LocationsFrom rural Afghanistan to the Pacific atolls, access to electricity is proving that education is only as strong as the energy behind it.
Powering education
January 24, 2026
UNDP Asia and Pacific
The light arrives quietly at Shree Secondary School in Madhes, Nepal during a power outage. This is no small feat. Unlike in the past, it does not roar like a diesel generator or flicker with the uncertainty of an overstretched power line. It simply settles across a classroom in this village in southern Nepal. In its steady glow, middle grade students explore digital lessons on shared screens, and teachers moving through the room with confidence, no longer worried that a power failure will cut their lessons short.
Only recently, such a scene would have seemed almost impossible for the 950 students in this school. Today, however, thanks to an integrated agrivoltaics and community energy approach, renewable backup systems ensure that lighting and basic power remain constant even when the national grid fails.
UNDP Nepal
In many schools across Asia and the Pacific, this kind of light - steady, clean, and dependable - is illuminating a brighter future for students and a stronger blueprint for development. Across the region, renewable energy is unlocking the power of education, reshaping the very role of schools in their communities.
Rethinking access to energy
Although more than 60 percent of the world’s population lives in this region, 85 percent of energy demand here is still met by fossil fuels – which, in addition to causing pollution and emitting greenhouse gases, come with a hefty price tag. UNDP and its partners have been helping governments and communities rethink energy access.
Few countries demonstrate the stakes more clearly than Afghanistan. Decades of conflict have left it one of the world’s most energy-insecure nations. Whilst demand for energy has more than doubled since 2020 and continues to grow, energy production in the country lags behind. Afghan households have a daily average of only about 5-10 hours of electricity. This lack of reliable supply also affects businesses, education and health and governance facilities, severely constraining the economy as well as people’s lives.
Powering girls’ education
Across Afghanistan, UNDP’s Sustainable Energy Services for Education and Health in Afghanistan (SESEHA) initiative has replaced noisy, polluting, fuel-hungry generators with quiet and efficient photovoltaic panels. The practical impact of a steady supply of electricity is immediate. Teachers now print exam papers themselves, instead of traveling long distances to the nearest town. Administrative records have been digitized. And where possible, schools have added computers and projectors, exposing students to this technology often for the first time. The electricity is reliable enough that lessons no longer stop when power fails or generator fuel runs out. Classrooms remain well lit year round and cooled by electric fans in the summer, making learning more pleasant and effective.
UNDP Afghanistan
Since 2023, 344 Afghan schools have been equipped with new solar systems, representing 2,751 kilowatts of clean energy capacity and reaching over 220,000 people, including 142,000 women and girls.
At Geenah Kaan Girls Secondary School in Darabaad village, Principal Ayesha Shirzay describes how energy powers the internet, computers, and a fully functional computer lab. Projectors enhance classroom learning, coolers keep rooms comfortable during the sweltering heat, and solar water pumps ensure a steady supply of clean water, supporting both the students and the school’s greenhouse project.
The benefits extend to the staff as well. “The solar system has opened doors,” said Ms. Azimi, a teacher at the school. “We can now conduct research, learn IT skills, and pass that knowledge on to our students.”
Digital transition starts at school
Renewable energy is also the primary engine for the digital transition. Digital literacy has become a prerequisite for participation in the modern economy, and in isolated areas, energy access has long been the primary chokepoint. Solar power is allowing schools to leapfrog into the 21st century.
UNDP in Timor - Leste
In Timor-Leste, UNDP supported solarpowered ICT labs have given thousands of students in rural schools access to the internet for the first time.
In the Pacific Islands, where storms can sever power lines for weeks, renewable energy is a lifeline. Through rural electrification efforts, Fiji and other Pacific nations have begun equipping remote schools with solar systems that enable ICT based learning and extend study hours. In many Pacific secondary schools, most of students live on the campus as boarding students, and lack of electricity meant blackout for months, like this school in Aitape, Papua New Guinea.
For thousands of students and their teachers, the ability to access lessons even after a cyclone is vital for educational continuity. Furthermore, many of these schools now serve as emergency shelters. Their solar arrays keep the lights on and allow families to charge phones and communicate with authorities while seeking refuge from extreme weather.
UNDP in Papua New Guinea
In Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Region of Bougainville, solar systems power “Innovation Hubs” that serve as learning and entrepreneurship centers for youth, providing access to digital tools, training, and mentoring in spaces that would otherwise suffer frequent outages or no electricity. These hubs support skills building for young people and local enterprises in a clean-energy setting.
Training the green workforce
The relationship between energy and education runs both ways. As renewable energy enables education, education fuels the energy transition.
In Samoa, UNDP has supported the development of a new curriculum on electric vehicle mechanics, in collaboration with the Samoa Qualifications Authority. Trainers have already been certified and are preparing to teach students, helping build a local workforce capable of servicing clean transport technologies.
UNDP in Samoa
In Timor Leste, as in other Pacific countries, youth-focused initiatives under the Pacific Green Transformation Project include renewable energy training modules, positioning students and young technicians to maintain solar and other systems in their own communities. For Liberto Lino Algarve Soares, a young engineer supporting these transitions, the work goes beyond technology: “I remember children studying at night under solar lights for the first time,” he said.
UNDP In Timor Leste
In Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, UNDP and the Government of Japan have supported a sweeping effort to deploy decentralized renewable technologies—from solar PV to biogas systems—across homes and public institutions. At the heart of this initiative, a solar PV system and a biogas unit were installed in a rural school, transforming how students and teachers experience learning. Once constrained by unreliable electricity and high costs, the school now confidently integrates ICT‑based education, keeps classrooms lit during exams and lessons, and redirects savings from reduced electricity costs toward teaching materials—strengthening the quality of education. The biogas system further supports the school by providing a clean, affordable energy source for daily needs, reinforcing sustainability in the learning environment. Alongside this, the initiative has trained 391 people, 75 percent of them women, in the installation and maintenance of these systems. These newly skilled workers are beginning to fill a growing regional demand for technicians who can both build and troubleshoot the green infrastructure of the future.
UNDP Sri Lanka
Similarly, in Bangladesh, renewable energy has been woven into the architecture of climate resilient schools in flood prone districts. Students learn not only beneath solar powered lights but from them. The curriculum now connects science education with local climate realities, creating a generation that understands both the physics of solar panels and the stakes of rising seas.
UNDP Bangladesh
This virtuous cycle of energy powering schools and vice versa is becoming one of the most dynamic feedback loops in development. The more stable and modern the learning environment, the more prepared a country is to foster green industries and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
Energy is power
Throughout Asia and the Pacific, UNDP’s strategic framing of energy access emphasizes leaving no one behind and building long term resilience. Renewable energy is inseparable from social development. Electrifying a school is not simply an infrastructure investment; it is an investment in human capital, public health, and gender equality.
As Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, puts it: “Renewable energy changes our very relationship with power: it puts agency into people’s hands. When we use clean energy to power education, opportunity expands and communities transform. Girls study longer, teachers teach better, and the community plans beyond tomorrow. It is among the smartest investments we can make. There are already so many hurdles; energy should not be one of them. Research shows it clearly: no country becomes prosperous while remaining energy poor.”
These results and impacts are visible in the most vulnerable corners of the region. In the Himalayas, solar powered water pumps ensure that children arrive at school healthy and hydrated rather than burdened by the hours lost collecting water manually. In every community where these systems take root, the same transformation unfolds: learning extends into the evening, digital tools become commonplace, and the school—once a fragile institution—becomes an anchor of community strength.
AsiaPacific is home to many of the world’s most complex energy landscapes. Renewable energy is illuminating schools, warming and cooling classrooms, connecting teachers and students digitally, and expanding learning and opportunity. It is amplifying what schools can be. In better light, entire societies can see their own possibilities more clearly.
As Principal Shirzay says of her students in Farah, Afghanistan: “UNDP has brought light to a place where we can brighten the minds of our future builders.”
