Navigating uncertainty in times of war: The staff-student partnership in times of crisis

Global events such as Covid-19, the climate crisis, social injustice, and armed conflict pose challenges for European societies, making people’s lives uncertain and their future threatening. Education needs to find mindful ways to respond to such crises. The sector is perceived as offering stability in times of uncertainty and despair. Drawing on international frameworks, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the World Declaration on Education for All, the paper explores the critical role of education in peacebuilding and the importance of integrating peace education into educational response to crisis. Peace education is defined as an ongoing and active process of collaboration and partnering of actors within educational institutions for building better futures. It offers an anticipatory model of education that involve students and staff to envision and co-create peaceful futures. Using participatory visual methodology, the study engaged students from a Ukrainian university to imagine the education of future, as a departure point for studying and accommodating their needs, enabling them to take something more from the despair and uncertainty of the circumstances around them, and find hope and the strength to effect change, envision alternative futures and collectively pursue them.