How the year of the great war affected the online education of Ukrainians – insights and figures
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On the morning of February 24, when the whole country was just waking up to a massive attack by the enemy, Prometheus received a new payment from a listener who had registered for a marketing course. This was imprinted in the memory and became for the team a symbol of the Ukrainians’ deep faith in victory and willingness to learn even in the most extreme conditions. As it turned out over the next year, the full-scale war not only did not dampen Ukrainians’ thirst for education, but led to a significant surge in online education. About the collapse of activity in the first month On the very first day of the full-scale war, the number of active Prometheus listeners collapsed five times. Activity began to resume only at the end of March. But despite the chaos and unpredictability of that period, thousands of people continued to study on the platform. Some of the listeners wrote that they needed critical psychological or medical first aid knowledge in this situation, some used the training to calm themselves and their loved ones. About growth and a surge in activity Preparing for various scenarios in the event of a full-scale war, we expected that the demand for education would not resume until the fall. But already in April, the number of active users of the platform exceeded the pre-war indicator. To answer the listeners’ request, Prometheus together with partners quickly launched free relevant wartime courses: Basic Psychological Aid in Wartime, First Pre-Medical Aid in Wartime, Information Hygiene in Wartime, What an Internally Displaced Person Needs to Know, How to Survive War Together: course for families of military servicemen, veterans, self-therapist. Psychological self-help tools for veterans, etc. At the same time, we started launching various closed and open courses for the Armed Forces: Application of technologies in war conditions (UAVs) from the Center for Aerial Intelligence, Basics of tactics for using DJI Matrice 300 copters in combat conditions from the “Return Alive” Foundation, Base: modern military training from the Center for Special ASKOLD training – all these courses were and continue to be extremely relevant both for the civilian population and for the military. Over the past year, we have recorded another unexpected trend – an increase in the percentage of successful completion of courses. If before the war it was about 16% on free courses, then during the great war it increased to 23%. This is truly an amazing wartime phenomenon. About international grants and new opportunities Russian aggression led to an increase in the activity of international donors who wanted to support the Ukrainian people. So, scholarship programs for Ukrainians on Prometheus were launched by Google.org and INCO, USAID, WNISEF, Nova Ukraine, thanks to which 5,000 Ukrainians affected by the war got the opportunity to upgrade their skills for free in programs with personalized mentoring, learn new in-demand professions and get international certificates. Since the start of the full-scale war, 350 military personnel, veterans, and their family members have benefited from various scholarship programs at Prometheus. About educational requests during the war The two most popular educational requests of Ukrainians on the platform now are IT and wartime courses. The first direction was popular even before the war, and now this trend has only intensified. Courses in the basics of programming, manual and automated testing/QA, UX/UI, Front-end, Java, working with Linux, Git, Kubernetes, etc. are an opportunity to get a new high-paying and in-demand profession in the economic crisis. Business skills and starting startups are also popular topics – Ukrainians are reviving entrepreneurial activity and want to learn new things. Free English language courses are no less relevant. Obviously, English courses are more relevant for Ukrainians who were forced to go abroad, and wartime skills for those who remained in the country. About external migration and the disappearance of the Russian Federation from the educational map According to our statistics, before the great invasion, 95% of the listeners of the platform were in Ukraine and only 5% were abroad. Currently, the situation has changed: 80% of Prometheus listeners are in Ukraine and 20% are abroad. As you can see, approximately 15% of the audience was forced to leave abroad. The list of countries from which our students study has also changed significantly. With the beginning of the Great War, Poland, Germany, the USA, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and France followed Ukraine in terms of the number of listeners. It is interesting that until February 24th there were listeners from Russia in the fourth place after Ukraine, the United States and Poland – and this despite the fact that Prometheus courses are taught in Ukrainian, the platform has never been advertised outside of Ukraine, and our team since 2014 has occupied the most rigid position regarding the country of the aggressor (and, at one time, was banned by the educational department of the so-called “DNR”). Apparently, these listeners were Ukrainians who worked in the Russian Federation, but continued to study in their native language. After a full-scale invasion, this quickly dropped to zero – even before we had time to block all visitors from Russia. About the insights of internal geography The demographic processes in the country can be followed on the map of our wartime listeners. Thus, the prevailing cities before the full-scale invasion were Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia. Now, of course, Kyiv and Lviv have strengthened their leadership. We also see a significant increase in activity in other cities of the center and west of Ukraine, where forced migrants are sent. Instead, we observe a drop in activity in Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhia and other frontline cities. It is especially poignant to observe the geography of our listeners. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, people continued to study in the territories where active hostilities were taking place and which were under temporary occupation – Mariupol, Kherson, Kharkiv, towns of the Kyiv region – Bucha, Gostomel, Irpin. It is also worth emphasizing that we are observing important activity in the occupied territories even now. Since the beginning of 2023 only, 18 thousand listeners from Donetsk and about 7 thousand listeners from Mariupol, thousands of users from Crimea and the temporarily occupied Luhansk region are studying at Prometheus. Even in the face of all the dangers of the brutal occupation, Ukrainians continue to massively learn their native language online – this cannot but cause deep respect and admiration. Ivan Prymachenko, founder of Prometheus online university, specially for UP.Life Publications in the “View” section are not editorial articles and reflect the author’s point of view exclusively
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