29 September 2022, Thursday, 16:29 298

President's Office Opposes Departure Of Students Abroad, Podoliak Advises Them To Take Academic Leave Or Study Online

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The Office of the President opposes allowing students to travel abroad during martial law, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President Mykhailo Podoliak recommends that they take an academic leave or switch to online education. Podoliak said this on Vasyl Holovanov's YouTube channel, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

Podoliak emphasized that the position of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is that citizens of Ukraine of conscription age must defend their country.

"There is a position of the President of Ukraine, who clearly said that either we defend our territory all together... We still have a war, and not just some small regional conflict, and this especially applies to young people in their 20s, 25s and 30s. It's a little strange, if at the age of 50-60 a person will defend the land, and a 20-year-old wants to go on vacation or study. That is, either we say that we have a key task: we must preserve Ukraine, we must fight for it, or we say that anyone can do anything and thus Ukraine will not exist tomorrow," Podoliak said.

He noted that in the realities of a full-scale war, it is necessary to accept calmly and with understanding that there are certain restrictions for all citizens of the warring country.

"There are clear accents here that speak of the prioritization of what is happening in Ukraine today. We must take it calmly, because everyone is paying for the war today, all sections of the population, all social groups. The restrictions apply not only to students, but to anyone, except women and children, because this is war," he said.

Podoliak also noted that if students are allowed to go abroad, there will be an additional burden on border guards and customs officials in connection with checking the legality of departure.

"We need to effectively work on what the country needs, and not to find out whether a person really has an invitation to this or that university or not," he said.

Podoliak recommended that students studying abroad take an academic leave or switch to online education.

"In my opinion, if a person has the right to study somewhere, then you can take the initiative to have academic leave for a certain period of time, or online studies to look for routes that you can actually follow. Or postpone studies, if a person has paid a certain amount and wants to study there. You can talk about it, you don't have to say: we will all go, and create another mass protest from it. It looks a little strange for a warring country," Podoliak said.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Andrii Demchenko, the spokesman of the State Border Guard Service, said that the departure of students to study abroad has been suspended since September 14 until the government resolves this issue.

Advisor to the President's Office, Oleksii Arestovych, suggested that students could be drafted into the army.