Publications
Creating Reforms: National and Sub-national Stories of Creativity Reform
The LEGO Foundation have launched their third publication ‘Creating Reforms: National and Sub-national Stories of Creativity Reform’ in the #CreativityMatters series.
In the report, we highlight the journey of six governments, with different cultural and political circumstances, that have successfully supported children in developing creativity.
Interviewing these experienced and motivated education policymakers has been fascinating. We hope this inspires politicians everywhere!
María José Ogando Portela, Vibecke Dixon, Sirin Tangpornpaiboon and LEGO Foundation colleagues: Ryan Gawn, Maria Menendez, Pamela Millora, Rein Terwindt, and Katharina Thomas. (2023)
Rebuilding Systems: National Stories of Social and Emotional Learning Reform
The LEGO Foundation have launched their first publication in the Social and Emotional Skills Matter series.
For “Rebuilding systems – national stories of social and emotional learning reform” we interviewed policymakers from six pioneering education systems – Australia, Colombia, Finland, Peru, South Africa and South Korea – on how they have attempted to reform their public education systems to enhance students’ social and emotional learning skills. These interviews bring together policymakers with first-hand experience of working in government on reform efforts, offering their reflections, insights and learnings.
María José Ogando Portela, Vibecke Dixon, Sirin Tangpornpaiboon and LEGO Foundation colleagues: Maria Menendez, Ryan Gawn, Rein Terwindt, Kathryn Scott, Kerry Kassen, Mandisa Melaphi and Katharina Thomas. (2022)
Girls' Education Challenge
The Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) was launched by the UK’s Department for International Development in 2012 as a 12 year commitment to reach the most marginalised girls in the world and is the largest global fund dedicated to girls’ education. The UK is committed to ensuring millions of girls in some of the poorest countries, including girls who have disabilities or are at risk of being left behind, receive a quality education. Through the GEC, we aim to transform the lives of over one million of the world’s most marginalised girls through quality education and learning. Access to a good quality education and learning opportunities will empower these girls to secure a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. The first phase of the GEC (2012 – 2017) directly provided quality education for over a million marginalised girls. The GEC is now in its second phase: working through 41 projects in 17 countries. The GEC-Transition Phase II projects are supporting GEC beneficiaries from Phase I to complete primary school, transition to secondary education, and progress on to technical vocational training or employment. Within the second phase, a second cohort of girls are also being supported through the Leave No Girl Behind funding window, which consists of interventions for highly marginalised, adolescent girls who are out of school – either because they have never attended school or have dropped out without gaining a basic education.
Teachers and Teaching for Marginalised Girls
This study focuses on how GEC II projects have engaged teachers and emphasised teaching quality to improve girls’ education. This means understanding not only teacher demographics (who teachers are), but also their pedagogical practices, most notably how they approach teaching marginalised girls in their classrooms (what they do).
In this context, the study focuses on two key research questions: How have GEC II projects
- implemented and adapted interventions with teachers and teaching prior to Covid-19; and
- adapted their interventions during the pandemic?
Pauline Rose, Monazza Aslam, Phoebe Downing, Romanshi Gupta, Brian Law, María-José Ogando Portela, Shenila Rawal, and Katherine Stewart. (2021)
Effects of Covid-19 on Access and Learning in the GEC II
As Covid-19 spread rapidly in early 2020, education systems around the world closed schools to keep children safe. By June 2020, more than two thirds of the world’s children were affected by school closures (UNHCR, 2020). This paper seeks to explore the experiences of girls during this time, by looking at those involved in two GEC projects in Kenya (EDT) and Nepal (Mercy Corps). We try to understand what happened during the time schools were closed, to understand and measure the impact of school closures on girls’ learning, and to test new ways of identifying girls that may be at risk of dropping out of school.
Fab Inc were partners in the production of this evaluation study. (2022)
Aggregate Impact of GEC-T Projects between Baseline and Midline
This study is conducted as part of the independent evaluation of GEC II, an eight-year (2017-2025) programme supported by the FCDO that aims to improve the learning opportunities and outcomes of over one million of the world’s most marginalised girls. GEC Phase II is delivered through two funding windows:
1. GEC Transitions (GEC-T) Window, which supports marginalised girls participating in 27 GEC Phase I projects across 15 countries1 in transitioning to the next stage of their education; and
2. Leave No Girl Behind (LNGB) Window, which supports 14 projects in 10 countries working with highly marginalised, adolescent girls who have never attended or have already dropped out of school.
This study focuses on the GEC-T Window, to enable the FCDO and the GEC II Fund Manager (FM) to respond to the accountability objective of whether, and to what extent the GEC-T is associated with changes in girls’ learning and transition outcomes, as well as to provide portfolio-level benchmarks for future IE studies on what magnitude of impact the GEC-T has achieved, which subgroups were most affected by projects’ interventions and which intermediate outcomes are correlated with improved learning.
Florian Poli, María José Ogando Portela, Paul Atherton, Youngjin Kim, Tomáš Koutecký and Sirin Tangpornpaiboon. (2022)
EdTech Hub Working Paper
This report learned from the experience of both Ebola and data management efforts to help inform post-Covid-19 recovery including a data architecture for a resilient education data ecosystem in Sierra Leone and elsewhere. This was built on the construction of a combined database containing Annual School Census data at the school level from 2015–2019, and at the district level from 2011–2013.
Analysis of enrolment and Ebola case data highlighted the ongoing importance of geographical and economic factors in determining education access, over and above the short-term health impacts of such crises. This has also enabled a detailed consideration of the data architecture within Sierra Leone to inform ongoing stakeholder discussions in this area, as well as demonstrating the potential benefits of improved data structures for data analysis, visualisation, and use through a dashboard.
This has been warmly received, with the government looking to take over ownership of the database, display the dashboard publicly, and inform ongoing policy development and implementation. Finally, key principles and step-by-step guides for replicating this work have been provided to support similar efforts in other countries which face comparable challenges to Sierra Leone in terms of both data availability and consistency, and the potential use of this data to support Covid-19 school reopening.
Fab Inc. (2021)
Education Workforce Initiative Policy Briefs
The Education Workforce Initiative (EWI), funded by UK Aid, partnered with Fab Inc. and Sierra Leone’s Teaching Service Commission (TSC) to support strengthening the education workforce. The research and analysis applied a systemic lens across the workforce lifecycle, considering how to improve the supply and demand of teachers across Sierra Leone, but especially in the most disadvantaged areas.
The project worked adaptively and collaboratively with stakeholders across government, teacher unions, and development partners to produce a series of research and policy papers aimed at supporting both government policymaking and development partner activities. These five evidence papers covered key aspects of the education workforce: management; spatial analysis; supply and needs; recruitment and matching; and costed options.
Management
Alasdair Mackintosh, Ana Ramírez, Paul Atherton, Victoria Collis, Miriam Mason-Sesay, and Claudius Bart-Williams. (2020)
Spatial Analysis
Alasdair Mackintosh, Ana Ramírez, Paul Atherton, Victoria Collis, Miriam Mason-Sesay, and Claudius Bart-Williams. (2020)
Supply and Needs
Alasdair Mackintosh, Ana Ramírez, Paul Atherton, Victoria Collis, Miriam Mason-Sesay, and Claudius Bart-Williams. (2020)
Recruitment and Matching
Alasdair Mackintosh, Ana Ramírez, Paul Atherton, Victoria Collis, Miriam Mason-Sesay, and Claudius Bart-Williams. (2020)
Costed Options
Alasdair Mackintosh, Ana Ramírez, Paul Atherton, Victoria Collis, Miriam Mason-Sesay, and Claudius Bart-Williams. (2020)
EWI Country Report
Between February 2019 and September 2020, the Education Commission’s Education Workforce Initiative (EWI), funded by UK Aid, partnered with Fab Inc. and Sierra Leone’s Teaching Service Commission (TSC) to support their education workforce reform efforts. The aim of the project was to work with TSC to research, analyse, and propose solutions for improving the supply and demand of teachers in the most disadvantaged areas.
Alasdair Mackintosh, Ana Ramírez, Paul Atherton, Victoria Collis, Miriam Mason-Sesay, and Claudius Bart-Williams. (2020)
EWI Flipbook
This flipbook was designed to showcase the discussion and policy papers developed by Fab Inc. (on behalf of the Education Commission), to help the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) strengthen further the education workforce. It is part of the wider Education Workforce Initiative (EWI) and builds on the Transforming the Education Workforce report. Sierra Leone has been a key partner in this initiative. This work builds on a phase one scoping study that focused on options to strengthen the workforce. The aim of the project was to work with the TSC to research, analyse, and propose solutions for increasing the number of qualified, specialised and effective teachers in disadvantaged schools.
Alasdair Mackintosh, Ana Ramírez, Paul Atherton, Victoria Collis, Miriam Mason-Sesay, and Claudius Bart-Williams. (2020)
Girls' Education Challenge
The Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) was launched by the UK’s Department for International Development in 2012 as a 12 year commitment to reach the most marginalised girls in the world and is the largest global fund dedicated to girls’ education. The UK is committed to ensuring millions of girls in some of the poorest countries, including girls who have disabilities or are at risk of being left behind, receive a quality education. Through the GEC, we aim to transform the lives of over one million of the world’s most marginalised girls through quality education and learning. Access to a good quality education and learning opportunities will empower these girls to secure a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. The first phase of the GEC (2012 – 2017) directly provided quality education for over a million marginalised girls. The GEC is now in its second phase: working through 41 projects in 17 countries. The GEC-Transition Phase II projects are supporting GEC beneficiaries from Phase I to complete primary school, transition to secondary education, and progress on to technical vocational training or employment. Within the second phase, a second cohort of girls are also being supported through the Leave No Girl Behind funding window, which consists of interventions for highly marginalised, adolescent girls who are out of school – either because they have never attended school or have dropped out without gaining a basic education.
GEC-T girls’ baseline learning levels and predictors of learning
This paper is based on the combined analysis of baseline data from the 27 GEC Transition (GEC-T) projects conducted by Oxford Policy Management (OPM) and Oxford MeasurEd. This paper explores the learning levels of girls supported by the GEC-T projects (referred to within the report as GEC-T girls). The main contribution of this paper is the identification of the predictors of learning for marginalised girls (using a GEC-T dataset). The paper considers the implications for DFID and GEC. The analysis is research-focused and is not an evaluation of the GEC-T programme. Data from the 15 GEC Leave No Girl Behind (LNGB) projects, which focus on supporting the most marginalised girls, are not included within this analysis.
Rachel Outhred, Maria Jose Ogando Portela, Alasdair Mackintosh, and Katharina Keck. (2020)
Who are the GEC-T supported girls?
This paper is based on the combined analysis of the 27 GEC-T baseline datasets conducted by Oxford Policy Management (OPM) and Oxford MeasurEd. The analysis of this data helps to understand who the GEC-T girls are and to describe their levels of marginalisation; provides a deeper understanding of the safety and security challenges in GEC-T contexts; contributes to the dearth of evidence on the learning levels of marginalised learners in diverse contexts; provides evidence to support DFID and the GEC Fund Manager (FM) to make informed decisions about how to provide appropriate technical advice and support across the portfolio of GEC programmes; provides evidence to inform DFID’s global influencing and communication strategies; and supports the accountability of public funds.
Rachel Outhred, María José Ogando Portela, Alasdair Mackintosh, and Katharina Keck. (2020)
Global Partnership for Education Country Level Evaluation: Ethiopia
The purpose of these prospective evaluations is to assess whether GPE’s inputs and influence are orienting education sector planning, implementation and monitoring toward the intermediary outcomes outlined in its theory of change (ToC).
First Annual Report
Paul Atherton and Rachel Outhred. (2018)
Final Report (Year 2)
María José Ogando Portela and Abrehet Gebremedhin. (2020)
Outsmarting your parents: Being a first-generation learner in developing countries
Abstract: We use data from the Young Lives surveys, in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, to highlight an underappreciated phenomenon—that a substantial proportion of students in developing countries are the first in their families to go to school. We term these students first‐generation learners (FGLs). We both propose a simple “static” definition of FGL status—where a child’s parents have no education attainment—and utilise the panel dynamics of the Young Lives data set to look at a “dynamic” definition—where the child, in any given round of data collection, is enrolled at a level which his or her parents did not reach. We show descriptive statistics on the scale of this problem across the four countries. We find strong, consistent patterns of relative educational deprivation for FGLs. We tentatively explore the pathways through which FGL status may affect outcomes and find possible explanations through an inability to support with homework and lower aspirations. We look at how becoming an FGL affects the probability of being in school using child fixed‐effects estimations and find it increases the vulnerability of children to drop out.
Paul Atherton and María José Ogando Portela (2020)
Review of Development Economics, Vol. 24, Issue 4, November 2020
USAID Rwanda: A Study on Kinyarwanda Instructional Time in Lower Primary
This study provides new information about the amount and nature of instructional time in P2 Kinyarwanda classes and how that time is associated with student reading skills as well as teacher and student characteristics. Developed in collaboration with the Rwandan Education Board (REB) and a reference group consisting of Rwandan education experts, this research supports the Government of Rwanda’s policy goals of “enhanced quality of learning outcomes that are relevant to Rwanda’s social and economic development”, and that “all learners achieve basic levels of literacy and numeracy in early years.” Additionally, the findings will also inform the USAID-funded Soma Umenye project interventions to improve reading outcomes.
Christine Beggs and María José Ogando Portela (2020)