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Ukraine

Learning During Winter: Risk and Response

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Introduction and Background

Ukraine experiences severe winter. It affects many sectors including education. With the continuous massive infrastructural destruction, the war caused damaged to school, learning facilities, homes, and other critical infrastructure, including energy and heating systems, the most vulnerable people of Ukraine are at particular risk during winter. Many villages and towns close to the front line are cut off from heating, gas or water, leaving thousands of people at risk. Schooling and learning are impacted.

The Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG) facilitated Winter Response Plan prioritizes a few sectors. Complementing, the Education Cluster has come up with this guideline to facilitate learning during winter, especially the children affected by ongoing war.

An estimated 34 (1,245,669 out of 3,655,607) percentage of students from grades 1-12 are exposed to war-induced winter vulnerability in frontline and surrounded oblasts during the academic year of 2024-2025.

Ongoing educational activities can be utilized to mitigate the negative impact on learning and wellbeing of children. This note would be useful with specific actions related to winter to support the partners in a structural way of the collective response, regardless of source of funding emergency, recovery, or development.

War, winter, and their twin impact on children continue. The education system improves its resilience and agility. As Ukraine approaches its third winter since the escalation of the war in February 2022, increased attacks on energy infrastructure since the end of 2023 and throughout the first half of 2024 and sustained hostilities impacting schools in front line cities, towns and villages continue to inflict severe suffering on millions of people and affecting learning of their children.