Government decisionmaking on education in low- and middle-income countries: Understanding the fit among innovation, scaling strategy, and broader environment

• In Event: Leadership, Governance and Innovation

Proposal

Background 
Education is the bedrock for individual development, social progress, democratic and climate health, and economic growth—and, one-quarter of the way through this complex 21st century, that is truer than ever. Protests typically arise as a response to the failure of existing systems. In this way, protest can be a healthy form of system transformation and can lead to improved conditions for human and cultural development. Focusing boldly to transform systems—including, in this present case, education systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)—therefore aligns with the kinds of protests that push for social change.
This is relevant because the current state of education quality and learning outcomes in many LMICs is woefully inadequate. Furthermore, the challenges within education systems today cannot be solved by incremental adjustments or small-scale pilots. Instead, addressing them requires coordinated action among stakeholders, ongoing evidence of impact, and an emphasis on expanding and deepening the outcomes of the education intervention so it reaches more learners and lasts the test of time. For this reason, developing and scaling promising education innovations has emerged as a valuable strategy toward transforming education systems. 
Scaling encompasses a range of approaches—from replication to diffusion to integration into national systems—that expand and deepen impact, leading to lasting improvements in people’s lives. For many, systems transformation and scaling go hand in hand.
Systems transformation recognizes that education is a complex ecology with interconnected components (including policies, funding streams, teacher training, infrastructure, and community involvement). Systems thinking is useful for foregrounding the interconnected nature of education ecologies and focusing on holistic change efforts. But systems transformation can be overwhelming to manage or excessively diffuse in the absence of concrete interventions that adhere to and reposition existing system parts. Likewise, scaling alone is insufficient if it does not create impact that leads to broader system-level changes. Therefore, the integration of scaling (i.e., embedding concrete drivers of change for lasting impact) and systems transformation (i.e., a focus on aligning or re-positioning levers in an ecosystem) ensures that innovations not only create direct educational impact, but also catalyze changes in education systems. This is how to foster sustainable improvements in education quality and equity. 
For this to work, government policymakers must make good decisions about adopting and supporting the right education innovations for scale. This is because most innovations need sustained support and integration into existing policy frameworks in order to scale—and this typically requires government involvement. Government education decisionmakers therefore have the responsibility, authority, and resources to enable promising innovations in education to be scaled in service of whole systems change.  
This proposed presentation derives from our research that investigated the fit among innovation, scaling strategy, and the broader environment in education in terms of government decisionmaking. The presentation discusses how government decisionmaking—which is shaped by interrelationships among education innovations, scaling strategies, and the broader environment— can either increase or reduce opportunities for whole systems change in education.  

Study
The study was conducted by the Millions Learning project at the Brookings Institution. The study examined how LIMC governments identify, adopt, and adapt education innovations for scaling. Three rounds of desk research and 20 semi-structured, recorded interviews with current and former government education decisionmakers, advisors, researchers, technology industry leaders, and donor representatives in 8 LMICs were conducted.
The resulting empirical analysis, and therefore this presentation, highlights five dimensions of the broader affecting environment that shape national-level government decisionmaking around the scaling of education innovations: (1) domestic political negotiations, (2) global trends and donor priorities, (3) the popularity of education transfer, (4) the rise of education technology, and (5) the absence of meaningful real-time education data. The analysis found that these dimensions influence decisionmaking alongside a complex interplay of limited time and information, political complexities, and personalities. It was found that government decisions about scaling education innovations are not primarily about the merits or impact of the innovation itself, but on how the innovation aligns with the wider education ecosystem formed out of those five dimensions.  

Presentation 
This proposed presentation will contextualize the study and discuss its findings. The presentation will additionally offer empirically derived recommendations for scaling teams, government decisionmakers, the donor community, and education researchers.
For example, to navigate the broader education environment effectively, scaling teams should establish and maintain dynamic networks of in-country champions who support the scaling work from the beginning.
For LMIC governments working with funders, there should be explicit demands for clear and practical evidence about the innovations—and the evidence must be tailored to their specific context.  Additionally, the necessity of (1) including teachers in the scaling process as authentic partners, (2) carefully evaluating the education technology against concomitant equity challenges and opportunity costs, and (3) considering home-grown (or local ‘grassroots’) innovations as education solutions will be discussed. 
The global donor community should be supported to move away from a focus on short-term, fragmented, project implementation and instead collaborate with countries to engage in long-term systems change by way of aligning and scaling the right innovations. Additionally, funding research that identifies and validates promising grassroots initiatives inside countries is an untapped area with great potential.
And finally, for researchers, there is a host of specific research questions (including those on equity and middle-tier governance realities) and innovative methodologies (including locally conducted research and ethnographic studies) that this presentation will recommend. 

Relevance 
As mentioned at the beginning, this presentation fits the 2024 conference theme because demands for whole-systems change in education are, in fact, a kind of protest. Perhaps, advocating for—and illuminating how to—change education systems by way of scaling innovations can even forestall destructive protests by transforming systems before chaos ensues. This presentation aims to do just that. It intends to equip and inspire practitioners, policy makers, and researchers to engage in collaborative efforts towards improving education systems in LMICs. This is “the power of protest.”

Author

• Brad Olsen, The Brookings Institution