The middle-tier of education systems: what does good look like? Lessons from five interventions in Africa and Asia.

• In Event: Leading from the middle: new evidence about the role of the middle tier of education systems to improve foundational learning outcomes

Proposal

Despite increased evidence about what works to improve foundation learning at scale (e.g., structured pedagogy and Teaching at the Right Level) and the increasing evidence base around the role of instructional support and coaching to achieve improved outcomes, we know very little about how to build the ‘middle tier’ of education systems to deliver the necessary instructional support and coaching to schools. We need to better understand the role that managers at the district/sub-district level play to set expectations for actors at the school and district level, motivate and manage the staff who provide instructional support, and collect and use data to improve instruction and outcomes. Who makes up this ‘middle tier’ and how it is structured is inevitably context specific as are the challenges that each education system has in building a middle-tier that provides strong instructional leadership and support to schools.

This paper is informed by a series of case studies looking at programs in Rwanda (structured pedagogy), India (state-level improvement), South Africa (provincial level improvement) and Senegal (structured pedagogy reform in national languages) and a set of convenings that explored and critiqued dominant theories of change focused on strengthening the middle tier’s support for foundational learning. The paper offers a summary of the evidence and how the evidence maps to a provisional theory of change. Additionally, the provisional theory of change reflects on the relative importance and strength of evidence for the major components of the theory and engages in a debate about the dominance of bureaucratic structures, job descriptions, and formally articulated policies and processes in research on how the middle tier of education systems function. This paper explores the role of informal influence mechanisms, relational and social networks and norms in the functioning of the middle tier. The findings offer answers to the following questions: What does good look like? (e.g., the number of coaches that should be available per school, the budget required, the core practices needed, alternative pathways of support and critically, how shifts in relationships can be sustained), How can change by generated? (e.g., what interventions are best placed to encourage more effective instructional leadership with the middle tier, what are the best approaches to data collection and use, how might we avoid approaches that displace government capacity), and How do you measure progress? (e.g., exploring the key empirically validated indicators of performance for the middle tier and its contribution to improving learning outcomes).

Author

• Clio Dintilhac, BMGF