School closures due to COVID-19 have brought significant disruptions to education across Europe. Emerging evidence from some of the region’s highest-income countries indicate that the pandemic is giving rise to learning losses and increases in inequality. To reduce and reverse the long-term negative effects, Ukraine and other less-affluent lower-middle-income countries, which are likely to be even harder hit, need to implement learning recovery programs, protect educational budgets, and prepare for future shocks by “building back better.”
At the peak of the pandemic, 45 countries in the Europe and Central Asia region closed their schools, affecting 185 million students. Given the abruptness of the situation, teachers and administrations were unprepared for this transition and were forced to build emergency remote learning systems almost immediately.
One of the limitations of emergency remote learning is the lack of personal interaction between teacher and student. With broadcasts, this is simply not possible. However, several countries showed initiative by using other methods to improve the remote educational experience, including social media, email, telephone, and even the post office.