Attachments
Executive Summary
The education of millions of school aged children from Ukraine has been significantly impacted since the escalation of the conflict in February 2022. Across Ukraine access to education is becoming increasingly challenging. Face to face learning is nearly impossible and online learning is being constantly disrupted due to missile strikes and resulting power, internet and heating outages and teachers and students needing to take shelter.
In the last 3 months of 2022, it is estimated that at least half of all online classes were cancelled. By the end of January 2023, 2631 education facilities had been damaged and 420 destroyed. Significant reductions in learning outcomes are expected for Ukrainian students and children of all aged groups are facing challenges caused by a lack of structure in education.
In host countries Moldova, Poland and Romania where Plan International and its partners are working, school attendance by displaced children remains extremely low, despite national governments opening their schools to children from Ukraine. Among the many challenges are the language barriers, differences in curriculum and the limited capacity of host country teachers. In Moldova, Poland and Romania, the vast majority of school-aged children from Ukraine are assumed to be engaging in the online learning platforms being provided by Ukrainian education authorities.
Education actors in host countries are however increasingly concerned by the inconsistent tracking and limited available data on school-aged children from Ukraine who are meant to be participating in online-learning platforms. There are educational, behavioural, protection and integration risks associated with having a large cohort of students who are hard to reach, do not speak the local language and whose daily participation in online learning is near impossible to verify. Education actors are adamant that online learning is not a sustainable or long-term solution given the losses to learning outcomes and associated risks to the students and to the host communities. The longer the displacement continues, the more the integration and social cohesion concerns will grow.
Across the whole humanitarian response other key gaps in programming include: limited targeted programming for children with disabilities; minimal outreach to Roma children who face heightened barriers accessing education and discrimination; acute shortages in free or affordable childcare for both children from host communities and from Ukraine; dedicated programming for adolescents and youth; and inconsistent intersectional gender analysis and the collection of sex and age disaggregated data to track whether boys and girls are participating equally in education opportunities. Informal educational activities targeting displaced adolescents are mostly gender blind.