From the first days of the full-scale war in Ukraine, a massive wave of internally displaced persons from all over the country have fled to the western regions. A considerable number of these people, including the members of trade union, were settled in educational institutions.

Data as of December 24, 2022 on damage (destruction) of property and premises of research and higher education institutions is as follows: not damaged – 228, partly damaged – 91, totally damaged – 4, data missing – 11 (located at temporary occupied areas).

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as of December 20, 2022 the number of refugees fled Ukraine for other countries since 24.02.2022 is more than 16,6 million persons.

Russian invasion to Ukraine has caused a set of serious problems in Ukrainian education. First of all, this concerns the forced displacement of a significant number of the Ukrainian population and the destruction and damage to educational institutions as a result of hostilities.

More than 8 months, the full-scale war of Russia against the Ukrainian people has been going on.

Statement of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine Regarding Unacceptability of Pressure on Teachers in the Temporarily Occupied Territories

There are 12,910 schools in Ukraine now.

According to the report of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, more than a quarter of Ukrainian schools (3,500) this year will work in full-time mode, and almost 4,500 will study in mixed form.  Other schools will study in online mode.

Since the beginning of the russian invasion of Ukraine, the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine has been constantly receiving appeals and reports from regional organizations of the Trade Union, where active hostilities are taking place, and from the temporarily occupied territories on the impact of the russian occupation regime on education sector workers.

Schools are being prepared for September 1 all over the country, where the security situation allows.  After all, as of August 21, 2022, 1094 children in Ukraine suffered as a result of full-scale armed aggression by the russian federation. 373 children were killed and 721 were injured. Therefore, offline education will only be possible in safer regions where there are no military actions.

On 17 August 2022, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, instead of veto expected by the workers, signed the scandalous Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Some Legislative Acts Regarding Simplification of Regulation of Labour Relations in Sphere of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Reduction of Administrative Burden on Business”, voted in the Parliament on 19 July, which introduces extreme forms of labour relations liberalisation and deprives the workers of Ukrainian enterprises with less than 250 workers of one of their fundamental rights – the right to labour protection and collective bargaining.