Teaching through a blackout
An online school year assumes electricity and internet. In the winter of 2022 Ukraine had neither reliably, and the education system had to be redesigned around outage schedules within weeks.
The online school system that had carried the year assumed two things: electricity and an internet connection. In the winter of 2022 neither could be assumed for more than a few hours at a time.
So it was redesigned, quickly and without much ceremony. Lessons were shortened and rescheduled around published outage timetables. Materials were made downloadable so a child could work offline and upload later. Teachers recorded lessons instead of holding them live. Where a school had a generator and a satellite terminal, it became a place children could come to connect.
What partners contributed
Generators, power banks, laptops, tablets and satellite connectivity, along with funding for shelter completion so more schools could hold classes in person when the power was on.
I have three observations from that winter and this is one of them: the school year did not stop. Not for a week. Whatever else can be said about that period, the education system did not concede.
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