On May 19, 2023, the All-Ukrainian Out-of-School Forum “Out-of-School: Safe Educational Space” took place in Kyiv. The event was held at the National Ecological and Naturalistic Center for Student Youth of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The forum was attended by heads of out-of-school education institutions, researchers, scientific and pedagogical staff of educational institutions, employees of educational authorities of territorial communities and military-civilian administrations, educational institutions and other stakeholders and educators who are currently outside Ukraine.

The main issues discussed at the forum were:

• project proposals and strategic anti-crisis steps to develop out-of-school education;
• out-of-school education: post-war recovery and development;
• out-of-school educational institution as a safe space for children;
• best Ukrainian and international practices in organizing extracurricular activities.

At the beginning of the event, Volodymyr Verbytskyi, Chairman of the Union of Educators of Ukraine, Director of the National Ecological and Naturalistic Center for Student Youth of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of Higher Education, and Vadym Ovcharenko, Head of the Department of Out-of-School Education and Educational Work of the Directorate of Preschool, School, Out-of-School and Inclusive Education of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor, welcomed the audience. Among the main speakers of the forum were representatives of the State Service of Education Quality of Ukraine, the Institute of Digitalization of Education of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine, the Institute of Problems on Education of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine, the Institute of Education Content Modernization, and others. From the SSI “Institute of Educational Analytics”, the event was attended by Nataliia Tytarenko, Head of the Preschool, General Secondary and Out-of-School Education Sector of the Department of Educational Statistics and Analytics.

In her presentation “Out-of-school education in Ukraine: statistics of functioning” Nataliia Tytarenko presented operational statistics on the activities of out-of-school education institutions) under martial law in Ukraine and its regions over the past six months. In particular, she gave data on out-of-school educational institutions that operate by organizing education in various forms (offline, online and mixed); the number of teachers and students in out-of-school education; the number of out-of-school educational institutions that provide educational services to internally displaced persons, the number of these persons, etc.

The event ended with an action within the framework of the national program of the President of Ukraine “Green Country”, namely the memorable planting of a willow alley in the territory of the dendropark “Yunnativsky” of the National Ecological and Naturalistic Center for Student Youth of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

The Program of the All-Ukrainian Out-of-School Forum “Out-of-School: Safe Educational Space” is available here.

Photo by he National Ecological and Naturalistic Center for Student Youth of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.