retained average salary are you talking about? If it will be received only by those who agree to it (you still need to submit an application for review). How will schools work offline if there are total problems with light (can you imagine what will happen in winter)? Do everything so that people from abroad do not return, and those from TOT do not leave”.

Nigyar Ibragimova, resettled from the Republic of Crimea:

“This is some nonsense. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, which should stand in defense of the Law of Ukraine “On Comprehensive General Education”, the rights of children, adopts UNLAWFUL ORDERS. SHAME!!!!!”.

Of course, face-to-face education is much more effective than distance education. Nothing can replace “live” communication with a teacher, the opportunity to actively work in groups and communicate with peers. But is it possible to carry out face-to-face training in the current realities in which Ukraine is now? It is clear that the state is trying to find all possible ways to save money. Shouldn’t these issues be resolved together with the public? After all, we all live in a democratic society. Any changes in the organization of the educational process require a thorough and comprehensive review, taking into account the real needs and capabilities of all participants in the educational process.

It is likely that the transition to face-to-face education should be carried out only after a comprehensive assessment of the readiness of all educational institutions and the provision of the necessary resources for the safety and comfort of both students and teachers.  Only this approach will make it possible to create a safe educational system that will contribute to the comprehensive development of children and support the high level of professional activity of teachers. Perhaps the representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture should draw conclusions and stop making rash and hasty decisions quietly somewhere, and finally learn to hear the voice of society.