Overview 

What does it actually take to keep children learning when schools close, when families are displaced, and when the very concept of a “normal” school day has long since become a distant memory? That was the question at the heart of a recent brown bag session hosted by the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies (EiE Hub), where EdTech Hub’s Education in Emergencies Co-Lead, Kate Radford, was joined by Unai Sacona, Deputy Director of Education at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), to share findings from a joint research study on UNRWA’s Blended Learning Programme (BLP).

The conversation was grounded in a newly published qualitative implementation study exploring UNRWA’S recent blended learning pilot in the West Bank (Marei et al., 2026), conducted by EdTech Hub in partnership with UNRWA. Its findings, and Unai’s frank reflections on putting them into practice, provide food for thought for anyone designing or implementing learning continuity mechanisms in crisis and emergency contexts.

Key Reflections From the Study

  • Digital tools alone don’t improve learning — teacher support is critical
  • Infrastructure gaps (power, internet) remain one of the biggest barriers
  • Training works well when it’s peer-led and sustained, not one-off
  • Strong headteacher buy-in supports programme success

Data Worth Noting From the Pilot

450+

schools in the programme

74%

of teachers reported confidence gains

3 years

pilot duration across West Bank

The Programme

UNRWA’s Blended Learning Programme was developed under the organisation’s ICT for Education (ICT4E) strategy as a direct response to the chronic instability facing Palestinian children in the West Bank, a context experiencing “prolonged instability, characterised by recurring disruptions” to schooling (Marei et al. 2026, p.12). 

The programme integrates curriculum-aligned, online and offline digital resources and interactive multimedia content,  delivered alongside in-person teaching. It launched in 15 schools in 2024 and expanded to 30 by early 2025, focusing on grades 6–9 across four core subjects: Arabic, English, mathematics, and science. Participating schools were equipped with interactive screens, tablets, charging cabinets, and upgraded connectivity, all of which UNRWA determined was necessary before the programme could meaningfully begin.

EdTech Hub’s study drew on focus group discussions with 59 participants (learners, teachers, and caregivers),  interviews with 23 key informants (teachers, principles, caregivers, and UNRWA staff), a survey of over 190 teachers, and an extensive documentation review, employing the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) as its analytical lens (Damschroder et al., 2022). 

Technology as a Tool

Perhaps the most important thread running through both the research and Unai’s reflections is a clear-eyed insistence on what technology is and is not for.

Digital education, especially full distance, should never substitute in-person education,” Unai told the session. “We aim to have a blended learning system when it’s not full crisis mode, when teachers bring devices into the classroom, when teachers decide the digital device has an added value for a specific unit, or for a specific day of the week when all the kids are more nervous, anxious, or tired.”

– Unai Sacona, Deputy Director of Education at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)

As an agency whose core mandate is service delivery to Palestinian refugees, UNRWA adopts a thoughtful, targeted approach when it comes to EdTech. The agency leverages technology to sustain learning remotely, but does not view technology as a catch-all solution for improving learning more generally. This framing matters. As Unai explained in the context of UNRWA’s experience in the West Bank and Lebanon:

We activate online and digital (only) education when we don’t have access…and especially when children are more nervous, anxious, or emotionally drained.” The research corroborates this approach. The report’s literature review finds that “a consistent finding across this body of research is that EdTech interventions cannot function as stand-alone solutions.”

– Unai Sacona, on Marei et al. 2026, p 27

Hands using laptops in a classroom setting, focused on digital learning tools. Credit: Ryutaro Tsukata

What the Research Found

As an approach that bridges fully remote, digital learning with offline classroom instruction, blended learning may be seen as a helpful way of harnessing technology to enhance teaching practice while also supporting remote learning readiness. In light of this, the study’s findings on the impact of the Blended Learning Programme are broadly encouraging, while remaining realistic about their limits.

Across all stakeholder groups, the BLP was widely associated with improvements in learner engagement. Teachers, caregivers, and students consistently described heightened motivation and participation in blended learning classes. The report notes that 63% of teachers surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that digital tools had improved student learning, and many pointed to increased digital literacy as a tangible benefit in its own right (Marei et al. 2026).

Teachers themselves reported growing confidence and expanded pedagogical repertoires. As the report documents, blended learning supported a shift towards greater use of visual media, low-stakes digital practice, and more structured lesson planning, all approaches consistent with evidence-based pedagogy. One school principal captured the broader cultural shift, noting that “the programme created a dynamic atmosphere; teachers began viewing the curriculum differently, which revitalised the teaching environment” (Marei et al. 2026, p.49).

Flexibility and continuity of access were also highlighted as significant strengths. Students’ ability to access learning materials when they missed school, whether due to security incidents, displacement, or illness, was seen as one of the programme’s most practical contributions to crisis preparedness.

In a candid reflection on the complexity of evidence generation in humanitarian education settings, Unai acknowledged, “it’s extremely difficult to directly attribute changes in learning outcomes to technology alone given the many external factors at play”. Yet the report is careful to note that these are perceived improvements, not measured learning outcomes.

What Makes It Work

A key study finding is that blended learning success was never primarily about the technology itself. Instead, it depended on a layered support ecosystem.

Leadership emerged as a decisive factor. As one headquarters respondent put it, “a major lesson is that middle management determines whether a programme is enabled or blocked” (Marei et al. 2026, p.52). Where school leaders actively supported the programme, facilitating teacher access to devices, carving out time for digital lessons, and communicating the programme’s purpose to families, implementation tended to be stronger. The teacher survey reinforced this: where leadership support was perceived to be high, teachers also reported greater confidence in delivery.

Training and ongoing peer support were similarly critical, though the research identifies room for improvement. While teachers broadly valued the training they received, many found it insufficiently practical and too brief. Peer support networks, through which teachers shared lesson plans, troubleshooted challenges, and collaborated informally, emerged organically as a major enabler, though often without formal programme support. The report recommends institutionalising these peer learning clusters going forward (Marei et al.,2026)

Clear communication about the purpose of blended learning, across teachers, caregivers, and leadership, also proved essential. Unai emphasised that aligning stakeholders on the “why” and “how” of technology use was a consistent challenge. The research found that different stakeholders sometimes held different understandings of what “blended learning” actually meant in practice, and that bridging this gap required sustained, multi-channel communication efforts (Marei et al., 2026). 

Persistent Challenges

The study report is equally candid about what held the programme back.

Connectivity was the most consistently cited barrier. Despite reported school-level internet access, bandwidth instability during whole-class use regularly disrupted lessons. Power cuts compounded the problem. Device scarcity meant that tablets were often shared, and dedicated digital learning spaces were limited. Security conditions in parts of the West Bank further disrupted access, periodically closing schools.

Teacher workload emerged as the study’s most significant sustainability risk. Preparing digital lessons, adapting content, and managing devices added substantially to already demanding schedules. The report’s recommendation to develop a centralised, curriculum-mapped content repository responds directly to this challenge.

On equity, the research found that inclusive outcomes were largely teacher-driven rather than structurally designed, making inclusivity potentially difficult to replicate at scale. Home device access also remained unequal, reinforcing what the report calls the “homework gap” (Marei et al. 2026, p.55), a term used to describe disparities in students’ ability to complete schoolwork outside the classroom due to unequal access to devices and connectivity.

Building Before Crisis

Perhaps the most important implication of both the research and Unai’s reflections is a shift in how we prepare for digital learning in emergency contexts.

“Digital learning systems must be put in place to be easily activated in times of need, not as the main solution,” was Unai’s clear message. A key strength of the blended learning programme is its capacity to prepare learners and teachers for crisis moments, to facilitate the transition to remote learning so that learners can remain engaged and able to continue developing their skills and knowledge when schools are closed. It is able to do this because, through blended learning, aspects of remote delivery are already experienced within everyday classroom teaching.

As the report’s conclusion argues, “blended learning should not be framed primarily as an emergency response measure, but as a core component of everyday instructional practice that strengthens preparedness over time” (Marei et al. 2026, p.79).

Read More

About the study: This overview draws on lessons captured from UNRWA’s Blended Learning Programme (BLP) which was piloted in 30 schools in the West Bank. It highlights key considerations in the adaptation, consolidation, and potential scale-up of blended learning across different stakeholders, highlighting the individual-level, organisational and contextual conditions that enabled or constrained implementation. This is a summary of a full report. 

Full citation: Marei, A., Vasudevan, S. R., Barnes, K., & Daoud, M. (2026). The summary findings are available at: 

Key Learnings from UNRWA’s Blended Learning Programme in the West Bank (Summary of Key Findings)

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies (EiE Hub) for facilitating this discussion, and to Unai Sacona (UNRWA) and all participants who engaged in the learning session. Thank you to EdTech Hub colleagues, Jazzlyne Gunawan, Kate Radford, Katrina Barnes and Sophie Longley for supporting the development of this blog.