Education is always a priority area of society’s development, even in the most difficult times. In the conditions of war, when schools in the frontline regions have to function in extremely difficult conditions, it is important to ensure that children have access to quality and safe education. That is why international organizations, such as UNICEF, actively support Ukrainian educational institutions, providing financial assistance to improve conditions in schools located in dangerous zones. The government’s latest initiative to cooperate with UNICEF involves significant investment in the modernization of educational institutions in the frontline areas.
On September 26, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a resolution according to which 350 schools located in areas close to the war zone will receive financial support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Each of these educational institutions will receive 290,500 hryvnias. This became known thanks to the information provided by the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine and the Prime Minister Denis Schmigal.
This resolution, developed by the Ministry of Reintegration and the Ministry of Education and Science, is part of reforming the school food system and improving school security. The allocated funds will be used to update food units, prepare for the cold season and modernize engineering communications. The total budget of this program exceeds 100 million hryvnias.
In particular, financial assistance will be provided to educational institutions in ten regions: Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Kherson.
In addition, the government decided to allocate additional funds for the provision of safe conditions in schools, in particular for shelters. In general, 56.9 million hryvnias have been earmarked for these purposes for educational institutions in the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kyiv regions.
We will remind that back in April of this year, the Cabinet of Ministers made changes to the budget aimed at creating safe conditions in secondary education institutions. Eight regions of Ukraine will receive 2.5 billion hryvnias for the construction of protective shelters in schools, and on August 20, an additional 5 billion hryvnias were allocated for these needs.
According to data released at the beginning of September 2024, there are about 1,800 schools in Ukraine without proper security conditions. This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Andriy Stashkiv.
Also this year, new school buses are planned to be purchased to ensure safe and regular transportation of students in border and frontline regions, for which the state has allocated 1 billion hryvnias.
