Redesigning the education workforce: findings from the education commission's educator workforce report

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

CIES’s 2018 Annual Conference Theme, Education for Sustainability, challenges us to revisit education as an integral component of the UN’s four pillars of sustainability: inclusive social development, inclusive economic development, peace and security, and environmental sustainability. Education has long been the focus of a myriad of reform efforts focused on assisting educational systems to be a better support for the public good.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a starting point for countries to address the most pressing of global challenges and rapid changes through a framework for action across social, environmental and economic dimensions. Education is a central pillar in this framework with SDG4 aiming to ensure inclusive and equitable education and the promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all (Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2015). In addition to being a goal in its own right, education is key to addressing the other SDGs, including promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all (SDG8) and promoting peaceful and inclusive societies (SDG16) among many others. This framework has catalyzed a dialogue around the outcomes and processes necessary to achieve SDG4 and the other urgent global goals within the given timeframe.

The UNESCO’s Incheon Declaration for Education 2030 outlined these outcomes: “Relevant learning outcomes must be well defined in cognitive and non-cognitive domains, and continually assessed as an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Quality education includes the development of those skills, values, attitudes and knowledge that enable citizens to lead healthy and fulfilled lives, make informed decisions and respond to local and global challenges”.

The education community has responded in several ways. One of the most visible are global and country efforts to develop frameworks in which new skills and competencies are defined that will allow students and communities to thrive in this century. These frameworks are just starting to be implemented by countries (Care, Kim, & Soular, 2016) and there is concern around how successful such attempts will be if they are simply grafted onto 20th century education systems without accompanying structural changes (Care, Kim, & Soular, 2016).

In addition to the new skills frameworks, initiatives experimenting with alternative models of schooling seek to harness innovations and ensure an inclusive approach to achieving updated education goals. These models provide insight into possible options for the delivery of education at scale in the future that is better able to meet the changing demands of this century. This includes the need to find better ways to enable millions of out-of-school children to participate in learning - this will not be possible within current system designs due to a number of factors including lack of capacity- for example, the number of STEM graduates required as teachers- and contextual factors, such as the lack of security in many fragile and conflict-affected regions.

Another important response includes the concept of leapfrogging which challenges education stakeholders to think beyond historically linear models of growth and instead harness opportunities to accelerate progress towards productive schooling experiences for all children and young people.

At the end of 2017, The Open University was commissioned by the International Commission on Financing Education Opportunity (the Education Commission) to undertake initial research (Wolfenden et al., 2018) to inform approaches to the Education Workforce Initiative’s Education Workforce Report (EWR).

The Education Workforce Initiative (EWI) is an initiative led by the Education Commission that aims to develop concrete options for policymakers to re-think and strengthen the education workforce to meet the changing demands of the 21st century and to enable quality and inclusive education for all. By undertaking primary research in two EWI countries and drawing on evidence from in-depth case studies on how education workforce reform is implemented and examples of innovation, EWI seeks to harness the latest experience to inform new ways to approach workforce design and implementation.

This initial review of the literature noted “radical changes and new thinking are needed if we are to guarantee every child and young person is adequately prepared for life and work in an increasingly uncertain, unequal and volatile world” (Wolfenden et al., 2018, p. 3). This review of the research literature recommended that the redesign of the educational workforce be situated in complex systems, iterative and localized.

The EWR draws from and builds on the initial research undertaken by The Open University (Wolfenden et al., 2018). The EWR utilized the latest experiences and evidence, lessons across sectors and innovative approaches from around the globe to inform education workforce design and implementation. The specific goal of the EWR is to address the broader education workforce (e.g. leaders, ESPs, district officials and others in addition to teachers). The report focused on primary and secondary education, at school and district levels (including cluster or block levels), predominantly for public education systems.

The report undertook further secondary data analysis complemented by interviews with key actors in current case study initiatives to generate deeper understandings of the ways in which these initiatives have been introduced and embedded in particular contexts and addressed system reforms. These case studies were selected from primarily low- or middle-income countries unless a high- income example was deemed appropriate. The EWR also explores its overarching questions through scenarios and typologies which help to build an understanding of what the needs and potential options may be in specific contexts.

This panel presentation will begin with an overview of the Education Workforce Initiative to frame for audience participants the scope and breadth of the work that has been undertaken by the Education Commission. Following this overview, research studies on re-designing the education workforce from two EWI countries (Ghana and Vietnam) will be shared. The studies in Ghana and Vietnam will allow for comparisons between the two countries as they used the same research methodologies and analyses. Following the presentation on these findings, discussants from the EWI’s High-Level Steering Group will share their perspectives on the study’s findings and recommendations for future areas of focus and direction.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Individual Presentations

• Overview and Framing of the Educator Workforce Report - Amy Bellinger, Education Commission; Katie Godwin, Education Commission

• Educator Workforce Research in Ghana - Yeukai Mlambo, Arizona State University; Freda Wolfenden, The Open University, UK

• Educator Workforce Research in Vietnam - Ann Walker Nielsen, Center for Advanced Studies in Global Education, Arizona State University; Yeukai Mlambo, Arizona State University

Discussant

• Mary Metcalfe, University of Johannesburg