A Ready-to-Use Cyber Education Toolkit for Ukrainian Schools: EnCycLEd Platform

Schools, colleges, parents, career counselors, and education-focused media now have free access to ready-made cybersecurity materials — lessons, methodological guides, and a career guide. The platform was created by an international consortium of universities and cybersecurity experts with support from the Erasmus+ programme, with SET University among the partners.

The platform in question is go.encycled.eu: five modules for learning about cybersecurity, a practical guide for implementation in schools, and a dedicated guide to careers and educational pathways in cybersecurity.

Why this matters

There is a critical shortage of cybersecurity professionals in Ukraine and worldwide: the field is projected to grow by 8.5% annually through 2029, while some experienced specialists have left the country because of the war. A junior cybersecurity analyst in Ukraine earns from $31,000 a year, while the average salary in the field exceeds $51,000. This is a field that both defends the country and grows it.

But children rarely think of cybersecurity as a profession. For most of them, it’s just “don’t click suspicious links” — something abstract and uninteresting. EnCycLEd turns this topic into lively 45-minute lessons, career stories like Yehor Aushev’s, and a concrete plan for “what to do on Monday’s first lesson.”

This material wasn’t made only for computer science teachers. Homeroom teachers can use it for a class hour, school psychologists and career counselors — for work with graduating classes, parents — to talk with their children about digital safety on their own, and local education communities and media — to spread the topic further, to other schools in the region.

What you can use right now

The go.encycled.eu platform
Open access with no registration required to the “Modules,” “Resources,” “Glossary,” “Guides,” and “Links” sections (registration is only needed for the group discussion section). The platform includes five learning modules, each available in two versions tailored to different age groups: 10–14 and 15–18. Together, they guide students from the fundamentals of cybersecurity through network security, social engineering, and cyber resilience, culminating in a final module on Cyberpeace and responsible digital citizenship. Each module is a ready-made 45-minute lesson with a plan, activities, and a mini-quiz. Some resources are available in Ukrainian — alongside English and the languages of the project’s other partners.

The Piloting Program Guide
115 pages of step-by-step instructions: how to plan a calendar of five lessons, prepare a teacher, gather students into a discussion group, and collect feedback at the end. The format is flexible — from a single demonstration lesson to a full cycle covering all five modules. The learning materials are designed to support both in-person and online instruction. They can also be used in a flipped classroom setting or for fully asynchronous learning.

Download the Piloting Guide (PDF)

The Cybersecurity Careers and Study Pathways Guide
The central question here is “who can I become.” The guide describes 12 professional profiles based on the European Cybersecurity Skills Framework, real stories of professionals from Ukraine, Austria, Greece, Malta, and Germany, and a concrete Ukrainian pathway: enrolling in a college under specialty 125 “Cybersecurity” as early as after 9th grade, a bachelor’s and master’s degree after 11th grade, more than 60 higher education institutions offering this specialty, and 1,457 state-funded places in 2024 alone. Ready-made material for career guidance work — no need to piece it together from the internet yourself.

Download the Careers Guide (PDF)

Getting started: a 10-minute lesson example

• Go to go.encycled.eu — no registration is needed to view the materials.
• Choose Module 1, “What is Cybersecurity?”, as an introduction — a complete lesson plan is already available for it.
• Run a short exercise with your class called “Find Your Cyber Match” from the careers guide: students choose one or two professional roles that resonate with them and explain why.
• If you’d like, create a discussion group and continue the cycle with the following modules using the implementation guide.

The materials are designed for any teacher or homeroom teacher — no specialized training in cybersecurity is required.

The EnCycLEd Erasmus+ project (grant agreement No. 2023-1-AT01-KA220-SCH-000166888) is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.