В Україні зафіксовано найнижчу кількість школярів за 30 років - дослідження
Kyiv • UNN
The number of schoolchildren in Ukraine has reached its lowest level in 30 years, due to the mass departure of high school students abroad. It is estimated that up to 720,000 Ukrainian schoolchildren are currently outside the country.
High school students are massively leaving Ukraine for safety reasons and to get an education abroad, in order to then realize themselves in other countries. The lowest number of schoolchildren in 30 years has been recorded in Ukraine. Such results were found in a study by NGL Media journalists, as reported by UNN.
When we talk about who these school graduates are who want to leave Ukraine, the first thing that comes to mind are 17-year-old boys who want to take advantage of the chance to cross the border before they turn 18, after which departure from Ukraine is prohibited during martial law.
Details
Both boys and girls are leaving Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Education and Science, there are generally slightly more girls in high school each year, but now the gender difference is quite insignificant (1-2%). Among school graduates, this difference can reach 10%.
According to the Ministry of Education and Science, 9.3% of Ukrainian schoolchildren are currently studying abroad. This is approximately 345,000 children. However, the Ministry of Education and Science only takes into account those schoolchildren who still remain in the Ukrainian education system. That is, the agency's estimate of 345,000 students is a minimum number, as many children completely stop studying in Ukrainian schools after leaving the country.
A UNESCO study indicates that as of 2024, almost 665,000 Ukrainian schoolchildren were studying abroad. But even this figure is incomplete, as it only takes into account EU countries, and not all of them, where Ukrainians have migrated. At the same time, only 29% of these schoolchildren combine studies in both countries, and another 16% rely exclusively on Ukrainian online education. If we extrapolate this trend to the countries not accounted for by UNESCO, we can assume that approximately 720,000 Ukrainian schoolchildren are currently abroad.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, approximately 1.4 million forcibly displaced Ukrainians worldwide are children aged 3-17. The majority of Ukrainian schoolchildren and preschoolers currently reside in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom.
According to the analysis by NGL Media based on data from the Ministry of Education and Science on the number of students in grades 8-12 for 2021-2025, who moved to the 9th grade, 10th and so on, there is a tendency that a few percent of students (2-4%) annually do not move to the next grade, i.e., they leave school. This does not necessarily mean that all these children have left Ukraine, but a significant part of them most likely have.
The main reason for leaving the country among high school students remains the security issue – this includes both parents' worries about a possible lowering of the mobilization age to 18, and general anxiety for the lives of children in a country at war. For similar reasons, many graduates of Ukrainian schools, even after taking the NMT, still choose higher education institutions in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and other countries.
In 2024, 197 thousand students enrolled in higher education institutions in Ukraine - this is the lowest figure in the last nine years. Reacting to this trend, some universities are trying to stimulate the return of applicants from abroad.
Participants of the RAI for Ukraine research program analyzed the difference between the registration location of NMT participants and the location where they physically took the test. This allowed them to identify that in 2022, 23.5 thousand school graduates (10% of all) took this test abroad. And 32% of graduates did not register for the NMT at all, which is mandatory for admission to Ukrainian universities.
We understand that those graduates who are abroad can take this test just in case. And this does not mean that all of them are considering entering a Ukrainian university. Therefore, to those 32% who did not take the NMT at all, we can safely add part of those who did take it but did not enroll in Ukraine. That is, the losses are actually even greater, we just do not operate with all the data. So yes, quite a large percentage of graduates really do not consider entering Ukrainian universities from the point of view of either security or closed borders.