A quarter of Ukrainian schoolchildren are pessimistic about the future of Ukraine and want to move abroad. This is evidenced by the results of the survey conducted by the sociological agency Vox Populi at the request of the charitable foundation savED within the framework of the project “Provision of educational services in the conditions of war in Ukraine” with the support of the Program “U-LEAD with Europe”.
“When asked how they generally feel about the future of Ukraine, the lowest optimism can be traced specifically among the apprenticeship population. A quarter of pupils and female pupils (24%) have pessimistic views, another 25% are neither optimistic nor pessimistic, while among 52% of optimistic pupils 31% are rather optimistic about the future of the state,” the research report states.
At the same time, among pupils 53% want to stay in Ukraine after school (although 23% of them want to live in a different locality than where they live now). A quarter of surveyed pupils (26%) want to move to live abroad.
Continuing education is a desired scenario for 77% of pupils. In particular, 35% of pupils would like to enter a leading university in Ukraine, 25% – another university or technical school/college in Ukraine, 18% – to go abroad. The latter are more numerous among urban pupils – 22% against 9% in villages. And only 6% plan to go straight to work, 4% – to military service, to take a “gap year” – 7%.
The research was conducted in two stages: a representative nationwide survey and the study of practical cases of communities on customizing access to education in communities located relatively close to the front line. The representative survey involved pupils and female pupils (age 14+), parents, teachers and pedagogues, representatives and representatives of administrations of educational institutions and local self-government bodies, who are competent to answer the question about the state of education in the community. A total of 1397 pupils and female pupils, 1288 parents, 1141 teachers, 146 representatives of school administrations, and 64 representatives and madams of local self-government bodies in all regions of Ukraine were interviewed.
As part of the study of cases (practices) of organizing access to education for children in communities, researchers and investigators selected 15 communities from Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Mykolayiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv Oblasts. In each community, 7-9 in-depth interviews were conducted with local authorities, parents and students, as well as teachers and educators. All communities whose experiences were studied during the research had or have destroyed educational infrastructure and have been or are being systematically shelled.
educational services in the context of war in Ukraine, moving to live abroad, Vox Populi
