In classrooms in western Ukraine, a group of teenagers are considering their future.
Seventeen-year-old Kira Yukhymenko has been planning to go to college in her home country, but between the last exams of this month, she has been dreaming of leaving to study abroad.
“War helped us understand who we are,” she said in a discussion at Lyceum 88’s English class. “It broadened our horizons and made us more independent.”
Since the war broke out and martial law was introduced, young people have been banned from leaving Ukraine after the end of 18, but young women like Ms. Yukhymenko are free to leave.
In the three-year conflict, a large number of which chose to do so, swapping war-torn Ukraine with European cities far from threats from Vladimir Putin’s drones and bombs.
Few people come back and leave every year.
Besides being brain loss – Ukraine’s smartest and best of all is those who leave the country, the wave of immigration is also a time bomb for the crowd.
In an expensive war of attrition against Russia, if the young people of the country do not return, once the war is over, who will rebuild the country.
Teacher Liudmila Makohin said many students want to leave Ukraine – Vitaliy Hrabar
A group of 30 final year students sitting on their desks in pairs chose this topic for debate: Education and future career opportunities in Ukraine.
Many people are considering immigration, their teacher Liudmila Makohin said.
“The situation is getting worse every day as the war has made young people choose European universities over Ukraine,” she told the Telegraph.
Ms. Makohin asked the organization to raise their hands if they intend to leave Ukraine after completing the exam. The three girls reacted quickly before several other students (boys and girls) were nervous and temporarily raised their arms.
Sofia, a front row student, wore a cream snail and gold, rolling earrings, said the longer the war, the more people want to leave.
“When the war started, people were very enthusiastic,” she began. “But a lot of time has passed and people were even more frustrated. They think life in another country is better.”
English teacher Halyna Pidhrebelna agrees. She said later, commenting on the discussion in coffee in the small staff room said girls leaving Ukraine “can’t see the future here” and believed in better career opportunities abroad. She hopes the ceasefire may change the situation, but has lost confidence in the U.S. commitment to support Ukraine since Donald Trump was elected.
Kira sat down for a few rows and said that being forced to flee Zaporizhzhia because of the relative security of the Lviv region in western Ukraine has changed her view.
“I didn’t think about leaving until the war,” she said. “My homeland is small – unlike Leviv, there are no buildings and historical monuments like this. I think I’ll go to Kiev or Kharkif to go to college.”
“Life in another country”
In Poland, just a few miles away, Kira and her family began visiting the country regularly. This contact made her imagine studying in Kraków, Poland, which is also a long history.
Poland attracts more Ukrainian undergraduate students than any other European country. According to data released by news agency Ukrinform, nearly 45% of the total number of students in Poland’s university are Ukrainians in 2023.
But the data also suggests that the number of young women choosing to leave Ukraine to study has surged.
According to data from the country’s London data agency, the number of women entering Polish universities has almost doubled in the year after the invasion. The number of young people arriving is even greater.
The charm of famous European institutions is undoubtedly the attraction of young Ukrainians. But for the most part, they just want to escape the war.
“When you have air raid sirens or bombing, you don’t study. You have to go online or in a bomb shelter – I want to achieve it.” She added that her best friend fled to LVIV from the eastern Sumy area and has also applied to the university in Kraków.
Tetiana Marvii describes life in Ukraine as “very stressful” – Vitaliy Hrabar
17-year-old classmate Tetiana Marvii had planned to stay in LVIV, but after her cousin got worse than expected, she changed the plan, partly due to her air raid sirens on the exam.
“In Ukraine, it’s really big,” she said.
If she could test her courses through English, it inspired her trip to meet friends nearby in Lithuania and to try to study international relations in the capital Vilnius.
“It’s hard to make this decision,” she admitted. “My parents said: You can do it, you’re smart, you can go abroad. But I’m not sure. My idea is just to live here – find a job and help my parents. But, because the situation has changed, our plans have too.”
Lithuania is a less common destination for Ukrainian students, and its national broadcaster LRT reported that in 2024, Ukrainians conducted 1,100 Ukrainians in their country’s higher education institutions.
Austrian public and private universities have seen a large amount of absorption in Ukraine in bachelor’s degree programs. According to Austrian statistics, the number of female students doubled between 2021 and 2023.
Taras Hryvniak, 17, a former student of Lyceum in physics and mathematics, left his family to study at the University of Vienna, Austria. When he was 18, he would not be allowed to return if he crossed the border and returned to Ukraine.
Taras denied that Ukraine’s constitution had influenced his choice, but admitted: “My family loved this decision very much because my mom was afraid of me.”
Taras said half of his school class went to Europe, almost as many as girls. “It’s really big,” he said. “But my class is a great class. I’m studying with friends at Cambridge University now. People are leaving because they want to get new knowledge.”
A girl in a village near LVIV (Yuriy yuriy dyachyshyn/afp) through Getty Images
Angelina Kalyniuk, 18, completed the school in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine in 2023 before earning her degree from Krakow University of Economics.
She said parents often try to push their children out of Ukraine.
“I’ve heard of a child who doesn’t want to go, but parents say it’s the best option,” she said, noting that Ukraine has been in war since 2014.
“In Ukraine, there are always some planes flying around the sky,” she said. “Parents just want their children to live their best lives.”
Teacher Svitlana Bozhko from Leviv is still attending classes with Angelina’s Zoom and is worried about who will rebuild the country after the war.
“She is a smart girl and I want someone like this to be here,” she said kindly. “It’s frustrating that we’ve lost a lot of students.” Of her 34 students in 11th grade, eight girls and ten boys plan to leave this year.
On the agenda of the Ministry of Education and Science (MOES) of Ukraine, the number of people responding to youth immigrants is high.
Yevhen Kudriavets, Ukraine’s first deputy minister for education and science, told the Telegraph that efforts to retain the country’s human capital will determine “whether we can survive, rebuild our economy and develop our country.”
Although there is no specific mechanism to capture the number of young women leaving Ukraine, various indicators indicate a sharp decline in the child population in Ukraine.
According to the United Nations, about 2.3 million Ukrainian refugees now live outside of Ukraine, most of them in Europe.
Birth rates in Ukraine are falling, and Moes statistics show that the number of students at schools has dropped by almost one-third since 2021.
“This trend will continue and by 2029, the number of first-year students will be reduced by 30%,” Mr Kudriavets said.
At least 701 children were killed and deported or deported.
Tito Boeri, professor of economics at Bocconi University and co-author of the 2022 study on Ukraine’s labor market, said Ukraine’s immigration problem is “very serious”.
“You can rebuild physical capital – it takes time, but it can still be done,” he told the Telegraph. “Rebuilding human capital is more challenging and may not actually succeed.”
Focusing on the future of the country, the Ukrainian government has made education a top priority for national defense.
In 2024, the national budget allocated 171.2 billion UAH (nearly £3.3 billion), one fifth higher than the previous year.
Much of this investment is aimed at school-level education, especially in establishing underground schools so that frontline children can still be taught in person.
But Moose is also making substantial investments in higher education. Last year, it introduced a state grant to help students pay for their bachelor’s degree studies in the country.
More than 13,000 students received grants of up to 32,000 UAH (£608) and support can continue to be requested every year.
In 2021, the World Bank awarded Ukraine US$200 million (£156 million) in five years to modernize teaching and research facilities in higher education. This includes merging and reducing the number of universities.
Mr Kudriavets said the funding is crucial to improving the competitiveness of the industry.
“The current network of HE institutions in Ukraine is designed for the former Soviet Union’s planned economy,” he said. “The reorganization must be consistent with the new economic and geopolitical realities.”
Data shows that the number of young women choosing to study abroad in Ukraine surges – Vitality Hrabar
The government’s efforts in education seem to have been at least a while.
Between 2021 and 2023, the total number of bachelor degree programs in Ukraine actually increased by almost one-fifth, from 203,452 to 239,008.
One reason for the rise is that changes in the country’s mobilization laws are to provide full-time male students with immunity for military recruitment.
Another factor is the financial benefits provided to military personnel, including tuition fees, free dormitory accommodation and textbooks, which encourage more school applications.
But in 2024, the number of students in the bachelor’s program dropped sharply by nearly 51,700 students. This is partly because more than one in 10 applicants fail the entrance exam, which raises concerns about the quality of education at the school level.
In addition to trying to encourage students to stay in Ukraine, Moes has also invested in career opportunities to attract Ukrainians to leave after studying abroad.
For example, it is developing a network of “science parks” to promote innovation and attract investment and job creation in the high-tech industry. The latest one opened in Kyiv last month.
Mr Kudriavets added that these efforts are at the same time that the ministry must also rebuild the bombing schools – 3,676 educational institutions have been damaged or destroyed since 2022.
He is confident that the government can be firm in the flow of immigration: “We can make Ukraine a country where young people see their future.”
Kira is undoubtedly not sure if she will return – Poland is the doorway to the rest of Europe.
But the war in Ukraine made her new normal uncertain.
“Life is so hard,” she sighed. “I don’t know what tomorrow will be.”
Learn more about Global health and safety
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive apps, currency savings and more, free 1 month of telegram.
