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At the Transforming Education Summit +4, UNESCO convened a high-level session on Education in Crisis Situations, bringing together ministers, education partners, civil society representatives and youth leaders to explore how countries can move beyond emergency response and place resilience at the heart of education planning.
Putting learners at the center
Opening the discussion, Christina Williams, SDG 4 High-level Steering Committee Sherpa Youth Representative from Jamaica, urged decision-makers to view education crises through the eyes of children and young people experiencing them.
For students living in climate-vulnerable countries, she noted, the experience of arriving at school after a hurricane or other disaster only to find their classrooms destroyed is not an imagined scenario; it is a lived reality.
Williams emphasized that resilience must begin before disaster strikes, calling on governments to embed preparedness into education planning through climate-resilient infrastructure, temporary learning arrangements, teacher training in psychosocial support, and flexible learning pathways.
She stressed that young people must be recognized as partners in recovery, highlighting the key role of Jamaican youth in supporting communities affected by Hurricane Melissa.
National systems are the foundation of resilience
Throughout the session, several ministers emphasized that resilience depends on strengthening national education systems rather than creating parallel structures.
Among them, speaking about South Sudan’s experience in the face of overlapping crises, Minister of Education Dr. Kuyok Abol Kuyok outlined five priorities for strengthening resilience: integrating crisis preparedness into national education plans, investing in teachers, creating safe and climate-resilient schools, strengthening education data systems, and recognizing the role of education in promoting peace and social cohesion.
Teachers are the foundation of resilience. They are what keeps learning alive.
Dr. Kuyok also emphasized that international support is most effective when it reinforces government leadership, aligns humanitarian and development financing, and strengthens national institutions rather than replacing them.
In Ukraine, Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi described how the education system has adapted to ensure that learning continues despite armed conflict.
Education is not only a development agenda; it is also a security and peace agenda. It protects children, strengthens communities, and enables reconstruction.
To maintain continuity of learning, Ukraine has expanded digital education, introduced flexible delivery models and developed underground schools that allow children to continue learning safely. Many of these emergency measures, he noted, have since become lasting elements of the education system.
The Minister of Education of Libya, Dr. Mohamed Al-Qariw, highlighted how conflict, displacement and natural disasters have reinforced the need for flexible education systems that can absorb shocks while protecting every child’s right to learn.
Libya’s approach focuses on improving school safety through rehabilitation and construction, expanding mental health and school feeding support, and accelerating digital transformation to sustain learning during future disruptions.
Adapting to a changing financing landscape
With humanitarian needs growing while international financing declines, speakers highlighted the need to rethink how education in emergencies is financed.
Maysa Jalbout, Director of Education Cannot Wait, described resilience as a continuous process that spans preparedness, anticipation, emergency response and recovery. She highlighted ECW’s role in providing rapid and flexible financing that bridges emergency response and longer-term system strengthening.
For a child, resilience means that a crisis does not end their education. For a teacher, it means being equipped to support students under difficult circumstances. And for an education system, it means being able to anticipate, absorb and adapt to shocks.
Margarita Focas Licht, Director for Partnerships at the Global Partnership for Education, noted that more than 40 per cent of GPE partner countries are affected by fragility and conflict.
READ MORE: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/education-crises-leaders-call-stronger-more-resilient-education-systems-ahead-post-2030-agenda?hub=701
