Educational Losses of Pupils during the War: Essence, Diagnostics and Ways of Overcoming

Abstract

The article proves the relevance of the problem of studying educational losses of students in Ukraine caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war. It has been established that educational losses can have a negative impact on the development of the individual and on the development of society in the future; they have a cumulative effect. The essence of the concept of “learning losses” is clarified, which is understood as any loss of knowledge, abilities, skills, etc., or their lack of acquisition and/or slowing down or stopping of academic progress due to pauses in the education of a particular student. The author summarized the results of analytical reports and scientific publications on the educational losses of students. It was found that the primary task for the education system is to carry out a qualitative diagnosis of the success of students at various levels of education in basic academic subjects in order to identify gaps in knowledge and skills.
 Based on the analysis of publications on the problem of overcoming learning losses, measures are described that will help solve this problem. Among them: sophomore year; studying during vacations; tutoring at state expense; creation of integration classes; revision and adaptation of educational programs; development of additional content on key educational topics; development of additional high-quality educational content, focused on topics that need to be covered; methodical training of teachers to work with students who have learning disabilities; strengthening of school autonomy and cooperation of teachers. It was found out that not only state institutions, but also non-state institutions take care of issues of overcoming educational losses. In particular, free online classes (academic tutoring in small groups) have been developed for 
students in grades 5–10 (the project is called “Educational Soup”). The project “Staying with Ukraine” from the NGO “Smart Education” gives students of grades 5–11 who are abroad the opportunity to keep in touch with Ukraine and its education system. In several regions of Ukraine, the “Catch up classes” program for making up for educational losses has begun to operate. The international organization War Child Holland and the public union “Osvitoria” in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine have developed a mobile application “I study – 
not waiting” for interactive training of elementary school students in mathematics and reading.
 Along with solving the issue of overcoming the educational losses of students, the issue of psychological support of students and teachers needs attention, as evidenced by research conducted in our country and international experience.