Ukrainian students underperforming due to war, pandemic impact - Education Ministry

02.08.2023 16:40

Ukrinform

Due to the stressful conditions caused by the pandemic, war, and air strikes, students’ educational results have significantly deteriorated over the past years.

That’s according to the Ministry of Education and Science, Ukrinform reports.

"Due to the kids studying in stressful conditions in the past years, the educational process has suffered a lot. The pandemic, war, air strikes and blackouts – all of this had a strong impact on education. Currently, we are dealing with educational losses, which means the loss of knowledge, abilities, skills and/or slowing down or interruption of academic progress due to pauses in the education of a particular student," the statement reads.

As the ministry noted, in the first half of the academic year 2022/2023, only 15% of educational facilities worked offline, while 33% operated remotely, and another 51% - in mixed mode.

At the same time, teachers report a deterioration in student performance. Some 57% of teachers in villages and 44% in cities report downgrade in Ukrainian language performance, 52% and 47% - in foreign language studies, 45% and 40% - in mathematics, and 37% and 25% - in computer science.

"We see that we are gradually losing the mental potential of our youths and it is necessary to find ways to fix this situation," the ministry noted.

The report notes that this is why various programs are being actively developed, which in the future will help schoolchildren and preschoolers acquire the necessary knowledge.

In order to support such initiatives, the Ministry of Education and Science together with UNICEF developed recommendations for organizing programs for public organizations, educational institutions, educational management bodies, and other organizations aimed to compensate for educational losses.

As the ministry emphasized, they will become the basis for the development of a national strategy for tackling educational lags.

As reported by Ukrinform, the Ministry of Education calls on higher education facilities and local administrations, depending on the security situation in the respective regions, to start the educational process from September 1 in the offline format.