In Ukraine, students’ lives and studies have been upended by the war. The country recently joined GPE, signaling that education remains a priority despite tremendously difficult circumstances.
The war in Ukraine has devastated the lives of families and children and brought massive destruction to vital infrastructure. Since the start of the conflict, all aspects of life in Ukraine – including education - have dramatically changed.
Nearly 7 million people were internally displaced as of November 2022, and as of January 2023 it is estimated that 7.9 million people – around 18 percent of the total population – have fled the country.
Schools should be places of routine and stability for children. But as of early January 2023, 2,618 schools have been damaged and 413 have been totally destroyed, creating an additional challenge for many children and youth.
“There were more than 20,000 children who left Rivne Oblast to study in other countries, and about 1,000 teachers left Ukraine. A significant part of children – we can say their overwhelming majority – joined the educational process online. It is very important that teachers were also allowed to organize the educational process remotely, from anywhere, including from abroad.”
Around 6 million Ukrainian school children all face their own unique challenges. Those who have fled have been forced to quickly assimilate into other school systems.
Those who have remained have been confronted with a shortage of classrooms, a lack of security and power outages that disrupt their learning, putting their future at risk.
“The air raid started, so our whole school went down to the shelter. We are here until the end of the air raid.”
The continued power shortages throughout Ukraine have left 10 million families without consistent electricity or stable internet connections, adding yet another layer of difficulty to remote learning.
Despite this, teachers and students in Ukraine are determined to overcome these challenges using existing digital solutions, independent work and, for those who can still go to school, revert to the traditional chalk and blackboard.
“I live in this district and the electricity is cut off here very often, and I go to my friend's place. Her electricity is cut off less often than ours.”
The Paskov family was forced to move from Luhansk to Kharkiv in 2014 and then to Rivne in 2022. Bohdan Paskov is just one of the 2,000 students who has been assigned to the general secondary education institutions in Rivne.
Bohdan now studies through online learning, often using digital platforms such as Zoom and Google Classroom where he engages in a range of lessons, including music and physical education.
The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is working in close coordination with humanitarian and development partners, including the private sector, to offer expertise and financial support to address the most pressing education needs in the country.
In November 2022, Ukraine joined GPE, enabling the country to access US$43 million in grants to achieve the education priorities set out by the government. These include continued psychosocial support to children and educators, professional development of all teachers and building the digital education ecosystem.
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