Kyiv, October 31, 2024

On 24 October, the European Union symbolically handed 1100 textbooks on Arts and Informatics for 5th and 6th grade children to the Sofiyivsko-Borshchahivskyi lyceum, Kyiv Region.

One million textbooks on Arts and Informatics for 5th 6th grade children were made available in Poland for pick-up and distribution coordinated by the Ukrainian authorities. This batch has been delivered at the warehouse in Poland in summer 2024 and has been delivered to Poltava with the help of Plan International. Those textbooks have now been delivered to schools all over Ukraine.

The one million books follow the half a million textbooks on Ukrainian language for 5-th grade children that were already delivered to Ukraine in 2023.

Katarína Mathernová, EU Ambassador to Ukraine said: “I am proud to present Sofiyivsko-Borshchahivskyi Lyceum with 540 Arts and 560 Informatics textbooks—part of one million provided by the EU in response to Ukraine’s request. This initiative complements our ‘Together We Learn & Grow’ campaign, highlighting EU support for Ukrainian education and youth amid war. I wish students many hours of creative discovery in arts and computer science.”

Oksen Lisovyi, Minister of Education and Science highlighted “In 2022, due to the full-scale invasion of Russia, all the state funds that were intended for printing textbooks were redirected to the defense needs. In order to ensure access to knowledge for our students despite all the challenges of the war, the Ministry of Education and Science actively negotiated with international partners. And we are extremely grateful to the European Union and all partners for responding in such a difficult time for Ukraine”.

Zhanna Osypenko, Deputy Head of Kyiv Regional Administration said: "The help of the European Union with the printing of textbooks is extremely important for us. This support allowed the schoolchildren of Ukraine in general and Kyiv Region in particular to continue their education, despite the daily attacks of the Russian aggressor. We thank the European partners for the systemic support of Ukraine on education and many other areas.”

Background information

At the end of 2022 the Ukrainian government asked the Commission for support in making the textbooks on Ukrainian language for the 5th grade available to learners. The books were developed under the new Ukrainian curriculum but due to the war they were never made available to pupils.

In 2023 0.5 million textbooks on Ukrainian language for 5th grade children were printed and delivered. In 2024 the European Commission has printed and delivered 1 million textbooks on informatics and arts for 5th and 6th grade children. In 2023 the Commission received the Ministry of Education and Science request for books on arts and computer science. 1,000,000 books were printed in 2024 to respond to this request.

For additional information, please contact: [email protected] and [email protected]