Quiet evacuation of the future: how Ukrainian graduates are leaving the country en masse for education in the EU
19 June 16:18
Every year, more and more Ukrainian graduates leave the country to study at European universities. Experts are particularly concerned about the growing number of girls among those who leave, which threatens to exacerbate the demographic crisis in Ukraine.
This was reported byThe Telegraph, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
The British publication spoke with graduates and teachers of a school in Lviv. 17-year-old Kira Yukhymenko, an immigrant from Zaporizhzhia region, admits that before the war she planned to study in Ukraine, but because of the poor quality of education in the face of air raids and bombings, she chose a Polish university.
Her classmate , Tetiana Marvii, also changed her plans after her sister was unable to pass her exams due to constant sirens. Now she is preparing to study international relations in Vilnius.
Taras Hryvniak, a graduate of the Lviv Lyceum of Physics and Mathematics, has already entered the University of Vienna and notes that half of his class, both boys and girls, have also chosen European universities.
Teachers Lyudmyla Makokhina and Svitlana Bozhko confirmed the trend: in many classes, more than half of the graduates plan to study abroad. For example, out of 34 students in Ms. Bozhko’s 11th grade class, 18 are already preparing to move to the EU, including 8 girls and 10 boys.
The Telegraph emphasizes that the emigration of young people is not only a “brain drain” but also a “demographic time bomb.”
Particularly alarming is the growing trend in the number of Ukrainian female students in Poland, which doubled in the year after the invasion.
Official data also indicate that the problem is getting worse: this year, 312,000 graduates registered for the National Multiple Subject Test (NMT), which is the same as last year.
However, back in 2008, there were 630,000 graduates, and this number has been steadily decreasing by 20-30,000 every year.
According to the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine’s population could drop to 15.2 million by 2100 if the current trend continues.
