Supporting Ukraine

Narva College Supports Education Modernization and Reform in Ukraine.

Education support, modernization, and reform have been the buzzwords of multiple projects Narva College has been implementing for almost a decade in Ukraine with various organizations, ranging from NGOs, kindergartens, schools, universities, all the way up to the Ministry of Education and Research of Ukraine. The first significant cooperation started in 2016 with the project MEDUZO (funded by EstDev), marking the beginning of a long-lasting and deep collaboration with Zaporizhzhia National University in an 18-month-long international project, involving the sharing of the CLIL methodology for more effective foreign language learning. 

Subsequently, spurred by the representatives of Zaporizhzhia National University who aimed to modernize their foreign language teacher training curricula and introduce a multilingual strategy into the educational process, the MultiEd Erasmus+ project (worth 900,000 EUR, 2019-2023) emerged as a new pivotal point. The project faced numerous challenges, ranging from the global lockdown to the large-scale Russian aggression, both of which forced the partnership to find ways to collaborate despite the adversities. 

The subsequent significant Erasmus+ project with Ukraine, named BOOST (400,000 EUR, 2023-2025), targets universities that had not previously engaged in international initiatives. Despite facing various challenges and difficulties, the project is progressing in three main directions: the digitalization of the educational process, high school didactics for blended learning, and internationalization and grant writing to foster higher involvement in EU initiatives. 

The most substantial project targeting Ukraine (together with Azerbaijan) is the BEAUCOUP Erasmus+ project (1,000,000 EUR, 2024-2026). This project aims to enhance the digital competence of educators in both countries through a mix of activities aimed at improving digital readiness for more productive learning and teaching. 

As the war ravages in Ukraine negatively affecting the mental state of citizens, a new Erasmus+ BURN initiative was launched (400 000 EUR, 2024-2026). The main task of this project is to train a new generation of psychologists able to support the people who suffer from PTSD as well as help them improve their mental health and build resilience.

Another noteworthy initiative involving Ukrainian universities is the eRead Erasmus+ project (worth 400,000 EUR, 2022-2025). This groundbreaking project focuses on the learning of Ukrainian as a foreign language, offering Ukrainian partners the opportunity to engage with the EU partners from Estonia, Slovenia, and Latvia to explore the learning of the national language as a second language and understand the integration of non-native speakers in multilingual and multicultural EU countries. 

In 2024, Narva College co-submitted four Erasmus+ applications, with hopes that some of them will receive support from the European Commission, paving the way for deeper and wider cooperation with Ukraine.