Can’t Wait To Learn in Ukraine: The Pathway to National Education Infrastructure

On the ground 

In the summer of 2022, as air raid sirens punctuated school days across Ukraine, something quietly remarkable was taking shape in Uzhhorod. Around a workshop table sat Ukrainian teachers, artists, curriculum specialists, and education officials, alongside experts from Can't Wait to Learn, hosted by War Child Alliance. They were not there to receive a pre-packaged solution. They were there to build one. 

The result of the collaboration was the development of Can't Wait to Learn in Ukraine: a personalised digital learning platform whose games are designed specifically for Ukraine’s education system and their children in grades 1 through 4, a part of the national curriculum, and illustrated by Ukrainian artists so that the characters look, sound, and read like the children they serve. 

More than a quarter of a million children have since learned via the platform. And by 2026, the system is formally handed over to the Ukrainian Government as an integrated part of the national education infrastructure. 

Can't Wait to Learn Ukraine was not brought to Ukraine. It was created in Ukraine. 

The partnership 

The Can’t Wait to Learn Team arrived with a proven process and methodology and a genuine commitment to co-creation and collaborative partnerships. Osvitoria, the Ukrainian civil society organisation that became a core partner from day one, brought deep local knowledge of the education system, the cultural context, and the communities most in need. Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science brought institutional authority, curriculum standards, and a long-term vision for the future of education in the country. 

This structure, government ownership, dedicated Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FNL) expertise, and national civil society actor was not incidental to the platform's success. It was the platform. Without a commitment to co-creation and partnering with Osvitoria, the platform risked becoming an external imposition. Without the Ministry's involvement from the outset, it risked becoming a parallel system that never integrated. Without Can’t Wait to Learn’s technical and pedagogical experience, it risked never reaching the quality and scale that Ukrainian children deserve. 

The Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science has described Can't Wait to Learn as a model for cooperation between government, international donors, and a technically focused international nonprofit. 

How the platform works 

Can't Wait to Learn is a digital, game-based and personalised learning platform designed with governments. It is offline-first and low-bandwidth, meaning it functions in the conditions that actually exist in lower resource and crisis affected contexts. It adapts to each child's pace and prior learning, which is critical for children whose education has been fragmented by displacement or disruption through school closures. And critically, it is teacher-supported, designed to reinforce educators role, rather than replace them. Can’t Wait to Learn focuses on increasing high quality interactions between teacher and child, education is a human, highly relational process, technology use should enhance that.  

Curriculum alignment is the foundation of the platform's credibility. Every mini-game, character interaction, and learning sequence in the Ukrainian version maps directly to the objectives set by the national syllabus. The team worked with local methodologists and teachers to sequence reading, phonics, numeracy, and problem-solving into a structured pedagogical progression. Skills that cannot yet be reliably assessed in an offline digital game (verbal discussion, for instance) were excluded, and the focus was placed squarely on competencies where digital game-based learning demonstrably works. 

This rigour matters for a practical reason: Can't Wait to Learn is part of education provision in the contexts it works, not an add on, so it integrates into formal schooling.  

"Children are engaged, focused, and self-directed. Teachers track progress and respond to individual needs. Technology strengthens human connection, does not replace it." 

Education as resilience infrastructure 

For children living through a crisis, a structured, engaging learning routine is not merely about academic progress. It is about safety, predictability, and the restoration of agency. Teachers who have used Can't Wait to Learn in Ukraine describe it as a stabilising presence in the school day, something children can hold onto when the world outside feels unstable. Learning, in this framing, is protection. 

This is also why investment logic that EdTech is strategic rather than reactive. A well-designed digital learning platform represents an investment that strengthens systems over time, making them more resilient to future shocks. It builds toward integration from the very first line of code. 

The road to institutionalisation 

Can't Wait to Learn in Ukraine is available as the primary component of All-Ukrainian School Online for Grades 1-4, the country's national digital learning platform. The game has been institutionalised as a significant part of the digitalisation of Ukrainian primary education. 

This trajectory was not accidental. Institutional architecture was considered from day one. The question was never simply 'how do we reach children now?' but 'how do we build something the government can own, scale, and sustain?' That long-term thinking is visible in every design decision: the curriculum alignment that makes the platform credible to the Ministry, the co-creation process that gives educators ownership, the open-access model that removes financial barriers to scale. 

The first Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education and Science was signed in July 2022, establishing a shared roadmap for localisation. A second MoU in 2024 formalised the handover pathway and identified the two institutional recipients: the Ukrainian Institute of Educational Development as content authority, and the Institute of Educational Analytics as technical administrator of all governmental education platforms. 

The handover process, active since the second half of 2025, runs along two tracks. The first covers full technical and legal transfer: regulatory documentation, indefinite licensing agreements, and migration of the application to a government server. The second focuses on sustainability within the teaching profession. In partnership with the State Service of Quality of Education of Ukraine, a government-certified training programme was developed for primary school teachers, and thousands of teachers across almost all accessible regions have now been trained. 

"The goal was not only to build a tool for Ukraine. It was to build a tool that becomes Ukraine's.” 

What evidence shows 

Can't Wait to Learn is not a new or untested idea. Launched in 2012, the platform has operated across multiple conflict-affected contexts and carries a substantial evidence base. It has been recognised in 2024 when team members of the platform received the Yidan Prize for Education Development. Other recognition includes the UNICEF International Innovation in Education Awards, the e-Learning Awards at the European Conference on e-Learning, and the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for ICT in Education. It was one of the first three projects selected for the Humanitarian Education Accelerator, the flagship programme for education innovations in emergencies led by UNHCR, UNICEF, and DFID. 

That track record was part of what made it the right choice for Ukraine. The Ukrainian government was already aware of Can't Wait to Learn before 2022. When the Ministry called for support, Can’t Wait to Learn was able to respond quickly, not because it had a ready-made product to deploy, but because it had a proven methodology that could be rapidly adapted through genuine co-creation. 

A blueprint, not an exception 

The platform is already operating in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Uganda, and beyond. Each version is bespoke: built with local educators, aligned to local curricula, grounded in local culture. But the model that underpins them is consistent: deep partnership between our team with deep education technology and pedagogical knowledge, civil society, and government; rigorous curriculum alignment; design that works in disruption, recovery and development; and a clear pathway to national ownership. 

For donors, policymakers, and practitioners working on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy - Can’t Wait To Learn’s experience in Ukraine offers something more valuable than a case study. It is a blueprint to treat education as resilience infrastructure, to invest in proven platforms rather than endless pilots, and to build with communities rather than for them. 

Children of Ukraine did not need a workaround. They needed, and received, a platform that took their learning, their culture and their future very seriously.  

Invest in resilience 

Support scale-up, not pilots. Partner on system integration, not parallel delivery. Treat education as national resilience infrastructure. The Can’t Wait To Learn experience in Ukraine can be the blueprint, not the exception.