Ahead of the Education Policymakers Network's first in-person meeting, Salzburg Global Fellow Oksana Savytska reflected on the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Education can be a silent victim of war and conflict. Amid the need to protect and defend national sovereignty, the education system is faced with its own challenges. Educators and students alike must contend with the destruction of infrastructure, disruption of the school calendar, and the psychological trauma of war. How does a country’s education system navigate through war? And when it ends, what is the best way to rebuild it?
For Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science, these are no longer abstract questions but a harsh reality. Two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country’s education system has suffered from military attacks, the immeasurable loss of life, and the approximate 5.2 million people who have fled as refugees.
Oksana Savytska is a member of Salzburg Global Seminar’s Education Policymakers Network and a state expert with Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science, working specifically on pre-school education and psychological support. For her, Ukraine’s education system faces four major challenges: the destruction of educational infrastructure; the complete loss of or limited access to the Internet; the retention and payment of teachers in areas where teaching has stopped completely, and ensuring that students can graduate to the next grade of their curriculum.
As Savytska explains: “The system of preschool education requires radical restructuring. These children are deprived of the possibility of full development. Conservative solutions should be replaced by flexible and adaptive options that do not require significant resource costs. After all, we have no right to lose this important period of sensory development of the child if we want to have a well-considered future generation.”
The present focus is largely on addressing immediate concerns, with more than 900 educational facilities being destroyed or damaged and an estimated three million children requiring humanitarian assistance. But even now, the Ministry is looking towards post-war reconstruction and transformation of education in Ukraine. A significant area will be teacher training.
“The emphasis in this training will shift to the methodical readiness of the teacher to accompany the child, psychological competence to maintain contact with the child, and motivate them to study,” says Savytska. There’s also the integration of out-of-school education into the classroom. This move will not only improve the use of physical infrastructure, it will also encourage comprehensive learning and development for children and adolescents.
Key to the comprehensive development of these students is social and emotional learning. In addition to addressing current disruptions to teaching, Ukraine’s education sector will also be part of a larger national post-war healing, teaching students the emotional frameworks and tools necessary to navigate trauma.
“There are children who have received significant psychological trauma. There should be a system of training and support of educators to preserve and maintain their psychological well-being, as well as to support children,” Savytska explains. Although Savytska couldn’t attend the first in-person program, she will continue to contribute to and benefit from its network and bring those inputs to her work in the interventions for Ukrainian children and teachers.
This article featured in Issue 1 of the Breadth of Skills: Education Transformation program newsletter. Download and read the full issue.
