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Meeting with Minister of Education and Science Hanna Novosad and the Education Cluster at UNICEF: distance learning and the “Donbas-Ukraine” ECs are a priority

The Open Policy Foundation continues to advocate for the “Donbas-Ukraine” Education Centres, distance learning and reopening the national hotline. On November 17, 2019, the Ukraine Education Cluster team met with Minister of Education and Science Hanna Novosad. They discussed the issues related to the next steps following joining the Safe School Declaration and the scope of assistance regarding education in Eastern Ukraine.

International partners, MoES directors, and the Open Policy Foundation, which is the national partner of the Cluster, attended the meeting.

The Minister stressed the importance of assisting distance learning. She also supported the position of Iryna Zhdanova on the inclusion of the “Donbas-Ukraine” Education Centres in the UEC Strategy, the Humanitarian Response Plan.

The discussion was continued during the UEC meeting at UNICEF on November 18.

Iryna Zhdanova reiterated the importance of adhering to the agreements and considering the position of the Ministry of Education and Science.

You can find more information about this in a blog at Lb.ua

An English translation of the blog is available at

UKR:  https://ukr.lb.ua/blog/irina_zhdanova/442743_pro_rozbudovu_mostiv_shodi_abo_chi.html 

ENG:

About building bridges in the East, or can education wait?

I decided to post short blogs about how the educational needs formation mechanism works and activities for residents from the non-government controlled area (hereinafter - NGCA) are planned. This means, how humanitarian assistance, allocated by donors to provide the educational needs of citizens affected by the military conflict, is used. The Open Policy Foundation is an active participant in the Ukraine Education Cluster and a partner of UNICEF. Of course, the national partner - an NGO - has no mandate to make decisions. But to inform - yes.

Iryna Zhdanova, Director General of the NGO “Open Policy Foundation”, a participant in the 42nd session of the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts (IPCC), PhD in History.

On November 17, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (hereinafter - MoES) held a meeting between the Ukraine Education Cluster team and Minister of Education and Science Hanna Novosad. She emphasized the inclusion of distance learning and the “Donbas-Ukraine” Education Centers in a strategy and plan for humanitarian assistance in the East.

Yesterday, on November 18, a meeting of the Ukraine Education Cluster (hereinafter - UEC) took place at UNICEF. The UEC participants discussed what kind of the educational needs of residents from non-government controlled areas were included in the UEC Strategy, the Humanitarian Needs Overview, and the Humanitarian Response Plan 2020, as well as in a project submitted by UEC to the Education Cannot Wait for funding.

As we usually do not receive minutes of UEC meetings, I would like to describe, in brief, a discussion of two issues, distance learning and the “Donbas-Ukraine” Education Centers, that we have been advocating for 4 years.

Distance learning

The UEC coordinators assured that the issue of distance learning for residents from NGCA will also be more clearly written in the above-mentioned documents. Among other things, there is the training of school educators that provide distance learning services for students from NGCA (including digital skills).

The “Donbas-Ukraine” Education Centers 

The UEC coordinators announced that the needs of the Education Centers and distance learning for NGCAs of Ukraine will be included in annexes to the Education Cluster Strategy 2019-2020. In December, there is a proposition to conduct a separate meeting and brainstorming regarding this issue. According to a representative of @United Nations OCHA Ukraine, who participated in this meeting, as of November 19, we still have an opportunity to include these needs in the following documents of 2020: the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). I would like to remind that their inclusion gives the chance to get financing from millions of dollars of humanitarian funds provided to Ukraine through the UN system.

I call upon @Ministry of Education and Science, @Valeria Izhik, @Lubov Shchitka, and @Oleh Sharov to monitor the implementation of these agreements.

An information campaign, a national education hotline for conflict-affected citizens

I would like to remind that the hotline supported by UNICEF has worked at the Open Policy Foundation for 4 years. Over 6.5 thousand calls were received from the East; 1.5 thousand calls were made from the Crimea. For the period of an admission campaign, the hotline worked annually at MoES. A record number of calls were made this year - three times more than last year. With the support of USAID, we have opened this year regional hotlines in Kramatorsk and Sieverodonetsk, which are now funded by regional state administrations. Moreover, the special website, Dostupna Osvita, provides consulting services, which contains all step-by-step instructions, a Google map of the Education Centers and schools with distance learning. We have also lessons in preparing for IEE. They are not only free but do not also require registration. This is especially important for these territories. In addition, the Foundation's national information campaign covered annually more than 500,000 citizens from different regions of Ukraine, including tens of thousands of citizens from NGCA.

Of course, this work cannot be done endlessly with the support of donors. The Government should ensure that this work continues. At the same time, there must be an exit strategy, a bridge, a transition period for MoES to fully assume responsibility for funding and developing a model for providing this service in regions. This must be done in coordination and with technical support of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports. Our position: it is necessary to conduct a tender among NGOs, business entities to obtain funding from the state and/or local budget for the provision of this service. We are ready to pilot this model, to teach, share experience, transfer all methodical materials, smartphones. And it is important here to have communications, negotiations, the Cluster assistance in the transition phase.

Furthermore, it is important to have coordination between MoES, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, the State Border Service and others. This was, in fact, absent in previous years. That is why I proposed to set up an Intergovernmental Working Group. I hand over an analytical note with justification.

What risks do we have? If we immediately cease all this work, we in fact cut off communications with most of the students and graduates from NGCA. According to the UEC reports, this year there are already 120,000 graduates in NGCA who have education certificates that are not recognized by Ukraine and other countries. What kind of ways out do they have? Continue education in so-called L-DNR or in the Russian Federation. I would like to emphasize that neither passports nor education documents issued by the Russian Federation to the residents of NGCA are legitimate even in Russia. Thus the abyss with Ukraine is growing. The number of those who have unrecognized documents is increasing.

Communication issues

The issues of needs for the development of distance learning and the Education Centers, as well as the risks of closing the national hotline, were not also announced on November 17 at the meeting with the Minister, but much earlier.

We have been emphasizing this since the beginning of work on the Strategy (spring 2019). And we justified it by the statistics: the increase in the number of students involved in distance learning and those who have used the simplified procedure to enter universities/colleges/vocation schools through the Education Centers.

At the request of OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), on September 1, the Open Policy Foundation also conducted in September a detailed review of appeals to our hotline. After the end of the hotline financing, our consultants already counted 6,500 calls to analyze the most frequently asked questions. We did it! However, this did not affect as an argument ... I would remind that evidence is an important component of planning.

Frequently asked questions of citizens from NGCA, CL to the hotline from 2017 to 2019

55% - the simplified admission procedure

27% - distance learning

8% - duplication of education documents

10% - other questions

The weight of appeals on the simplified procedure and distance learning is growing most dynamically.

Questions on the simplified procedure to the Open Policy Foundation’s hotline from 2017 to 2019

You can find more information at the Dostupna Osvita site  https://dostupnaosvita.com.ua/ 

Source:  http://openpolicy.org.ua/donbass-crimea/news/351/ 

Moreover, in August, other participants of the Education Cluster, not only the Open Policy Foundation but also the regional education departments, voiced the needs of distance learning, an information campaign and the “Donbas-Ukraine” ECs. The Minister of Education and Science also spoke about these issues in Mariupol on October 30.

So, it was time to include them in the Strategy, HNO and HRP 2020.

By the way, I also remember the case when these needs were not included in the 2017 Education Cannot Wait application. Although the MoES representative Svitlana Kretovych then voiced those needs at a Cluster meeting in Slavyansk, no protocol was provided. The competition was lost ...

I’d like to note that yesterday the UEC coordinator acknowledged some communication mistakes and assured that the Cluster would revise these documents and make appropriate changes to balance the prioritization of the needs. I believe that adjustments should be made to the application for Education Cannot Wait.

Result

Position of the NGO “Open Policy Foundation”: Yes, there are many humanitarian needs in the education sector; all of them are important but the position of government agencies and national partners must be taken into account and covered in a balanced way, not ignored. This is not in line with the principles of strategy development, evidence, harmonization, coherence and continuity, consultations.

I do not believe that employees of international organizations consciously refuse to extend access to education for students affected by the war. At the same time, I believe in common sense and adherence to international protocols and principles.

… And above all

Schools with distance learning and the “Donbas-Ukraine” Education Centers are perhaps the only place of meeting for children, young people and their parents who live on both sides of the contact line. It is a place where dialogue has already begun, a platform where you can be heard over time. Therefore, it is strategically important to build bridges of peace through education.

And yes, education cannot wait…