Wartime Education: Schools Lose Students, Universities Lose Applicants

There is an ongoing public debate surrounding an agreement reportedly promoted by the Trump administration. Many believe it could reduce Ukraine to the role of a raw material supplier by granting foreign entities access to the country’s natural resources. However, an equally serious and often overlooked threat is the risk of becoming a different kind of resource base—a provider of human capital.

Even in the absence of formal agreements, Ukraine has long been exporting its future doctors, engineers, scientists, skilled tradespeople, nuclear specialists, and construction workers to Europe and the United States. Since the full-scale invasion, this outflow has only intensified.

With the national admissions campaign already underway (as prospective students have registered for the National Multi-Subject Test, a Ukrainian standardized final school-leaving exam), this is an opportune moment to address the issue.

Who will Ukraine’s universities—and the country as a whole—be able to rely on in the future? Through which institutional and social gaps are the nation’s human resources slipping away?

To seek answers, ZN.UA contacted local education authorities, policy experts, and Ukraine’s Education and Science Ministry. Here is what we learned.

First, the number of individuals seeking admission to Ukrainian universities has begun to decline. Compared to the pre-war year of 2021, the number of applicants decreased from 230,700 to 202,000 in 2024.

The figures from 2023 should not be viewed as reassuring, as the apparent surge in applications was largely driven by individuals over the age of 25 who sought to avoid mobilization through student status. However, in 2024, legislative changes closed this loophole, which directly impacted the number of applicants.

According to Education Ministry data in response to a ZN.UA request, 54,300 applicants over the age of 25 applied for bachelor's degree programs in 2023. In 2024, that number dropped to just around 4,000.

It is clear that Russia’s war has a significant impact on the number of applicants. Many young people are leaving Ukraine, and many have found themselves in occupied territories.

Deputy Education Minister Nadiia Kuzmychova told a recent meeting with educators from Lviv that the approximate number of Ukrainian children of school age currently abroad is 2.1 million. Of these, only 358,000 students are “visible” in the Ukrainian education system, as reported by the ministry. Among them, only 25,000 are graduating students, according to the ministry's response to the ZN.UA request.

This means that 1.742 million schoolchildren have lost their connection to the official Ukrainian education system. “The second number (358,000) is decreasing every year,” Kuzmychova said, as quoted by the Lviv Oblast Regional Education and Science Department. “Two reasons. First, due to the natural exit from the system (i.e., seniors), and second, when a decision is made for a child to study in the school system of the host country.”

According to Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, in his Special Report into access to education for Ukrainian children and youth from Russian-occupied territories, around 600,000 Ukrainian school-age children may currently live under Russian occupation. As of October 2024, 44,000 students remained within the Ukrainian education system. This number is declining, as the Russian-installed authorities are doing everything to sever these children from Ukraine, and specifically from Ukrainian education. For the same reasons, few young people from the occupied areas and front-line zones are enrolling in Ukrainian universities. Although the number of such applicants in 2024 is higher than in 2016–11,000 compared to 1,000. This should not comfort us, as both the area of Russian-controlled territories and the front line are vastly different now. These are colossal losses compared to the number of Ukrainian youth who remain in these areas.

Secondly, an increasing number of senior students are choosing not to apply to Ukrainian universities in their first year after graduation. This trend is evident when analysing the percentage of high-school graduates who applied to Ukrainian universities. In the pre-war 2021, nearly 70% of high-school graduates participated in the university admission campaign, whereas for the 2024 admission, just over half of them applied.

Table 1. Percentage of high-school graduates who participated in the university admission campaign the same year they graduated.

2021	2022	2023	2024
69	61	63	54

Source: Data is from the Unified State Electronic Database on Education, admission to bachelor's and master's programs in medical, pharmaceutical, and veterinary majors.

This does not mean that everyone who did not participate in the university admission campaign will go to foreign universities. However, many will likely choose this path.

Foreign countries have attracted Ukrainian graduates before, but after Russia unleashed its full-scale invasion, opportunities to study abroad have increased significantly. Many foreign universities offer social support programs for Ukrainians and provide scholarships. Ukrainian high school seniors living abroad have even more opportunities for admission, as they integrate into the education systems of the host countries. Thanks to studying in local schools, they can apply to universities not as foreigners, but on equal terms with local applicants, holding local high-school diplomas. They can study not only in English, but also in the official language of the country they live in, as social services often cover language courses for Ukrainians. Ukrainian students who win Science Olympiads for pre-university students are eagerly sought after and recognized, even in schools. Talents are needed everywhere. They are provided with conditions and opportunities that are hard to turn down.

Recently, I met the mother of a senior student, Tetiana, who moved to Germany with her children three years ago. Now her son is graduating from a Ukrainian school (his native physics and mathematics lyceum) remotely and is also studying in a German school. Initially, out of curiosity, he participated in a regional Mathematical Olympiad in Germany, then consistently won higher-level Science Olympiads. His classmate from Ukraine, who now also lives in Germany, performs just as brilliantly in the Mathematical Olympiads. The German school created opportunities for them and other talented students to study advanced maths, specifically mathematical analysis, at the local university. Several times a week, these talented Ukrainians attend classes, studying alongside university students. This, along with their Science Olympiad results, opens the doors to the most prestigious universities for them.

In a few years, the younger students who are currently studying in the lower grades abroad will follow the same path. By the time they graduate from school, they will be integrated even more into the education system of their host country.

Thirdly, the ranks of senior students—potential university applicants—begin to thin even before they graduate from school. Not all those who start high school will make it to graduation.

Here’s a clear illustration of how the ranks of current seniors have dwindled: when they began their penultimate year (2023/2024 school year), there were 243,000 of them, but by senior year (2024/2025), not all of them remained.

Only 234,000 seniors were in school in September. We don’t yet know how many will stay in school until graduation, but we can compare this data with previous years, especially the year before the full-scale invasion.

As shown, 7,000–11,000 students graduate after a senior year each school year, while only 291 did so in 2021.

Table 2. Yearly decline in the number of seniors throughout the year

2020/2021	2021/2022	2022/2023	2023/2024
-291 student	-11,204 students	-7,202 students	-7,125 students

Source: Statistical data

There are many reasons why students don’t make it to graduation, from personal circumstances and family issues to being displaced by Russia’s war or living under Russian occupation.

But in many cases, students quietly leave the country mid-year without formally dropping out.

This is especially common among boys, whose parents are trying to get them abroad before they turn 18, the draft age. Mobilization doesn’t affect them yet, but who knows what the legislation will be tomorrow?

And schools don’t always reflect these departures in official records, either to protect the family or out of institutional self-interest.

Why? Because if class sizes drop too low, the school loses the ability to divide students into smaller groups for certain subjects, resulting in the loss of teachers’ jobs.

So sometimes, a child is pulled out of school, but officially, they remain a student.

Just in case, parents file a request to switch to distance learning or one of the so-called “individual” learning formats, a family-based education, or external studies.

If there's an inspection, the school simply shows the paperwork: “The student just started home-based education.”

In fact, many students who leave Ukraine mid-year do switch officially to individual formats. It’s a legal and convenient way to receive a graduation diploma without too much academic pressure.

With external studies or family-based learning, a student only needs to submit a few assignments per year. This is a great way to improve grades since those assignments can be completed with the help of a parent, tutor, or cheat sheet.

Importantly, final grades only matter for admission to foreign universities; in Ukraine, they are not considered during the application process.

Some students also switch to external studies because they simply don’t want to attend senior year in person, choosing instead to focus entirely on preparing for the final school-leaving exams.

But this raises another serious problem: the replacement of actual education with final exam test-prep training. Instead of learning, senior year often becomes a simulation, with just final school-leaving exam drills and no real schooling.

According to teachers, the move toward individual learning formats tends to begin around October. It’s not yet a mass exodus, but the trend is noticeable.

It would be useful to understand its full magnitude in data. A simple comparison of the number of students enrolled in individual learning at the start of the school year versus in January could help. That’s exactly the data ZN.UA requested from the Education Ministry.

However, the ministry did not provide full figures. Officials explained that they only track enrolment numbers as of the beginning of the school year. If the ministry has no idea what’s happening in classrooms after September, that’s a very troubling sign.

We can see this shift toward individual learning formats more clearly in Kyiv. In September, at the beginning of the school year, 12% of seniors in the capital were enrolled in individual learning.

By March, that figure had risen to 19%, nearly one in five students. And these numbers don’t include private schools, of which Kyiv has about 180.

It’s likely that the trend is even more pronounced in that sector, especially in private distance-learning schools.

Take, for example, Optima School, one of the most popular online schools in Ukraine. It serves over 15,000 students nationwide. During the current academic year, the number of seniors enrolled in external studies has more than doubled: from 777 in September to 1,772 in April.

By contrast, the number of students in the school’s regular distance-learning program has remained almost unchanged, suggesting that external studies, not online classes per se, are what families are increasingly choosing.

Interestingly, Optima School also offers university application support for students applying abroad,  a marketing strategy clearly tailored to its audience.

Table 3. Senior students in the online learning at Optima School (2024/2025 Academic Year)

	Total	Distance-learning program	External Studies
September	2,157	1,380	777
April	3,188	1,486	1,702

Source: Kyiv Education and Science Department Data

“In October and November, we saw a significant increase in the number of seniors. Most of them preferred external studies to study independently using our platform. By contrast, the penultimate-year students, also numerous, were still more interested in in-person classes. Overall, about half of our senior-year students registered for the final school-leaving exam. But some of them did so just in case, they’re not actually planning to apply to Ukrainian universities. In some of our senior classes, 90% of students won’t take the final school-leaving exam at all,” Volodymyr Strashko, the private online Unicorn School headmaster, describes the trend of increasing numbers of students in individual learning formats.

This pattern is also common in remote learning classes offered by public schools, where many Ukrainian high-school students living abroad are currently enrolled.

Fourthly, what about future admission campaigns?

Until now, I have been analysing the trends for the upcoming admission campaign. But what if we look further into the future, say a dozen years from now, when the now-first-graders reach senior year? Every year, their numbers are shrinking. Since the pre-war 2020/2021 school year and up to the current 2024/2025 school year, their numbers have decreased by 142,000. Already, prestigious schools in the capital, where it was previously possible to enrol a child only through a highly competitive process and personal connections, are reducing the number of first-grade classes and will be happy to accept everyone. Some are even uncertain whether they will be able to enrol first-graders at all.

According to Ukraine’s Ombudsman Lubinets, first-grade enrolment has fallen sharply in front-line areas and regions under Russian control when compared to previous years.

Between 2021/2022 and 2023/2024, the drop was 39% in Donetsk Oblast, 48% in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, 62% in Luhansk Oblast, and 42% in Kherson Oblast.

Today’s first-graders were born around 2018–2019, during a time when Ukraine’s birth rate was already falling into a demographic slump. That decline has only continued.

By contrast, today’s seniors were born during a period of relatively high birth rates, which is why, despite Russia’s war, the number of seniors in 2024/2025 (234,500) is actually higher than it was in 2020/2021 (220,000).

But that won’t last.

In the coming decade, we’ll see a sharp decline not just in university students, but also in vocational school and college enrolment. The demographic cliff is real, and it’s already taking shape in the lower grades.

Table 4. Birth rate in Ukraine in different years, in thousands of children per year

2007–2008 The birth years of now-senior students	2018–2019 The birth years of now-first-graders	2024 The birth year of children who will start school in 5-6 years
472,7–510,6	335,9–308,8	176,7

Source: Justice Ministry Data, State Statistics Service Data

What’s next?

Ukraine’s education system is now facing entirely new challenges, ones we’ve never encountered before. And these challenges demand two things. Firstly, the search for real, evidence-based solutions—not the wishful thinking that problems will somehow “vanish on their own.” Secondly, the recognition that what once seemed logical and appropriate before the full-scale invasion may no longer work today.

With most young people leaving urban areas, students in small towns and rural communities will soon become Ukraine’s main remaining human resource. Strengthening education in these regions must become a national priority. It has always mattered, but now it’s critical.

Let’s not forget: both international assessments, like PISA and Ukraine’s own testing systems, ZNO and NMT, consistently reveal a significant knowledge gap between urban and rural students.

Yet, one of the latest parliamentary initiatives moves in the opposite direction. A draft law currently registered in Ukraine’s parliament would cut off state funding for upper-secondary schools in more than one-third of local communities, effectively eliminating high school access in large parts of the country.

Yes, this is a cost-saving measure for the state. Such an idea might have been considered in pre-war times, but not now.

Slashing education in rural areas at this moment will come at a heavy cost to the country’s future.

There’s a popular saying in Ukraine: “If there is no school, there is no village.” But in truth, it’s more accurate to say: “No jobs means no village.” Young people are leaving rural areas not just because of education, but because there’s no economic future.

That’s why improving the quality of education in rural towns and villages shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. It must be integrated into a broader strategy for economic development in these communities.

If the state wants to shift full financial responsibility for small high schools or lyceums onto local authorities, it’s fine.

But first, it must create the conditions for those communities to succeed: economic growth, budget capacity, and long-term sustainability.

Another step toward increasing university enrolment is improving the quality of university education itself. That means reducing the number of universities, keeping only those with a real capacity for quality classes, and properly investing in them.

To be fair, the Education Ministry has already started moving in this direction, and vows more reforms. But much more is needed.

It’s time to air out the universities from an old approach, modernize outdated programs, and finally abandon teaching methods that are no longer useful.

Recently, the education minister told Ukrinform, the state-run news agency, that while Ukrainian universities aren’t the Sorbonne, “they still offer quality education.”

I’d say that was an extremely optimistic assessment.

Only a handful of Ukrainian universities offer modern, competitive, truly high-quality education. Admissions statistics clearly show that these few institutions attract the smartest students.

Yet, high-quality education is impossible without high-quality students.

Let’s be frank: Ukraine’s university admissions system currently lacks strong filters to select those who are truly capable of studying at a higher level.

When university education becomes a form of social benefit — and we do have many categories of preferential applicants — we’re no longer talking about quality.

Everyone should be admitted based on academic merit. Those who are socially vulnerable should be supported before and after admission through accommodation assistance, scholarships, prep courses to catch up academically, and later, generous stipends or guaranteed first jobs.

When the final school-leaving exam tests students only to choose the correct answer from a list, with no open-ended questions requiring personal analysis or expression, it tells us something about the kind of students the system selects.

That, in turn, affects the quality of education and the future quality of Ukraine’s human capital. Ultimately, raising admissions standards is a political decision.

How the government handles it reveals how many students it actually wants in higher education. If the goal is mass enrolment, then standards will inevitably be lowered.

According to data from Ukraine’s state education database, which I analysed from 2021 to 2024, around 93% of applicants become first-year university students each year. So, nearly everyone who wants to go to university gets in.

That’s not accessibility; that’s the devaluation of higher education. Unless the number of universities is significantly reduced, we’ll soon reach the point where they’ll have to accept absolutely everyone. That, too, will have serious consequences for educational quality.

Education officials and policymakers must make evidence-based and consistent decisions to respond to these challenges wisely and in time.

A good example of how this doesn't work in Ukraine is the story of the draft law aimed at reducing the number of lyceums, especially in rural areas. At first, parliament members submitted the draft law. Following the public outrage, they rushed to file another one that walked back some original ideas. That’s not how policy should be approved.

When the government tells the public, “We need to take this or that step,” it should present clear data, modelling, and forecasts, and share them with the people.

What’s more, the public should have access to raw data, not just the ministry’s interpretation of it. We need open education databases (as security allows), so that researchers, parents, and civil society can monitor trends, do their assessments, and participate in meaningful public discussions.

This would serve as a vaccine against populism and poorly justified decisions.

So, where do things stand now?

In higher education, we do have Ukraine’s state education database for admissions stats, and test portals with the final school-leaving exam results.

But the picture is much murkier when it comes to school education. While preparing this article, I sent multiple data requests to the Education Ministry and received incomplete responses.

One of my requests is still, apparently, lost in the corridors of the ministry.

Meanwhile, with donor support, Ukraine launched an updated education data platform,  AIKOM-2. But it suffers from operational issues.

There’s the ministry’s OpenDataBot, a website that cites figures from Ukraine's Justice Ministry. But most of the data is shallow, outdated, or fragmentary.

Recently, ZN.UA explored how the U.K.’s open education data and analytics system works. The contrast is striking.

That’s where our grant money—and our state budget—should be allocated: to schools, especially in rural and small-town communities. Not to the endless parade of offices, institutes, and duplicate pilot projects spreading across Ukraine, while the quality of education declines.

What we all need are committed professionals at all levels of educational governance because our future is being destroyed not only by Russia’s war but also by incompetence, inertia, and populism.

Escaping Ukraine’s demographic and educational crisis will require public policy based not on wishful thinking, but on planning and forecasting.

Education is not a budget expense, it’s a long-term investment.