Nearly 30,000 schoolchildren returned to Kharkiv this year – city council

Olha Demenko, the director of the educational department at the Kharkiv City Council, said this at a briefing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Of the 110,000 children we teach now, 53,000 are in Kharkiv. That is, the number of children in Kharkiv has increased significantly over the past year. Last year, this number was 24,000. Almost 30,000 children have returned with their parents and are in the city," said Demenko.

According to her, before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, 126,000 children studied at the city's schools, that is, the school network was reduced by 10%.

Demenko noted that only 1,187 out of 53,000 now study offline in classes set up in the Kharkiv underground (that is, 2.3% of children).

"We now have almost 12% of first-graders. This was our primary goal - the socialization of children. Out of 66 classes, 24 are classes of first-graders. High school students are not so afraid of this [online  learning]. They have already experienced [online learning during] Covid. They are probably better at distance education than teachers. But first-graders, second-graders, they need to be socialized," said Demenko.

As reported, Kharkiv pupils started to learn in two shifts at five underground stations in the city.