Air raid alerts, learning in shelters, the consequences of distance education, and children’s stress: Andrii Yermachkov, an English teacher at Mykolaiv Gymnasium No. 20, explains what protecting a child’s right to education means today.
For children in Ukraine, the beginning of a new school year is about more than returning to lessons. In wartime, school becomes a space of safety, face-to-face communication, and support — a place where children can learn, develop as individuals, spend time with their peers, and feel that they are seen, valued, and respected.
Air raid alerts, forced displacement, the loss of homes, prolonged distance learning, and constant stress have become part of childhood for millions of Ukrainian children. The war has also changed the role of schools and teachers.
A Teacher’s Experience from Mykolaiv
Andrii Yermachkov, an English teacher at Mykolaiv Gymnasium No. 20 who has worked at the school for more than 20 years, spoke about what these changes look like from the inside at a human rights seminar held in Lviv this summer.
The seminar, dedicated to monitoring children’s rights in Ukraine, took place in Lviv in July 2026. It was organised by the Anti-Discrimination Centre “Memorial” Brussels and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. The event brought together professionals working in human rights, education, law, psychology, and social work with children and engaged in protecting children’s rights.
One of the seminar participants was Andrii Yermachkov. In his presentation, he spoke about how the war has changed children’s everyday lives, the school environment, and the role of teachers.
Mykolaiv Gymnasium No. 20 has also been affected by the war. Since 2022, children spent a prolonged period studying online, while returning to in-person education required, first and foremost, the creation of a safe shelter. Today, the gymnasium operates in person, but not all children in Mykolaiv have this opportunity: some schools continue to provide distance education.
Andrii stresses that online learning cannot fully replace school. Not all children have the necessary equipment or appropriate conditions for distance learning, while prolonged periods of online education have affected students’ learning outcomes.
Even after children return to their classrooms, education remains shaped by the reality of war. Andrii describes situations in which children have only just returned from a shelter and sat down at their desks when another air raid alert sounds. Everyone has to go back to the shelter, wait for the all-clear, and then return to the classroom.
Seeing the Child’s Experience Behind Their Behaviour
War enters the classroom not only through air raid sirens.
Andrii’s students include children from different regions of Ukraine, including those who have lost their homes and been forced to relocate. The stress they have experienced can manifest itself in different ways and may not always be obvious to those around them. A child, for example, may repeatedly tap a pencil during a lesson. The teacher’s task, Andrii says, is not to automatically interpret this as inattentiveness or bad behaviour, but to understand that the child’s emotional state may lie behind it.
This is why, in his view, the war has also changed what is required of teachers.
“For a teacher today, methodology is no longer the first priority — emotional intelligence is.”
Children spend a significant part of their time at school. The ability of adults to understand their emotions, respond to them, and create a positive environment is therefore becoming as important as academic skills.
A Place Children Want to Return To
At Andrii’s school, there is a large table with LEGO. Together, the children use the bricks to build their own Mykolaiv — the bus station, the railway station, and other familiar places around the city. It may seem like a simple activity, but Andrii sees how it helps children calm down, communicate, and once again feel connected to their city.
The children spend their breaks there, constantly building something new, and some, according to Andrii, did not even want to leave for the school holidays. For him, this is an important indication of how children feel at school.
He also talks about several students who were living abroad and joining lessons remotely. After seeing what learning at their school had become, they wanted to return to Ukraine.
For Andrii, school is also a place where children with very different life experiences meet. A teacher’s role is to help them connect rather than become isolated from one another, turning difficult situations into opportunities for communication, solidarity, and friendship.
The Right to Education Is About More Than Access to Lessons
At the beginning of a new school year, the experiences of children in Ukraine remind us that the right to education cannot be reduced simply to access to a textbook, a computer, or an online lesson.
Children need a safe place to learn. They need peers and face-to-face communication. They need adults who are able to notice how they are feeling and offer support. They need a space where, even during war, they can not only catch up on lost learning but also simply be children.
Andrii puts it much more simply. He explains that he tries to improve the school environment — creating new spaces, places to rest, and doing whatever is within his power — for one reason:
“So that when they come here, they can see that they are loved, valued, and respected.”
This 1 September, for children in Ukraine, returning to school means much more than returning to their desks. It means returning to an environment that can give them a sense of safety, belonging, and normality — and protect not only their right to education, but also their right to childhood.
Watch Andrii Yermachkov’s presentation at the ADC Memorial seminar in Lviv in the video (in Ukrainian, subtitles available).
The publication is created in the framework of the project “Documenting and analysing international crimes committed by the Russia’s armed forces after 24.02.2022, helping victims of these crimes and informing on crimes” implemented by Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Center for Civil Liberties and ADC Memorial Brussels, funded by the European Union.
