Friend or foe? Learning through play and education reform in Ukraine

The New Ukrainian School reform aims to transform the system of education, emphasising the use of approaches that align with play-based learning. This qualitative interview study investigated the perspectives of 29 Ukrainian teachers on implementing learning through play. The findings echo challenges reported in previous research, suggesting a level of generalisability in the evidence from high-income countries. These include a perceived disconnect between the ideals of the reform and the teachers' lived reality in the classroom, pressures from above relating to accountability and pressures from within relating to teacher confidence and motivation. Pressures from below, relating to children's readiness for learning through play, appear to be a more prominent barrier for these teachers than previously suggested in the literature.