Ukraine - Lifting Education Access and Resilience in Times of Need in Ukraine Program : Third Additional Financing

Overview & Synopsis

The development objective of the Lifting Education Access and Resilience in times of Need in Ukraine Program for Ukraine is to improve teaching and learning conditions and strengthen management capacity of the education system. The additional financing is proposed to sustain momentum under the government’s Strategic Action Plan during wartime, address growing constraints to safe, in‑person education, and complete core reform rollouts by scaling up well-performing results and introducing targeted new measures. It expands the Program for Results (PforR) by scaling existing disbursement-linked indicators and adding a new one, and restructures the Investment Project Financing (IPF) component to bolster education infrastructure planning and pilot works aligned with reforms. The Bank will work with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MoES) to: improve management of national subventions for school shelters and buses by basing 2026 allocations on community plans and prioritizing special buses for children with disabilities; increase student access to free bus transportation; extend New Ukrainian School (NUS) reform support through grade 9 teacher training and provision of NUS‑aligned free textbooks for grade 9 and grade 4; and catalyze nationwide Early Childhood and Preschool Education (ECPE) reform through adoption of a national ECPE Strategic Framework and updated physical learning environment standards for preschools. Under the IPF, the Bank will provide technical assistance to strengthen MoES capacity for education infrastructure planning and management, support modernization of data systems, and pilot rehabilitation of preschool spaces and construction or rehabilitation of shelters in selected territorial communities (hromadas), using new ECPE norms. The project intends to deliver measurable results including more students and teachers with access to compliant school shelters, substantially more students transported safely to school including children with disabilities, tens of thousands of teachers trained for grade 9 NUS delivery, hundreds of thousands of students receiving updated textbooks, adoption of national ECPE policy and preschool infrastructure standards, and improved use of data for targeting resources and guiding reconstruction. These actions will help safeguard access to quality learning, embed inclusive and climate‑responsive practices, and strengthen institutional capacity to plan, fund, and implement education services at scale.