Safe educational environment during wartime: The Fund of the President of Ukraine and partners presented a comprehensive security model for schools

On 26 November 2025, the Partnership Forum ‘Safe Educational Environment in Wartime: Policies and Practices’ was held in Kyiv. The event was organized by the UNESCO Office in Ukraine in cooperation with the Fund of the President of Ukraine for Education, Science, and Sports, as well as the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. It served as a platform for presenting the results of a two-year pilot project. This project is changing approaches to safety in Ukrainian educational institutions.

The event brought together government leaders, international partners, education administrators, experts, and community representatives around a key topic: how to protect education and ensure safety for children and teachers, even in frontline regions.

Ensuring uninterrupted access to education and returning children to face-to-face learning is a strategic priority for the state. After all, in wartime, schools become not just a place to acquire knowledge but a centre of stability, socialisation, and psychological support.

From pilot to national policy

Forum participants discussed the results of implementing a comprehensive model for a safe educational environment. The project was implemented in 2023–2024 in 12 communities in the Zhytomyr and Odesa regions. It covered 244 educational institutions, over 38,000 children, and 7,400 educators.

The model, developed at the request of the state, is based on three key components: physical security (construction of shelters, technical equipment), psychological resilience (supervision for specialists, training in self-regulation skills), and institutional capacity (algorithms for action in emergencies).

A key element of the programme was the panel discussion ‘Security Policy in Education: National Solutions for Systemic Change’, moderated by Olga Budnyk, Advisor-Commissioner to the President of Ukraine on the Fund of the President of Ukraine for Education, Science, and Sports. The Fund’s special role is to coordinate partners, shape a vision, and implement innovative solutions for safe learning.

“A safe educational environment is not about separate infrastructure or procedures. It is about interaction, responsibility, and the ability of each community, teachers, police, rescuers, and medics to act together in difficult conditions. Today, we are presenting not just theoretical developments, but a model that has been tested in reality: transparent, predictable, and viable. We are creating a new educational culture—where safety, support, and care are as important as knowledge. Our goal is to scale this model across the country so that it becomes the standard for every Ukrainian school,” said Olga Budnyk.

Innovative solutions for protecting children

During the Forum, special attention was paid to practical tools that have already proven their effectiveness. These include:

• Creation of 350 interagency response teams.
• Introducing a new role in communities—an educational environment safety specialist who coordinates interaction between schools, the police, and the State Emergency Service.
• Conducting simulation training for educators using realistic evacuation and threat response scenarios.

The forum served as a platform for strategic dialogue between government officials, communities, and international partners. Participants agreed on further steps to scale up the model to the national level in order to ensure that every Ukrainian child has the right to quality and safe education, even in conditions of martial law.

Event organisers: UNESCO Office in Ukraine with the support of the Government of Japan and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), in cooperation with the Fund of the President of Ukraine for Education, Science, and Sports, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.