Doha, Qatar: A Qatar-led education package has benefitted 6000 Polish and Ukrainian students. The Innovations Development Directorate at Education Above All (EAA) Foundation created the Ukraine Emergency Education Packages (UERP) and introduced in 100 Polish schools, according to a recent report.
The ‘Refugee Education Is Not Just For Refugees’ report published by World Innovation Summit for Education, Qatar Foundation’s global education initiative says that UERP, a six-month-long package includes project-based learning for 6 to 15-year-old Ukrainian and Polish learners. It is designed to foster emotional behaviours and attitudes as well as academic concepts of learners and host communities.
“Our programme resulted in a 95% satisfaction rate (including learners signing a petition to extend the programme) and contributed to 50% academic learning and growth from the baseline to end line,” says the report authored by Janhvi M Kanoria Director and Innovations Development and Aishwarya Shetty, Education Specialist at EAA Foundation.
Positive Education Institute, an independent NGO and has worked with EAA Foundation as a local partner in Poland. Positive Education Institute has customised and translated UERP’s open-source content, co-developed the monitoring and evaluation tools, co-designed the teacher training modules, and took ownership of the project’s implementation and design.
According to data, over 200,000 Ukrainian children reported feelings of alienation, stress, and language barriers when transitioning to new Polish schools.
Through EAA’s UERP, Polish and Ukrainian children work in small groups on projects that aim to represent, respect, and appreciate each other’s cultures.
“We also celebrated linguistic diversity, while appreciating the challenges in facilitating bilingual instruction in classrooms. UERP was available in both Ukrainian and Polish. Children used visuals and keywords in the modules to learn key phrases in each other’s languages. Activities were built into projects that encourage children to appreciate the similarities and differences in their languages too,” says the report.
Through assessments, EAA Foundation has found that the cultural contexts and the ongoing war prevented parents from engaging in socio-emotional activities with their children. Therefore it has developed a collection of bedtime stories to read together to promote deeper connections.
EAA’s UERP has offered tailored materials to support children, and teachers were given the necessary tools to help learners. Over 280 teachers were included in educator training to promote inclusivity in the classrooms.
Commenting on the need to continue providing education to refugee children, authors of the ‘Refugee Education Is Not Just For Refugees’ said, “Today, we have 37 million children displaced worldwide, the highest number ever recorded. The primary agenda of the international community is meeting their immediate needs, along with access to education.
“However, our work does not stop at access – it is only the first step in the refugee child’s school journey. It is time we think of the opportunity to expand refugee education to include and empower all the primary stakeholders to make it truly inclusive and effective.”
