Education systems strengthening: Lessons learned from programming in Colombia, Haiti, India, and Indonesia

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

It is well established that education is a powerful agent for social-stability and long-lasting economic change. Girls who receive an education are less likely to marry young and more likely to lead healthy, productive lives. They earn higher incomes, participate in the decisions that most affect them, and build better futures for themselves and their families. Moreover, for all students, life expectancy improves as does civic engagement and even life satisfaction with every education milestone.

An education system refers to structures which organize and often provide formal education, usually at country (or nation) level. This system typically includes all pre-school institutions, starting from family education, and/or early childhood education, through kindergarten, primary, secondary, and finally tertiary education. In addition, an education system includes economic and social factors such as funding allocation, the coordination of individuals (i.e. teachers, administrators and students), infrastructure, and supplemental programs such as extracurriculars and school feeding programs. It should be noted that an education system is not limited to what is provided at the national level, civil society groups often play an important role in education, particularly when government systems are under-resourced.

Education system transformation is a heavily discussed topic, particularly in the wake of COVID-19 which exposed limitations within many education systems. Just last year (in September 2022), the U.N. secretary general convened the Transforming Education Summit (TES) at the general assembly meeting. At its core, systems transformation must entail a fresh review of the goals of a given education system. Questions should include:
1) Is there a shared program vision among all stakeholders?
2) Are the shared goals meeting the moment that we are in?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, transformation means repositioning all components of the education system to coherently contribute to a new shared purpose.

Our panel looks at four different actors working on systems change within 4 different contexts:
1) In India, we look at two education partners in two different states working to embed a whole child development approach within very different state education systems.
2) In Haiti, where the government infrastructure to support education is limited, a university has partnered with Catholic parishes to meet to meet young children’s (ages 0-6) holistic needs across three domains: the home (lakay), school (lekòl), and church (legliz) or L3.
3) At a global level, we look at an actor doing education ecosystem strengthening at the national level in two different contexts: Colombia and Indonesia.

In this multi-stakeholder panel we will discuss how systems change is being approached within each of these education contexts, and importantly how embedded research is informing policy and practice.

Sub Unit

• Educational Improvement SIG

Chair

• Hannah Chandler, University of Notre Dame

Individual Presentations

• Embedding a whole child development approach to education in Telangana, India - Rubina Philip, Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child; Shwetha J Parvathy, University of Notre Dame

• A systems approach to ECD in Haiti through the Catholic Church - Kate Schuenke-Lucien, University of Notre Dame

• Education ecosystems strengthening: finding a common understanding of systems-level priorities - Tom Purekal, Notre Dame Pulte Institute for Global Development

• A systems approach to student-teacher relationships in the public schools of Jharkhand, India - MONAL JAYARAM PODUVAL, PIRAMAL FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATION LEADERSHIP

Discussant

• Neil G Boothby, University of Notre Dame