When war arrives, it does not knock politely on the schoolhouse door. It breaks windows, silences bells, and turns daily routines into calculations of risk. In Ukraine, education continues under extraordinary pressure, sustained by many who refuse to let learning disappear even as it is repeatedly interrupted. The most immediate challenge is physical safety. Thousands of schools have been damaged or destroyed since the full-scale invasion began. In many regions, in-person lea

Across the windswept plains of Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth-largest country by land area, opportunity often depends on location and geography. In Astana and Almaty, students at well-funded public schools enjoy the luxury of robotics labs and trilingual instruction. In the western steppe, however, children gather in aging buildings where electricity flickers and textbooks are passed from sibling to sibling. The nation’s vastness has quietly become its most stubborn barrier to

Across the mountains of northern Laos, children begin walking before sunrise. Some trek more than an hour on steep footpaths, crossing footbridges made of bamboo or wading through shallow rivers when the bridges collapse during monsoon season. For thousands of rural families, this journey isn’t a dramatic story; it's simply the routine reality of trying to get an education. And it’s one that exposes a fundamental question: what does “access to schooling” actually mean when th

In Nepal’s remote mountain villages, the path to a classroom is often a literal climb. Children leave home before sunrise, carrying books in plastic bags to protect them from morning mist. Some trek two or three hours along steep trails just to reach the nearest primary school. When the monsoon brings heavy rains or landslides, the route can become dangerous, yet students persist because education is their only real hope for a better future. Financial burdens remains the hard

On January 12, 2010, Haiti’s education system was physically and institutionally shattered. The earthquake killed more than 225,000 people and displaced well over a million, ripping away the routines that keep children learning and safe. In education specifically, large parts of the school network collapsed. Humanitarian education responders reported that about 80% of schools in the affected zone were damaged, and roughly 1.26 million children and youth were affected.   The i