Starting September 1, the government will stop funding small schools: communities will decide the fate of the institutions
26 August 20:13
Starting from September 1, 2025, the Ukrainian government will no longer fund schools with fewer than 45 students (except for primary schools). The further fate of such institutions – liquidation, reorganization or maintenance at the expense of local budgets – will depend on the decisions of local councils. This is stated in the response of the Ministry of Education and Science to the request of hromadske, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
The ministry clarified that next year the rules will become even stricter: starting September 1, 2026, schools with fewer than 60 students will not receive an educational subvention.
Tuition fees
According to the Ministry of Education and Science, the state spends an average of UAH 30.4 thousand annually to educate one student in a rural school, while in an urban school it is UAH 24.4 thousand. In some villages, where several children study at the institutions, the cost of maintaining one student exceeds 51 thousand UAH per year. This is due to the need to pay salaries to teachers and maintain buildings, even if the classrooms are half empty.
What will happen to students and teachers?
The decision to close or re-profile will be made by local councils. They will have two options:
- organize transportation of children to a larger school,
- or finance the small school from the community budget.
Thus, parents and teachers should prepare for possible changes in the school network already this school year.
Context and new educational initiatives
- To support families with children entering the first grade, the government program “Schoolchildren’s Package” provides financial assistance for school preparation.
- Starting in September, schoolchildren in grades 4-11 will receive a new subject module , Energy Efficiency Lessons, where they will learn how to use resources efficiently and save energy.
- At the same time, an audit by the State Audit Service revealed problems with the modernization of vocational education: out of 88 planned training centers, only six actually started operating in 2024, despite the allocation of UAH 549 million for the program.
The new school year in Ukrainian schools will run from September 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026.
Previous waves of rural school optimization in Ukraine
- 2016-2017 – the first reforms of the “School Network Optimization”
- In many villages, schools with fewer than 50 students began to close due to high maintenance costs.
- At that time, the state spent up to UAH 40-50 thousand per pupil in small rural schools, which was 2-3 times higher than the cost per pupil in cities.
- Some of the institutions were merged, and children were bused to the nearest large schools.
- 2018-2019 – centralization of management
- Minimum class size standards were introduced: schools in villages were reorganized if they had fewer than 30-35 children.
- The goal was to improve the quality of education and optimize teachers’ salaries.
- Some small schools were able to keep working due to funding from local budgets.
- 2020-2021 – COVID and distance learning
- The pandemic accelerated the closure of some small schools: distance learning was more cost-effective for small institutions.
- The state began to encourage schools to be equipped with modern digital technologies, but not all small schools had the resources to do so.
- As of 2024
- More than 1,500 small schools across Ukraine were at risk of closure or reorganization due to financial inefficiency.
- The main problems were low class size, dilapidated buildings, and high costs of teacher salaries and utilities.
