Rob Ford, CEO & Director of Heritage International Schools-Moldova, reflects on the situation in Ukraine, two years on from the invasion.
Students always know how to throw a simple good curveball question, even at the very best.
'...students know missile and drone attack drills like they know fire drills'.
How do schools keep going in Ukraine after two years of war?” a young student asked Anna Azarova, director of communications ot the British International School Ukraine (BISU).
I looked at Anna, wondering what she would say as we stood in a Liverpool classroom, on a cold but sunny day in January 2024, staring out at the historic skyline all the way to the Mersey.
Anna explained to the class the absolute necessity of education in Ukraine right now, the daily struggle for basics such as teachers and how the school community had kept going despite being in the middle of the worst war in Europe since 1945.
"Anna explained the daily struggle for basics."
She talked about how the daily air raid alarms are now normal; students know missile and drone attack drills like they know fire drills. She talked about how lessons continued in the bomb shelters. Learning, along with hope, is very much kept alive, online, in person, not just for BISU but across Ukraine for children in all schools.
She emphasised how global partnerships are vital to keep BISU, Kyiv, Dnipro and Ukraine connected to the wider, global society and education community.
"These global partnerships keep the certainty of education alive in uncertain times."
Brilliant international partners like COBIS, and the COBIS Black Sea Schools group, the British Council, TES, ISMP and Global School Alliance, have been supporting BISU and other schools in Ukraine, over the course of a brutal war that has brought out the very best of our international education community.
Global Schools Alliance and John Rolfe MBE, its schools manager, had invited both Anna and myself to Liverpool to celebrate the music partnership between BISU and Liverpool Life Sciences UTC, commemorating the Eurovision song contest held there. Anna thanked the girls who had sung a Ukrainian song and brought the world and joy into the classrooms of Kyiv and Dnipro.
These global partnerships and connections to the wider world using international education are vital to keep the certainty of education alive in uncertain times. Making sense of a senseless but destructive, ugly war that has defined our decade and probably decades to come in Europe.
Since that infamous date of the 24th February, 2022, UNICEF Moldova states that over 40 per cent of the population of Ukraine, around 16 million people, have become refugees in Europe and elsewhere. In Moldova two years ago, as my colleagues heard the cruise missiles hit Odesa just over the border on their way to work, the “small country with the big heart” opened its borders immediately.
Everyone from the student councils of Heritage to UNHCR Moldova welcomed families carrying what they could,.
"Children are scared, traumatised, not knowing what will happen next."
Children are scared, traumatised, not knowing what will happen next. Anna spoke to the students in Liverpool about the unimaginable events students had experienced in the horrors of war in Irpen and Bucha, near Kyiv. The class listened in silence. Anna spoke to me about what is going to be needed to heal children of this generation.
It's not just about Ukraine. In the international education community we have countless examples of how the wars and conflicts of the 2020s, happening now from Gaza to Yemen to Sudan, don't make the headlines.
In Moldova, we have seen our country and trajectory transformed these two years. At the historical crossroads of Eastern Europe, we know the defenders on the front line of the east bank of the River Dnieper in Kherson are protecting us too.
We have held Founders’ Lectures to enable children to listen to experts about the history and geopolitics of Eastern Europe. And my skills as a politics teacher were even put to good use as I gave assemblies to the schools of BISU in November for Democracy Day.
"Eastern Europe has come of age, especially in this corner of it."
In December 2023, the EU gave the green light to both Ukraine and Moldova to begin accession negotiations. This would not have happened before 22nd February 2022. At Heritage, we have been working with the new minister of education and his team, to support the modernisation of education and align with European and international models. Eastern Europe has come of age, especially in this corner of it. There is plenty of hope - after two years of war- for the future.
Some of the refugees in Moldova have gone back to Ukraine and a lot have stayed. The future is uncertain but there is little prospect of an end in sight right now.
Anna finished her talk by telling the class that Ukraine is fighting for survival and victory. There is no other choice for her country, or for Moldova, and in fact for Eastern Europe. We all hope though, that this senseless war doesn’t finish a third year and there is a real peace soon for the children and people of Ukraine.
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