GPA of 5.5 and zero motivation: what we lose when children do not see school for years

Just recently, we completed an on-site training intensive for teenagers from the frontline and border regions. More than 250 eleventh-graders from Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions attended. We have been working with these children for all four years of the full-scale war, and the difference between what we had before and what we have seen now is frankly frightening.

Just two years ago, schoolchildren from a community near Kharkiv demonstrated strong knowledge of Ukrainian, math and English. Today, their average score is 5.5 out of 12. These are the same children, in the same communities where there has always been strong education and active teachers. But now there is fatigue, apathy, and a complete lack of motivation.

Teachers say: "This is the first time in years we've seen them offline. They haven't even seen each other."

In the areas under constant shelling, there is not even hybrid training – only online. And online, where alarms sound several times a day, is not an educational process, it is a struggle for survival.