News

This blog about the world’s first wartime randomized controlled trial, conducted by Teach For Ukraine in partnership with the World Bank, was written by Lelys Dinarte-Diaz, a research economist in the Human Development Team of the World Bank’s Development Research Group, in co-authorship with Renata Lemos, James Gresham, Rony Rodríguez-Ramírez, and Harry A. Patrinos.

Nataliia is a Teach For Ukraine alumna. She joined the Teach For Ukraine Fellowship in 2021 and has stayed ever since — though no longer as a fellow, but now as part of the team.

Dmytro has been teaching for the second year at Oleksandrivka General Secondary Education Institution. Here, he not only conducts lessons but also builds his educational career and plans his next professional steps. Anna, on the other hand, began her journey at the Danylivska Gymnasium in Kyiv region in September 2025. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, she was forced to leave Sloviansk, Donetsk region, for Germany, but every day she longed to return to Ukraine. Participation the Teach For Ukraine Fellowship by the NGO Teach For Ukraine and the opportunity to teach became the goal that helped her make the final decision and buy a ticket home.

The NGO Teach For Ukraine, in partnership with the international foundation Razom for Ukraine, is launching an online wave of Educational SUPport (in Ukrainian “Osvytnyi Sup”) — a free education recovery program focused on catch-up and overcoming learning losses among children of veterans and active-duty military service members.

Teach For Ukraine is expanding its range of learning materials designed to address educational losses and is introducing two new free guidebooks — in Geography and Computer Science. These publications complement the existing series covering seven school subjects and provide educators with practical, well-structured, and effective tools for working with students.

While in London, Natalia Etten, CEO of Teach For Ukraine, sat down with James Toop, CEO of Teach First (UK), for a conversation on education, teaching, and the role of civil society in times of sustained crisis. The full-scale war in Ukraine has fundamentally reshaped the role of education, teachers, and civil society. Against this backdrop, the discussion examined how Ukraine’s education system continues to function, adapt, and support children under conditions of prolonged instability — and what these realities mean for education systems more broadly. This conversation explored resilience, trust, humanity, and the strategic choices that shape education systems when stability can no longer be assumed. Below are five key insights from the discussion.

Educational losses among Ukrainian adolescents are shaped not only by disruptions to the learning process, but also by stress, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. This is evidenced by the findings of the study “Well-being and Learning of Adolescents in Wartime.”

Zaporizhzhia is among the top three Ukrainian cities for the highest number of air raid alerts: since February 2022, nearly 7,000 sirens have sounded here. The city lives in a state of constant anticipation—sirens, power outages, and buildings shattered by enemy shelling. Among them is the "Dzherelo" (The Source) boarding school. This institution serves children with hearing impairments, musculoskeletal disorders, and Down syndrome. In September 2023, the school building was struck by a UAV.

To help lyceum students fill in the gaps in their knowledge, English teacher Iryna Lisochko and her colleagues joined the NGO Teach for Ukraine's project “Tutoring Catch-Up Centres: Overcoming Learning Losses in Emergencies,” which the organization is implementing with the assistance of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Ukraine and with financial support from Norway.