12,975 schools start academic year in Ukraine, 84% of them have shelters - Lisovyi

On September 1, the academic year in Ukraine begins in 12,975 schools in three formats (full-time, remote and mixed), 84% of them have shelters, and almost 4 million students return to school. This was announced by the Minister of Education and Science, Oksen Lisovyi, on Facebook, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"12,975 schools will work from today in different formats: full-time, remote and mixed. 3,951,000 students are returning to learning - both in classrooms and in Zoom or Googlemeets. 84% of schools have equipped shelters, the presence of which is a basic requirement for returning institution for full-time education. 281 projects for the construction, reconstruction and overhaul of shelters in the regions have already been approved with the help of a state subsidy of UAH 1.5 billion," he said.

Lisovyi congratulated everyone with September 1 and emphasized that priority No. 1 for the 2023/2024 academic year is physical and mental safety.

At the same time, the head of the President's Office, Andrii Yermak, reported in his Telegram channel that 3,750 Ukrainian schools were damaged and completely destroyed by russian missiles and bombs, and 400,000 Ukrainian children are studying abroad while remaining in the Ukrainian education system.

According to Yermak, there are 12,394 schools in Ukraine, of which: full-time - 6,577 (53.1%), mixed - 3,362 (27.1%), remote - 2,455 (19.8%), in total 3,623,169 children study in Ukrainian schools, of which 1,626,827 (44.9%) study in full-time, 1,112,363 (30.7%) in the mixed system, and 883,979 (24.4%) - remotely.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Kyiv City State Administration reported that 240,000 schoolchildren in Kyiv will study offline from September 1 - this is 2.5 times more than last year, when only 94,000 parents decided to send their children to offline education.