What Works Hub for Global Education

While most education funding comes from national governments, global funders can play an influential role by shaping incentives that drive the production and use of evidence. ?? ? Learn how funders can better support evidence uptake in the #WWHGlobalEd24 blog, by Natasha Ahuja and Pedro Freitas:

The What Works Hub for Global Education Tanzania team engaged in an energetic two-day Theory of Change workshop in Dar es Salaam ???? , articulating shared goals aligned with government priorities around teacher workforce management, pre and in service training, and rollout of revised curriculum towards improvements in learning outcomes. The workshop brought together Hub collaborators from Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE), University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Georgetown University, EdTech Hub, The Learning Generation Initiative, British Council, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.

Countries across the world are faced with a learning crisis. The challenge lies in the political and bureaucratic processes of ‘implementation’ – the translation of policies and inputs into concrete practices, services and ultimately, learning outcomes. Akshay Mangla from the Sa?d Business School, University of Oxford, explores the policy implementation mechanism based on reflections from primary schooling in India ????. ?? A focus on bureaucracy and the wider education system is important for addressing the learning crisis. ?? The analysis of bureaucratic norms and state-society relations reveals the mechanisms of implementing education services in challenging environments. ?? Future research needs to explore the motivations and mindsets of policymakers as well as the relations between state and non-state actors. ?? Read more:

An honor to join the Teaching at the Right Level Africa 5-year event and to share the stage with Laura Poswell Benjamin Piper Rukmini Banerji Hafsatu Hamza on a panel "Implementation Matters: where do things break down at scale?" The TaRL movement is an extraordinary one. An evidence-based intervention, going to scale with governments and an ecosystem of research, policymaker, practitioner, and donor partners. We rarely see this. We now have the opportunity to systematically track implementation on a scaling program in real-time as a set of ambitious scale-ups are underway. Implementation is often seen as fuzzy and intractable -- let's make it measurable, tractable, systematic and unpack the implementation puzzle to ensure foundational learning success both for TaRL but also for many other Foundational Literacy & Numeracy efforts. An honor to be on this journey over the past five years and excited to engage in this ongoing learning journey with the TaRL movement for the next five (and beyond). At the 10-year event we'll have many more implementation stories to tell. What Works Hub for Global Education Youth Impact Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Jacobs Foundation Co-Impact International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Pratham Education Foundation UNICEF Innocenti USAID VVOB Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Innovations for Poverty Action Building Tomorrow Street Child (US) YARID_Uganda PAL Network Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and many many more

“To achieve impact at scale, we’ve got to focus on implementation. And to understand and improve implementation, we’ve got to measure it, account for it, and systematically iterate on it.” Noam Angrist, Academic Director of the What Works Hub for Global Education, speaking at the Teaching at the Right Level Africa 2024 Conference on the critical topic – 'Implementation matters: Where do things break down at scale?'. #TaRLAfricaConf2024

Well-designed programmes with prior evidence of success often fail when scaled up by government. What adjustments can we make to solve this problem? ?? Make bureaucrats’ work easier, not harder. ?? Identify the weak links in the long chain of implementation. ?? Augment rather than circumvent existing incentive structures. Discover how we identify and test for a low-cost way to improve the implementation of a school governance reform programme in Tanzania ????, which was rolled out nationwide to over 20,000 schools. James Habyarimana Jacobus Cilliers

"Even small adjustments to educational programmes can lead to significant improvements in learning outcomes." The My Village Project is an innovative initiative by the People's Action for Learning (PAL) Network, dedicated to addressing the learning crisis faced by children in Kenya ???? , Tanzania ???? , and Nepal????. The project's first phase addresses an alarming statistic that over 50% of 45,000 children assessed across 304 villages lack essential literacy and numeracy skills. By continually evaluating approaches and utilising A/B testing, this initiative has significantly improved learning outcomes and narrowed the education gap between children from wealthier and poorer households. ? Explore the power of A/B testing in the My Village Learning intervention from our consortium partner PAL Network, authored by Najme Kishani (PhD) and Winny Cherotich:

Having good ideas is not enough – we need to make sure they are implemented effectively. How we put programmes into action is just as important as the ideas behind them. ?? ?? Read more in the #WWHGlobalEd24 blog by Natasha Ahuja and Pedro Freitas to understand implementation details of effective pedagogical programmes:

Often efforts to scale evidence-based interventions within government systems fail. This suggests that producing evidence is only part of the solution — understanding how policymakers prioritise learning and how they interpret and use that evidence is equally important. ?? How can we strengthen evidence ecosystems within governments to maximise uptake and buy-in? Check out insights from a high-level policy panel at the What Works Hub for Global Education 2024 annual conference, shared by the Hub member Natasha Ahuja: #WWHGlobalEd24

?? Last chance! The Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford is hiring a Research Assistant for the What Works Hub for Global Education. This role offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to developing a new science of implementation. ? Deadline: 12 noon (UK time), 6 November 2024 ?? Apply now: https://lnkd.in/ei3wFu7a #education #research #jobs #hiring