The foundation's aim is to provide them a with high-quality education, even as its funding has been cut amid global economic struggles. To prepare, Polina attends Saturday classes at one of three Ukrainian schools set up in Poland by the group Unbreakable Ukraine.įounder Viktoriia Gnap said the schools' teachers - also refugees - consider the overall level of the students' knowledge quite low. It's being given in 47 cities in 30 countries, according to Maryna Demyanchuk, a professor helping to administer it at one of Warsaw's centers. Polina will soon take Ukraine's final state examination, which students must pass to enter universities there. "A lot of students who don't have motivation like that or don't know who they want to be, they have bigger problems." "It is hard because it is my last year of school, and I needed to learn a lot of information by myself," said Polina, who's wanted since age 11 to study acting at a Kyiv university. Bombs often send her teachers fleeing into shelters. Polina Plokhenko, a 16-year-old who left her Polish high school to focus on Ukrainian studies, is completing online lessons with her school on the frontline in Kherson. Students who try to keep up with Ukrainian work see the effects of war still playing out at home. "I have seen students who changed schools five times," said Rita Rabinek, an intercultural assistant trained by global relief group IRC to help Ukrainian kids adjust to Polish schools. Many refugee families have moved several times since arriving in Poland, contributing to a feeling of instability. About 70% of Ukrainian students are following the Ukrainian curriculum back home, many of them while also attending Polish schools, UNICEF estimates.Įnrollment numbers drop with older students just 22% of Ukrainian teens in Poland attend the country's schools.įollowing curricula in two languages creates more stress for students dealing with the trauma of war and relocation. Like Milana, most spoke no Polish when they arrived. In Poland, children aren't required to enroll in local schools - an option not allowed in Germany and some other countries.Ībout half the child refugees in Poland - 180,000 students - are enrolled in schools, according to UNICEF. Many chose it for proximity to Ukraine and plan to go home someday. There's no telling how many of the 8 million refugees recorded across Europe will return.Ībout 1.5 million live in Poland, the most of any country. Officials report at least 500 children killed in the war, and thousands have been deported to Russia without consent. The effects of war and relocation combined with the challenges of studying in a new country are compounding educational setbacks for young refugees.Īt stake are the knowledge and skills of a generation needed to rebuild the nation after the war, Ukrainian officials say - a priority they've described since the war's early months. For those who've fled to other countries, schooling is suffering in unprecedented ways, according to families, educators, experts and advocates. But the disruption to the education of Ukrainian children goes far beyond buildings turned to rubble. Russian forces have destroyed 262 educational institutions and damaged another 3,019 in their invasion of Ukraine, according to government figures. She wonders whether it, too, was bombed by Russian forces targeting schools. Milana's not sure what became of her primary school. It also means her music school, where she studied piano and singing after her other lessons.
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