By Dr. Yevhen Kudriavets, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine
The 2026 GEM Report by UNESCO shows the extent to which conflict, attacks and insecurity set education back. More than one in six children worldwide live in conflict-affected areas, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Education in war-affected regions is always challenging, even when resources are available. Lessons are interrupted, schooling is forced online, learning losses accumulate, and some children even drop out.
Ukraine knows this from its own experience, having endured more than four years of full-scale Russian war. However, the country has not only maintained but continued developing its education, ensuring that no child or young person is left out of school, whether in frontline regions or abroad. Ukraine’s education policy is guided by the principle that ‘every learner is designed in’, and digital education tools have become a lifeline in making this possible.
This hard-won expertise must be shared. By offering its lessons in education in emergencies, Ukraine seeks to help other countries adopt similar solutions and reduce the time children are left without access to education during crises.
1. Digital learning centres: access to education even in the most dangerous areas
In frontline communities and high-risk zones, returning to in-person schooling remains temporarily impossible. Many children lack stable internet, electricity or a safe place to study.
To address this, Ukraine introduced Digital Learning Centres (DLCs), compact ‘mini-schools’ fully equipped with digital tools that also function as bomb shelters. Development partners quickly embraced this initiative. DLC is a cost-effective solution (around USD 70,000 to establish), while delivering impact comparable to rebuilding an entire school. For the primary restoration of educational access, it is exactly what is needed. Over 400 such centres operate across 17 regions.
2. Device coalition: ensuring no student is left offline
In regions where severe security conditions make in-person learning impossible, education can only be accessed online. However, not all families can afford the necessary devices. Ukraine addressed this by launching the Device Coalition, uniting numerous donors and technology giants, such as Google, HP and Apple. As a result, over 280,000 devices have been provided to students and teachers.
Sustainability is a key principle, as devices are transferred to schools and issued to students for temporary use, allowing the same device to serve multiple children over time.
3. When blackouts disrupt learning
Even with devices, access to education is not guaranteed. The Russian Federation’s ongoing targeting of critical energy infrastructure causes prolonged blackouts and disrupts internet connectivity.
As constant outages make synchronous learning (Zoom or Teams) impossible, Ukraine deployed the All-Ukrainian School Online and interactive textbook apps. These platforms allow students to download video lessons, tests and materials to study completely offline, ensuring uninterrupted access to the Ukrainian curriculum from anywhere.
4. Returning to safe in-person learning using a data-driven approach
Despite the success of digital solutions, Ukraine’s priority remains returning children to safe, in-person education. Building underground schools and shelters is central to this effort. Digital tools play a key role in this process as well. To identify the safest locations in frontline regions, the government partnered with Palantir to analyze educational and security data and develop a risk assessment methodology.
This data-driven approach ensures sites are both safe and accessible to the most children, optimizes state budget use, and guides donors toward the most impactful investments. Thanks to this strategy, over 100 underground schools have been built, with more than 200 planned by the end of 2026.
5. Averting a lost generation: the assessment crisis
With the onset of full-scale war, conducting traditional paper-based graduation examinations became dangerous and impossible, as millions of students were displaced internally or abroad. Canceling examinations entirely would have risked the collapse of the higher education system.
To address this, Ukraine developed the National Multi-Subject Test on a secure, cloud-based platform and held in Temporary Examination Centres, equipped with bomb shelters, synchronously across Ukraine and in dozens of partner locations in Europe, the United States, and Canada. This digital solution preserved a transparent admissions process and maintained the critical ‘school-to-university’ pathway for hundreds of thousands of students, regardless of where they were displaced.
Digital solutions in education can be a game-changer for ensuring access in emergencies. Ukraine has developed these solutions and is ready to share its expertise, ensuring that, no matter the crisis, every child’s right to learn is preserved.
The post Every learner should be designed into policies: Ukraine’s digital solutions for access to education in emergencies appeared first on World Education Blog.
