How to generate and use knowledge and evidence for education policy reform: perspectives on the potential of GPE's new financing mechanisms

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Education systems have a crucial role in building the foundations for the future, transforming new cohorts of students to become active citizens in their communities, equipped to face new sustainable development challenges. For education to do so successfully, however, public systems must be ready to respond and adapt to changing needs of societies, and of learners. In this context, governments are challenged to drive reforms that respond to shifting social, political, economic, environmental and cultural trends. Knowledge, innovation and evidence generation in the form of global public goods are therefore critical for education policy planning and implementation at country level.

A paradox lies in the fact that developing countries are usually those that have higher stakes in global public goods required to inform policy and planning yet often lack funding or capacity to access them. There is strong demand from developing country partners to learn from innovative responses to implement policies that address sectoral challenges (Results for Development, 2016). Furthermore, there is need for integrating investments in the production of global public goods with networks and capacity development to ensure the dissemination of global public goods and, crucially, their uptake at national level (Education Commission, 2016). There is further evidence of the need to focus investments in three main areas where education systems may benefit most: data (evidence), research (knowledge) and networks (use) (Global Education Monitoring Report, 2018). As a multi-stakeholder partnership comprised on global and national actors working towards strengthening national education systems, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is poised to make a significant contribution to the mobilization and use of knowledge and innovation.

At the same time, knowledge, evidence and innovation alone are insufficient to drive system change. For that reason, change agents are required to build momentum behind the reforms needed, overcoming inertia or resistance of vested stakeholders. Civil society actors – sometime working with allies from State institutions – often play this important role as change agents. Civic organizations are well placed to contribute to evidence from the ground up, documenting and communicating realities at the school or community level while also mobilizing political will to act on that evidence. Evidence generation and use can play a fundamental role enhancing delivery of education systems in developing countries, especially to meet the educational needs of vulnerable and marginalized populations. Organizations working on behalf of the public interest, to strengthen public accountability in education, are often the missing ingredient to ensure evidence is applied to the formulation of policy and that policy is implemented effectively. By investing in both the generation of knowledge for policy reform and in civil society accountability work, the Global Partnership aims to build the foundations for more responsive, relevant education systems able to support the development of more sustainable societies.

The panelists from the Global Partnership for Education will describe the goals and architecture of two new GPE funding mechanisms - Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) and Advocacy and Social Accountability (ASA) - explain the intention and how they work and demonstrate their operation through examples of practice and lessons learned to date. Ian MacPherson will describe GPE’s added value as a protagonist of knowledge, innovation exchange, and evidence generation, highlighting its unique role as a global multi-stakeholder platform explicitly oriented to strengthening public education systems. Sarah Beardmore will discuss GPE’s efforts to support new approaches to accountability in education, including investing in a more robust, capacitated and well-resourced civil society that can help to motivate the uptake, utilization and application of evidence and knowledge in policy implementation, including at local, national and transnational levels.

The Analysis of National Learning Assessment Systems (ANLAS) tool is being developed under GPE’s Assessment for Learning (A4L) pilot work under KIX. The development and application of ANLAS aims to strengthen the capacity of national stakeholders by using a diagnostic tool to undertake comprehensive analysis of national learning assessment systems that informs strategies to build/improve such systems within Education Sector Plans (ESPs). ANLAS is being piloted in three of GPE’s developing country partners, and a representative of the Ethiopia national ANLAS team will present on the country’s experience in piloting this tool.

Sara Ruto will present the People Action for Learning network and the impact of citizen-led learning assessments in generating important evidence about children’s education outcomes, while shaping the policy dialogue on quality education. She will discuss the origins of the methodology, originating in India with the work of Pratham, and the evolution of this approach as it has been piloted and scaled in countries across Africa and Asia.

Manos Antoninis from the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report will act as discussant. The 2017/2018 GEM report focused on Accountability in Education: Meeting our Commitments. It explores a range of accountability mechanisms that are used to hold governments, schools, teachers, parents, the international community, and the private sector accountable for inclusive, equitable and quality education. Manos will reflect on the conditions that enable stronger public accountability, and some of the most promising tools and practices – legal, electoral, policy and other – that have proven to increase transparency and accountability in education. In March 2018, a GEM policy paper Fulfilling our collective responsibility: Financing global public goods in education argued that global public goods in education – such as internationally comparable data and statistics, basic research addressing the challenge of improving learning outcomes for sustainable development, and networks for peer learning – are in short supply, poorly funded and rarely coordinated. The report calls on the international community to develop a joint vision and finance their provision sustainably to alleviate major constraints to achieving Education 2030 targets. Manos will reflect on GPE’s approach to supporting GPGs and driving accountability through KIX and ASA.

The audience will be able to engage in a lively debate that will reflect upon the most effective approaches to knowledge mobilization to promote systems reform in developing countries and what are the circumstances that are needed to make use of these public goods to generate a lasting impact in policy design.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Karen Mundy, Toronto University

Individual Presentations

• Knowledge and Innovation Exchange Design Blueprint - Ian Macpherson, Global Partnership for Education

• Assessment of National Learning Assessment Systems in Ethiopia - Ramya Vivekanandan, Global Partnership for Education

• Advocacy and Social Accountability funding mechanism design blueprint - Mesaye Demessie, Ministry of Education, Ethiopia

• Citizen-led Assessments: the experience of People's Action for Learning - Sara Ruto, People's Action for Learning (PAL) Network

Discussant

• Manos Antoninis, UNESCO