When the Russians first came to the school in southeastern Ukraine, where Larisa taught history, they demanded all the history and Ukrainian language textbooks. The director refused to hand them over. The school was closed but reopened, virtually, on September 1, with almost 80 percent of the 700 students attending online. More than half of them remained in occupied Berdyansk in the Zaporozhye region, teacher Larisa, who left for Odessa in April, told the "Politiko" portal.
"Some go to a Russian school and do their homework with us. We do everything we can to keep it anonymous. We deleted all electronic lists, we never posted photos or screenshots, nor did we write names,' Larisa explained. For security reasons, she did not give her last name or the name of the school. Half of her colleagues are still in occupied territory and teach online at the risk of prison or worse from the occupying forces. Two have already been detained and released in September, writes the Brussels portal.
Ukrainian schools mostly had online classes during the pandemic and switched back to that mode after the Russian invasion in February. However, due to bombs, blackouts, displacement and occupation, millions of Ukrainian children and youth are without regular education, with teachers struggling to work in extreme conditions.
Since the beginning of the invasion, more than 3000 educational institutions in Ukraine - 10 percent of the total - have been damaged or destroyed, according to the Ministry of Education. School buildings are at risk of shelling or lack of heating due to the massive damage to Ukraine's infrastructure, while power outages and internet disruptions make it difficult to study at home.
Thousands of students and teachers in the occupied territories face pressure to switch to the Russian education system. Education, with its propaganda potential to influence young hearts and minds, has become the front line in the war, Politiko writes.
Since the beginning of the invasion, more than 3.000 educational institutions in Ukraine - 10 percent of the total - have been damaged or destroyed
Crimea, which has been under Russian control for more than eight years, is an example of how Russian education in the occupied territories intends to erase Ukrainian identity and militarize children, Politiko points out. History lessons there claim that Ukraine has always been part of Russia, and courses and classes for military cadets are attended by children as young as six years old, says Maria Sulyanina from the Crimean Human Rights Group. "We see that these children, who were small when the occupation began, have been turned into Russians after eight years," she added.
Meanwhile, Russian in Ukrainian schools has been relegated to foreign languages, Russian literature is now part of world literature studies, and history lessons include events such as the Holodomor, the great famine that killed millions of Ukrainians under the Soviet regime in the 1930s.
Politiko writes that since September, parents in the recently occupied territories have been paid a one-time payment of 10.000 rubles (145 euros) to send their children to a Russian school, plus 4.000 per month if they stay - many families stick to Ukrainian education for their children, and teachers continue to teach it .
When the Russians occupied Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, the vocational school where Viktoria Sherbakova taught was under pressure to switch to the Russian system, and was later damaged and looted. Her classroom and office is now a kitchen table in the small rented apartment she shares with her two children and refugee parents in Kyiv.
The Russian language in Ukrainian schools has been transferred to foreign languages, and Russian literature is now part of the study of world literature
In October, there were about 1.300 schools in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. Teachers were under attack for collaborationism, harassed and detained. Staff were sent to Russia or Crimea for retraining in the Russian education system or were told that teachers from Russia would replace them if they refused to work.
At the end of the summer vacation, it became clear that the staff would be forced to decide to leave or start the next year under the Russian system, according to Politika.
"If you would openly say that you do not support them, you would end up in prisons or basements," Šerbakova said of the occupiers.
One headmistress in Kupjansk, who refused to open a school after the occupation, spent almost a month imprisoned in the basement of the police station. Of the nearly 50 employees at the vocational school, only seven refused to work with the Russian occupation authorities, according to Sherbakova.
"I'm ashamed of my school," she said.
She and her children managed to cross from Kupyansk to the liberated Ukrainian territory at the beginning of June. The school switched to virtual work and she became the acting director. Together with her colleague, she printed diplomas for the available graduates, 35 out of 53, and created a new curriculum. But when they started calling the students, they found out that they enrolled in the school year in Kupjansk, according to the Russian system.
Parallel classes began on the first of September, and eight days later Ukrainian forces liberated Kupyansk.
When Sherbakova returned to the city, she found that all the school's equipment and training vehicles had been looted, but that the library was full of intact Russian textbooks. Some of the staff fled to Russia, and the rest asked Sherbakov if they could work with her.
"At first I didn't know what to say to them. I'm not the SBU (Ukrainian security service), I can't judge them," she said.
Some are suspected of collaboration. Later, the Ministry of Education clarified that teachers who collaborated with the occupier or introduced the Russian education system were banned from working. Under Ukraine's collaboration law passed in September, teachers who spread Russian propaganda in schools can be sentenced to prison terms.
Sherbakova in Kiev holds online classes despite daily power shortages. Her students, scattered across the country, are also facing power outages. Others, displaced abroad, are trying to adapt to the education system in those countries. Some stayed in Kupjansk, where there is no internet, and the city is under daily Russian shelling.
"I can only call them and ask: 'Are you alive? How was the night? This is your evaluation question, just tell me something, whatever you can think of,'" said Sherbakova.
"Of course, I can't give them good marks. But I can't leave them.”
A lost generation
The physical challenges of war and the ideological struggle as Russia seeks to impose its own education system threaten the very basis of education in Ukraine - and that is participation, Politiko writes.
Sherbakova says her students, many of whom come from low-income families, are dropping out of online classes. “They have to survive. They left everything to find a job," she said.
"Many had to leave their homes, they have to live on something."
Teachers are also leaving the profession - due to migration, retirement, low wages and the stresses and prohibitions associated with the war. Kharkiv Oblast has lost nearly 3.000 of its 21.500 teachers since February, according to the local education ministry.
In Kupjansk, as in many liberated towns and villages, the will to learn is suppressed by the lack of electricity, internet and teachers. Children can only be educated if they move.
"We don't want to leave. This is our country and we want to live here," said Irina Protsenko, who recently collected humanitarian aid in Kupjansk for her six-year-old daughter Zlata. She said that they fear that they will have to leave the city because of the school.
Ukrainian children were also deprived of live interaction due to covid restrictions. Online classes, interruption of daily routine and security restrictions of war impose additional stress.
'The quality of education is not so important as communication. They lose socialization,' warns teacher Larisa from Berdjansk.
Some parents compare the situation to that of their grandparents, who missed out on years of education during World War II. When the war ended, they had to study with much younger children, which is why they were called 'pererostki' or 'overgrown'.
"I think it will be like my grandmother," said Marija Varenikova, a journalist who lives in Kiev with her 11-year-old son Nazar.
"Something will have to be thought of in Ukraine, given that children have not had an education for years due to covid, and now the war."
Nazar's school opened in September and operates with generators, bottled water and a basement shelter. But Nazar repeats the largely lost previous school year.
The son of Viktorija Šerbakova, in addition to the trauma of escaping from his native Kupjansk, had to cram most of the last school year into extra classes over the summer in order to move on to the next grade in Kyiv.
"They work hard and worry," said Šerbakova and added: "They are lost children."
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