Resilient learning for resilient communities
Learning interrupted
Climate change is a direct threat to learning. In 2025, climate shocks disrupted schooling for at least 171 million students in 106 countries / territories.*
* Source: UNICEF (2026).
The opportunity
Put climate education and resilient, open learning at the heart of national climate action, starting in small island states.
The argument
Education is a crucial tool for mitigating and adapting to climate change, especially in smaller countries that are hit hardest by its impacts. Integrating climate education into national teaching and learning gives people the knowledge and skills to drive sustainable practices and innovation, and open and flexible learning makes that education accessible and scalable for diverse populations.
Climate change is also a direct threat to learning. In 2025, climate shocks disrupted schooling for at least 171 million students in 106 countries or territories (UNICEF, 2026). Small island developing states are among the most exposed: cyclones, floods and heat close schools and cut power and connectivity.
Yet education is often missing from climate planning. COL’s report to Commonwealth education ministers urges a shift from reacting to shocks to reducing risk in advance (Kwauk, 2022).
Resilience is built in classrooms and ministries as well as in hardware, and above all by teachers who can keep teaching through disruption and help schools, and the communities around them, get back to normal quickly.
One equal tile per Member Nation, by region. Select a tile for students affected and the hazard behind the latest disruption.
Source: COL analysis of UNICEF (2026), Learning interrupted: Global snapshot of climate-related school disruptions in 2025, Annex 1 (pp. 16–19), pp. 5–6 and methodology (p. 13), matched to the Commonwealth Secretariat’s list of 56 Member Nations.
The concept
COL has developed several models that ensure even the most remote communities are equipped with the tools to respond to climate change. Its Aptus device creates a local network so that phones, tablets and laptops can provide access to digital learning resources without the internet. Low-cost and portable, Aptus has helped learning reach outer islands in Fiji, and teachers in the Maldives were trained to use it. In Malawi, women began their own community training sessions with partner CYO, using vocational content delivered this way.
Cyclones test these models. After Tropical Cyclone Gita struck Tonga in February 2018, damaging the power grid and school buildings, COL provided 25 Aptus devices and 250 tablets to restore classroom teaching, with the Tonga Institute of Higher Education leading the deployment (COL, 2018). In The Bahamas, where schools were still recovering a year after Hurricane Dorian, COL presented 30 Aptus devices and 300 tablets to the Ministry of Education in 2020, preloaded with curriculum-aligned content and backed by a helpdesk (COL, 2020). Both responses came after the storm; the lesson is to prepare before the next one.
How COL’s Aptus device keeps a classroom on its digital learning resources without the grid or the internet. Cut the power and internet, add teacher-led AI, or select any part to read about it.
Sources: the talking point; COL (2018, 2020); Mays and Cheng (2024), Journal of Learning for Development; COL (2025), Programme achievement 2024–25.
Resilience is also institutional. When an earthquake struck Vanuatu in 2024, the learning platform of the Pacific partnership for open, distance and flexible learning was back within a week.
Communities carry climate learning further. Mobile learning through COL’s Lifelong Learning for Farmers has reached more than 1 million farmers, and women farmers in COL’s Empowering Women and Girls initiative adopted climate-smart practices that raised yields and incomes.
Initiatives such as ‘Greening the Learning Agenda’ emphasise embedding sustainability into all levels of education (Kanwar, 2022). When COL consulted 26 Commonwealth countries, they asked for climate literacy in the curriculum, closer alignment of climate and education policies across ministries, stronger teacher capacity and digitised Indigenous knowledge of environmental conservation, as well as devices and connectivity.
The same thinking now shapes COL’s programmes. In the next phase of the Pacific partnership, climate content is one of five design gates to pass before delivery scales, and every learner-facing activity is reviewed each year for the quality of its climate content. Teachers are being prepared for climate-responsive teaching, and green and blue skills turn climate learning into livelihoods: climate-smart agriculture, renewable energy and water management on land, and ocean literacy, sustainable fisheries and marine protection at sea.
By prioritising climate education and promoting open learning, we can build resilient communities able to respond to long-term environmental challenges and short-term shocks. For education systems, that means assessing climate risks school by school, planning how learning resumes when schools become shelters, and choosing technology that still works when power and internet fail: radio, print, offline and online.
Offline, teacher-led AI can be part of that kit, with compact models on local servers that keep supporting lesson preparation when connections drop, and teachers in charge. And education belongs in national climate plans, budgets and climate finance requests, so that the next cyclone, flood or heatwave finds teachers and learners ready, and the system recovers in days, not months.
A resilience checklist for education systems
Places of impact
6 of the 56 Member Nations. Every member is one equal tile, so small states stay visible; select a tile to read what happens there.
The opportunity
Put climate education and resilient, open learning at the heart of national climate action, starting in small island states.
COL will share open content, distance-learning expertise and teacher training, and help partners measure what works.
From the newsroom
Stories from the Commonwealth of Learning that highlight this strategic talking point. Each opens on col.org.
Chaired by COL’s VUSSC Adviser Dr Schontal Moore, the online session scheduled for 23 September 2026 was to include a University of the West Indies Global Campus presentation on climate change education as democratic praxis.
“VUSSC Voices, a webinar series highlighting expert voices from COL’s Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) network, returns with its 12th webinar on climate-smart futures.”
Through COL’s Global Affairs Canada-funded EWG project with Sri Lankan partner WDC, Saroja trained in sustainable agriculture and climate-smart farming, helping her build a home-garden business that recovered after Cyclone Ditwah.
“The garden now provides nearly 90 per cent of the food her family consumes, significantly reducing household food expenses while giving the family access to a more nutritious diet.”
In an Earth Day piece, COL’s Jako Olivier argues ODL can expand access while cutting emissions, citing COL’s call for a “New Green Learning Agenda” that equips learners with green skills.
“A recent systematic review of 17 studies found that ODL typically produces substantially lower emissions than campus-based education, with some landmark studies reporting reductions of more than 80 per cent.”
COL gave The Bahamas Aptus off-grid learning devices pre-loaded with local curriculum content, plus tablets, for schools still grappling with hurricane Dorian's devastation, to help build education resilience.
“Professor Asha Kanwar symbolically handed over 30 Aptus devices and 300 tablets to The Honourable Jeffrey Lloyd, Minister of Education, The Bahamas”
After Tropical Cyclone Gita damaged Tonga's power grid and school buildings, COL sent Aptus devices to help restore classroom teaching and, with its regional centre PACFOLD, trained local personnel to create learning materials.
“On April 10, COL deployed 25 Aptus devices and 250 high-quality tablet computers”
Working in synergy
This talking point aligns with the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Climate pillar and the Commonwealth Foundation’s focus on climate and environment justice.
Connections named in the talking point
Talking points on the same pillar
As printed in the talking point, followed by the further sources used for this site’s charts and diagrams.
Further sources for the charts and diagrams