Catch-up classes help children in Ukraine recover lost learning
The classes in Kharkiv have become a lifeline for thousands of children and their families after over two years of devastating war.
- Українська
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In the bomb shelter that lies beneath a school on the outskirts of Kharkiv in Ukraine, maths teacher Tetiana walks around the children’s desks, leaning over every open notebook.
"I will come to everyone and explain everything," she ressaures the youngsters.
As well as classrooms, this underground shelter has an area containing bunk beds, a dining room and a communal space. Due to the complicated security situation in the region, scores of local children have been coming here to attend in-person classes since autumn 2023.
Today, in Tetiana’s catch-up class, 12-year-old Ihor has finally grasped geometry. It is a topic he has never studied in his online classes.
"I live in Kharkiv. Because of the last two years of war, I didn't go to school. But now I come here for Ukrainian language and maths classes. I come here to catch up with what we lost when we studied online. It's so good to study here. You could even live here!"
For two years, like thousands of other children in the Kharkivska region, Ihor has been unable to attend school full-time due to the ongoing war and the threats it poses. As a result, education has shifted to an online format. However, frequent airstrikes, power outages and shelling have severely disrupted learning. To address this, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)'s ‘Catching Up’ programme runs classes in the region to help children overcome learning gaps.
"This is an incredible project,” says Tetiana. “Online education can't compare with face-to-face teaching. I still don't know what a child is looking at when they sit in front of the monitor at home. And here, I can explain everything in detail and visibly."
"Children come here not only to learn, but also to communicate. There are children whose parents bring them here for socialisation and to acquire knowledge lost during the war"
“He has become more social”
The Obdarovanist lyceum in Kharkiv, where Tetiana teaches, has been running a catch-up programme since September 2023 to help children of different ages to recover learning losses. Children in grades 3 to 10 can attend maths and Ukrainian lessons twice a week in the school shelter – known as a Digital Learning Center.
"Our educational catch-up project aims to fill the knowledge gaps that children have acquired through online learning. A child has the right to come and say, ‘I have gaps for grade 8’, even if they are in grade 10."
“The child will be given an entrance test, and the teacher will use that as a basis for further work, in terms of what topics they need to work on and how deeply they need to work on them. And at the end of the course, the child takes an exit test to see their progress,” says Hanna, the coordinator of the Digital Learning Center.
The project has been extremely popular with children and their parents, attracting so many applicants that additional groups have had to be formed. To date, the programme has reached over 300 students from the lyceum and other nearby schools.
For Tetiana and her son Ihor, traveling to the lyceum takes almost an hour, but they are always eager to attend classes.
"I see that he has improved in maths and the new Ukrainian spelling,” says Tetiana. “Most importantly, he has become more social and communicative.”
Tetiana and her son live in an area that is constantly shelled. As a result, she is afraid to leave Ihor alone at home or let him go for an unsupervised walk.
"I am used to there being shooting in Kharkiv,” says Ihor, who often spends the night sheltering in the corridor with his mother and their cat, and must contend without electricity or heating. “It's not so loud during the day, but during the day we hear a lot of air alerts."
"I have two dreams. I want my cat not to scratch me. He is very nice, but he is afraid of children. And I really want the war to end.”
The catch-up classes help Ihor to feel safe.
"Here, we study in a shelter, so it's not scary. And there's a generator.”
“I want to see my friends in real life”
For the past two years, 11-year-old Alisa has dreamed of returning to school and sitting at a desk again.
"I just want to walk down the corridors and see my friends in real life, not through a camera," she says, sadly.
The catch-up classes at the Digital Learning Center have partially fulfilled her dream, even if just for a few hours each week. On days when Alisa has math or Ukrainian lessons, she carefully packs her backpack and a snack, just as she did two years ago.
"I really like these classes. Each time, I am fascinated and learn something new that was not explained to me well during online schooling. I don't understand as well online, because the teacher can't come to me, show me or explain everything to me in detail.”
Yulia, her 12-year-old friend, says she enjoys socialising at the Digital Learning Center.
"With distance learning, I feel a bit anxious and antisocial,” says the young girl, who dreams of becoming a surgeon. “But when I come here, I feel good. It's more pleasant to study when you have friends.”
Maths teacher Tetiana says the catch-up lessons have become a vital part of the lives of many of her students, who have been deprived of activities and vacations for over two years.
"The children have changed a lot because of the war,” says Tetiana. “They are so young, yet so grown up. Their first wish is for peace and the chance to study and communicate normally again.”
Thanks to funding from the European Union, UNICEF and its partners have been running catch-up lessons for more than 5,000 schoolchildren, including those in the areas hardest hit by the fighting. Initially, Ukrainian children had to adapt to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequently, face-to-face education was disrupted by fighting, airstrikes, displacement, power outages and psychological stress. By February 2022, thousands of educational institutions in Ukraine had been damaged or destroyed. Now, in May 2024, only half of the schools across the country are able to provide full-time education to children, in part due to the lack of safe shelter in educational buildings. As a result, children have suffered significant learning gaps in their education.
