STORY: Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv has built dozens classrooms in metro stations to allow pupils to return to school.
Though parts of the city lie less than 20 miles from the Russian border, officials say taking lessons underground will shield pupils from the threat of supersonic Russian missiles fired at short range.
Kharkiv’s schools have been forced to teach online throughout the war as some Russian missiles can reach the city in under a minute.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kharkiv was Ukraine’s second biggest city with a population of more than 1.4 million, but it has been badly scarred by fighting.
The 60 schoolrooms created in the city’s metro stations have space for more than 1,000 children to study in-person when the new school year begins in September.
Viktoria Kuznetsova has overseen their implementation.
“We will have desks, an interactive board, wi-fi. Tutors and psychologists will be here. Also, a fire alarm was installed for the children’s safety. Also, the classrooms are sound proof and have ventilation.”
Iryna Loboda says her school-aged boy needs to be around kids his own age.
“I support the children studying in the subway. They lack socializing. They will be able to socialize with each other, find a common language, communicate. The classes are twice a week, three hours a time. It is not every day. I absolutely support this.”
More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia’s invasion and others have been badly damaged, the U.N. children’s fund UNICEF said on Tuesday (August 29).
Persistent attacks mean that only about a third of school-age children there are attending classes fully in-person and many are forgetting what they have learned, it said.
Around half of Ukraine’s teachers have reported a deterioration in students’ abilities in language, reading and mathematics.
Beyond Ukraine, more than half of the children whose families have fled the conflict to seven countries are not enrolled in national education, UNICEF said, citing language barriers and overstretched education systems.
The war followed COVID disruptions, meaning some Ukrainian children were facing a fourth consecutive school year of disruptions as they return to classes this week after the summer break.
