Introduction

Education system resilience is a relatively new concept and is more familiar and widespread in the international development discourse. The concept became particularly common following the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected all spheres of life—including education—and forced governments to respond to the threat to students’ health and lives while ensuring the continuity of learning. Although the concept of resilience is not well established or widely used at the individual country level, its use as an approach to education systems can help anticipate and address various types of threats, in addition to supporting more stable development. As part of the “Observatory on Education System Resilience” initiative of the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX), which is implemented with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the Cedos Think Tank hosts one of six observatories working on examining the meanings and practices of education system resilience and potential future disruptions to education systems in the countries of its region. Each observatory represents a specific region whose countries are GPE partners.

The Cedos team works with a region that brings together countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, namely Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia. The conditions in which these countries’ education systems operate are influenced by the consequences of war (Ukraine, Georgia), natural disasters (Mongolia, Albania), the COVID-19 pandemic, political and economic crises, and changes in population structure and size, among other things. Therefore, ensuring access to quality education in these contexts critically depends on building education systems capable of responding and adapting to challenges, including shocks and disruptions, in a timely manner. In addition, education systems in these countries need professionals who possess necessary knowledge and skills to respond to crises and remain resilient in the face of change.

Despite the significant diversity of education systems across these countries, what they do have in common are the influence of the Soviet model on the current educational system and the challenge of building modern, inclusive, and resilient education systems in a context of limited resources. At the same time, depending on their specific circumstances and priorities, the countries have different understandings of education system resilience and consequently implement different policies and practices. For example, in the Central Asian countries, one of the key challenges is ensuring access to education for a growing school-age population, while other countries—such as Ukraine and Albania—have to cope with a declining youth population and emigration. Efforts to bolster education resilience are also influenced by the geographic locations and climate conditions of these countries. For example, the Central Asian countries and Albania are located in active seismic zones, while for other countries natural disasters may have a lower priority within the risk system. 

In the first section of this report, we analyze the understanding and use of the concept of resilience in the context of education systems in the countries of focus. The next section focuses on the review of policies and practices relevant to resilience in the education sector. This section is structured around the five components of the education system resilience framework used in the study: strengthening, anticipation, planning, response and recovery, and preventing and mitigation (Cameron et al., 2024).

Conclusions

Education system resilience is a complex phenomenon that encompasses a wide range of measures related to strengthening, anticipation, planning, response and recovery, and risk prevention and mitigation. At the same time, the scope and inclusiveness of resilience efforts are equally important — without addressing the needs of social groups in vulnerable situations, systemic shocks tend to deepen existing inequalities.

This study is the first attempt to explore how the concept of education system resilience is understood in the countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, namely Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. This research report is based on a desktop review of various sources, including official government documents, research materials, and public discourse more broadly.

Our analysis indicates that understanding the broader country context is essential when examining the meanings and practices of education system resilience. The eight countries selected for this study differ significantly in terms of territory, climate, and cultural, economic, and political characteristics, which influence the challenges they face. At the same time, a shared historical context—past affiliation with the Soviet Union and, for some countries, the legacy of the Soviet education system—intersects with divergent development trajectories of the countries in the region. All of this directly affects how understandings of resilience, along with its policies and practices, are formed—for example, orientations toward European integration, education decentralization or preservation of centralized education model, among other factors.

The desktop review revealed that the use of the term “education system resilience,” along with its interpretation and implementation, is significantly influenced by international partners. The latter are involved both in the development of strategic documents and in the implementation of programs aimed at supporting or strengthening specific elements of resilience. This involvement substantially shapes the priorities of national education policies.

In the region of focus, policies and practices related to education system resilience reflect both shared characteristics and context-specific features. They are predominantly aimed at improving education quality, advancing digitalization, improving working conditions of teachers, and promoting equal access to education. At the same time, some challenges are more associated with specific countries. Climate risks and natural disasters—such as extremely cold winters, heavy precipitation, and earthquakes—are particularly relevant for Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, and Albania. Wars and armed conflicts, along with their implications, are relevant for Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

An analysis of policies and practices using the five-component education system resilience framework proposed by GPE KIX revealed imbalance in priorities: the countries studied tend to focus primarily on responding to already existing crises and on measures aimed at strengthening education systems. In contrast, considerably less attention and fewer initiatives are devoted to the components of anticipation, prevention, and risk mitigation.

Overall, the countries in focus demonstrate a tendency to place greater emphasis on education system strengthening measures than on other aspects of resilience in strategic government documents (e.g., education strategies) and research-based documents. Within this component, the key activities can be divided into two types of measures, namely those focused on assessing the scale of challenges, and those directly aimed at implementing reforms and specific policy actions to address identified problems. Measures to improve education systems are primarily directed at overcoming accumulated systemic issues, such as low quality of education, outdated education programs and curricula, unequal access to education, ineffective governance of educational institutions at the local or national level, teacher shortages, and unsatisfactory working conditions. At the same time, strengthening measures often address multiple challenges simultaneously. However, their scope does not necessarily extend to the entire country; they may target specific regions, districts, or individual schools. 

Initiatives aimed at anticipating threats that could impact the education system in the future are not widespread among the countries in the region. This is largely due to the lack of sufficient financial resources to implement such activities, as well as due to the transitional state of political systems and social institutions, shaped by the countries’ historical ties to the USSR. Instead, available resources are primarily directed toward the development of crisis management initiatives and responses to existing challenges.

The planning-related initiatives are built around the issues of the education system that require interventions and the nature of the threats faced by the system. Accordingly, the countries’ plans and strategies include measures aimed at addressing the most pressing issues in the education system. In addition, strategic planning in the countries encompasses an analysis of past crisis management experiences and the integration of lessons learned into the design of future initiatives.

The crisis situations that have occurred in the countries of focus over the past ten years have differed in terms of the scale and duration of their impact on education systems. As a result, response and recovery efforts required different approaches. At the onset of a crisis, it was often necessary to temporarily pause the learning process, and in the case of military conflicts and wars, schools suffered damage and destruction. In many cases, the first short-term response was the introduction of the distance approach to learning. Although this made it possible to maintain the continuity of learning, it also created or exacerbated the issue of unequal access to education, for example, due to schools’ lack of preparedness, shortages of devices, skills, and adult support for students. At the same time, crises affected not only the educational process but also its participants, especially their psychological well-being. The measures taken by many countries were primarily for teachers or students; however, crises have shown the importance of also taking the needs of parents into account, as they play a significant role in supporting and overseeing the education of their children in times of crisis. Medium-term measures often involved a return to in-person learning and the creation of the preconditions necessary for this, measuring learning losses and working to address them, which could include developing new materials and platforms, training teachers in new skills, or organizing additional classes for students. Long-term initiatives focused on taking into account the challenges and weaknesses of education systems revealed during crises and developing strategies to strengthen education systems, particularly in the context of responding to potential future crises.

The ability of education systems to respond effectively to crises was shaped not by individual measures, but through a synergy of institutional coordination, the presence of clear procedures for action, flexibility of governance at the local level, and external support. In addition, previous experience with crises and the capacity of systems to ensure learning continuity through digital technologies proved to be important factors in enabling an effective response.

Preventing future crises and mitigating their impact on education systems largely involve a combination of changes in curriculum content, teacher training, psychological support, and investments in infrastructure, often with the involvement or at the initiative of international partners. In the countries of focus, a strong focus on implementing education for climate awareness and disaster preparedness is critically important, as some countries face risks related to extreme temperatures (hot or cold) or earthquakes. The experiences of the countries also demonstrate that developing safe educational infrastructure is one possible response to various types of crises (including earthquakes, floods, armed conflicts, and wars), and this can simultaneously serve both to strengthen education systems and to prevent and mitigate crises and their consequences. Such measures differ depending on the country-specific context and may include updating construction standards for educational facilities or their reconstruction, as well as creating or equipping school shelters. 

This report captures what relevant education policy documents, as well as reports from international organizations, analytical papers, research studies, and other publicly available sources, say about policies and practices related to education system resilience in the countries of focus. The findings of this study should be interpreted with caution, considering the limitations of the desktop research methodology. For example, our research was based primarily on publicly available sources, which do not always fully reflect actual practices. Furthermore, it does not cover all relevant documents, including those not publicly accessible. The study shows that efforts related to education system resilience in the countries of focus are predominantly shaped by responses to past crises and that systemic approaches to risk anticipation and prevention remain less developed. The countries face similar structural challenges and significantly rely on the support of international partners to develop and implement relevant policies. Across the eight countries studied, education system resilience is an evolving priority that has been significantly shaped by past crises, and that holds considerable potential for deeper institutional embedding as the region continues to develop its approaches to education system strengthening.

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