The Mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, has announced plans for Ukraine’s inaugural underground school to be constructed in the northeastern city.
“Such a shelter will allow thousands of children to continue their in-person education safely even during missile threats,” he said.
Rocket attacks once again struck the Kharkiv region on Monday, underscoring the frequency of such attacks in the area.
Ukraine reports that more than 360 educational facilities have been destroyed, and over 3,000 have sustained damage since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Unicef, the UN children’s agency, has revealed that only a third of Ukraine’s schoolchildren are currently able to attend in-person classes due to ongoing deadly Russian missile and drone attacks, as well as shelling.
Many of these students have been compelled to attend makeshift classes in underground metro stations and other makeshift shelters, often lacking proper heating.
Recently, the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency noted the challenges faced by many schools in the 27-member bloc in integrating children who have fled the conflict in Ukraine. The agency reported that approximately 1.3 million Ukrainian children are currently residing in the EU.
In Sunday’s post on social media, the Kharkiv mayor announced that “it is here that we plan to build the first underground school in Ukraine”.
Mr Terekhov said the school “will meet the most modern requirements for defensive buildings”.
And he stressed that the city authorities “will not reduce educational expenditure by a single hryvnia [Ukraine’s currency] this year or next year, despite the lack of budget funds”.
The mayor gave no details on when the underground school would open, and how many pupils would be able to study there.
In the previous month, over 1,000 pupils in Kharkiv embarked on their new school year, attending classes at five underground stations that had been transformed into “metro-schools.”
To facilitate their attendance, students are transported to these metro-schools by buses and are divided into two shifts. The first shift commences at 09:00 local time, followed by the second shift at 13:00. Each underground station is equipped with police and rescue personnel to ensure the students’ safety.