Sienkevych assumes that due to the outflow of students: «The future may dictate other conditions»

School textbooks in school offices, photo: Serhii Ovcharyshyn, NikVesti

As of the end of June, there is an outflow of students from Mykolaiv. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the student contingent has decreased by 13.8% to 6,380 people.

This is stated in the article NikVesti «The second attempt. Will it be possible to open Mykolaiv schools offline this year?».

«Many families move to cities where schools operate. We are afraid that our institutions will be empty, and then we will be forced to make decisions on the liquidation of educational institutions,» said Deputy Mayor Anatolii Petrov.

Because of this, he suggests, there is a risk of closing more schools than expected after the completion of the process of reorganization of the city's educational institutions.

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«Today, we have a contingent of about 40-42 schools, and we actually have 68 of them. The future may dictate other conditions and other decisions. It will depend on the number of students and the capacity of schools. If, for example, there were 3-4 parallels, then, for example, there was a corresponding number of hours in one class. It is clear that there was one number of teaching staff, and now there may be fewer of them. This is also a problem. And no one will give an answer now, because we have not yet seen the full contingent of students. Only after that we will approve the study plans and put an end to it, which is August 25,» explained Anatolii Petrov.

At the same time, the deputy mayor added, this year the recruitment of students to the first grades is more difficult.

«The recruitment is underway, but to say that it is the same as in previous years is not. It is really smaller. And we will also see its result on August 15. Someone will come back if we open. In other words, recruitment is now underway. He is not like before the war. There are really fewer children. That is, if we recruited 4 first classes each, now there may be 2. It is also impossible to say specifically now. We will know this after the results,» he added.

What about children's education in Mykolaiv?

Mykolaiv schoolchildren have been studying online since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. Although the government, with the help of donors and the state, is actively setting up shelters in educational institutions, which sometimes causes indignation among the townspeople.

The refusal of children to go to school is a guarantee of their personal safety, because Mykolaiv is still in the zone of possible ballistic damage from the Russian military, says Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych. At the same time, he emphasizes the importance of preparing shelters and resuming education in schools when the Armed Forces move the front line.

Previously, the head of Mykolaiv RMA Vitalii Kim explained why schools in Mykolaiv still work online: educational institutions are targets for the Russian army, since at the beginning of a full-scale war, they usually housed military personnel.

It is worth noting that earlier in response to the information request of NikVesti regarding the criteria that educational institutions of Mykolaiv must meet in order to resume full-time work in the 2023-2024 academic year, the city's education department reported: schools will work in accordance with the recommendations of the State Emergency Service and the Sanitary Regulations approved by the Ministry Health Care. The first is the availability of shelter, and the second is drinking water at school.

In the next few years, the authorities plan to equip 54 shelters in kindergartens, schools and lyceums in Mykolaiv.

In general, the outflow of students was recorded in the schools of Mykolaiv this year. Compared to the last academic year, the number of students decreased by 3,300.

Lithuania plans to build a shelter school in the Mykolaiv region by the end of 2024. Similar underground institutions should appear in 5 more regions of Ukraine.

As of February 2024, shelters were installed in 31% of schools in Mykolaiv. There are 21 institutions of general secondary education: 10 lyceums and 11 gymnasiums.

Where in Mykolaiv Oblast is there a full-time education?

57 educational institutions were allowed to work offline in the Mykolaiv region. Most of them are schools of Voznesensk and Pervomaisk districts. In addition, 94 schools work mixed, that is, children learn offline in a certain order, for example, one week after another. Another 277 educational institutions work online.

It was also possible to organize an offline educational process in the front-line Ochakiv, which is still in the zone of damage by the enemy's anti-aircraft missile system. There is a mixed form of education.

According to the monitoring of the Department of Education of the Mykolaiv City Council, 65% of schoolchildren want to study full-time.