KYIV, Aug 29(ABC): Svitlana tears up thinking of the bombing that leveled her son Illia’s school in Lysychansk, a city in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk now occupied by Russian forces, but she is determined to ensure the eighth-grader continues his studies.
“My son’s school is not there anymore. It was bombed completely – and it can never be restored,” she said, during a visit to Illia’s new school in Irpin, near Kyiv, where workers are replacing windows blown out during a Russian artillery attack before school starts on Sept. 1.
“I think we will have a better life here,” said Svitlana, who asked that her surname not be used. “The most important thing is for our children to learn.”
Across Ukraine, authorities are building bomb shelters and repairing thousands of buildings damaged in shelling by Russian forces before the country’s nearly 6 million school-aged children return to school in September – online or in person.
Resuming school is a top priority for the government given the war’s long-term social and economic impact on the country, its children and the willingness of those who fled to return.
“The Russian aggression will have huge consequences for the Ukrainian educational system,” said Ivan Prymachenko, co-founder of Prometheus, the largest Ukrainian online learning platform.
Nearly 2,300 educational institutions were shelled or bombed since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, and 286 were completely destroyed, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science. More than 350 children have died and 586 were wounded during what Russia calls a “special military operation,” U.N. data show. The total could be much higher.
Officials are keen to resume education, in part to enable women to return to work. But assessing about 80% of Ukraine’s 26,000 educational facilities, from preschools to universities, the interior ministry found only 41% have the bomb shelters or protective structures needed for in-person instruction.
Reuters Graphics
That’s a 400% rise from a few months ago and more shelters could still be completed in the next weeks. But availability is low near the front: In the Mykolaiv region where Russian forces recently stepped up shelling, only 16% of schools have shelters in place.