Urban Bureau Director Names Big Disadvantage of Underground Schools in Ukraine

Director of the Urban Bureau Viktoriya Titova told why underground schools cannot become a full-fledged space for education. According to her, only one classroom needs a minimum of 2.5 meters for each pupil, while schools need canteens and gyms for all lessons.

Titova said this in an interview with LB live. She emphasized that such educational institutions will not be as comfortable as schools above ground. So, according to her, it is not possible to conduct offline education in all regions.

"For such places - this is probably the only answer: either online or take the children out of there. Here every parents make their own decisions. Or make schools underground. But, of course, we must realize that they are unlikely to be as comfortable as schools above ground. So the 2.5 square meters I'm talking about are only classrooms. If we add a canteen, gymnasium and all other things, I don't really see that as the future right now," the Urban Head said.

She noted that a classroom should have about 2.5 meters per child to be sufficient for learning. A shelter under the old norms suggests 0.45 square meters, while the current norms suggest 1.5. She said shelters already have to be three times larger, which changes their cost in the same proportion. Counting on the required 2.5 meters would be an even larger structure that would require more funding.

According to Titova, in some regions of Ukraine it is impossible to resume offline schooling, because even if there is a shelter, children will not have time to get down to it. In particular, this applies to those regions that are directly near the Russian border or front line like Zaporizhzhya, where explosions are possible first, and then air alert notifications.

"Previously, when we were selecting pilots, we focused on a 40-kilometer zone. It was impossible to pick up a pilot who is closer than 40 km to the front line or to the border, because this is the distance that the artillery is reaching. There is no way to resume training in Zaporozhye. "Even if you have a shelter, because the child will not have time to go down into it. For children it is of course impossible to even imagine such a situation," said the director of the office.

We will remind, earlier it became known that five schools affected by hostilities during the full-scale invasion of Russia against Ukraine will be transformed. The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine noted that the educational institutions should work already from the fall of 2024. According to the organizers of the transformation, the new buildings will be "without a Soviet flavor" and will have new space. To change schools, in particular, will be and on the projects of urban-bureau, which emphasize safety, barrier-free and diversity of the school territory.

Earlier OBOZ.UA told that the former head of the Ministry of Education criticized the "metro school" in Kharkiv, according to her, the most terrible figures ahead.

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