Improving and Sustaining Learning Outcomes through Systems Strengthening: Why, How, and the Journey

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

While more students are accessing education than ever before, there is a student learning crisis, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. According to a 2021 joint report by UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of children living in Learning Poverty (unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10) in low- and middle-income countries was already over 50 percent. Since the pandemic, learning poverty rates are estimated to have risen to 70 percent. COVID-19 exacerbated both the immediate and underlying causes of the learning crisis. The World Development Report 2018 argues that the larger underlying and systemic causes of the learning crisis relating to the politics of education at all levels and their misalignment to learning are where more attention is needed. Recent research by the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) reaffirmed this, noting that “Many efforts to address this [learning] crisis do not account for the system features of education, meaning that they fail to consider the ways that interactions and feedback loops produce outcomes” (Spivack 2021). In short, we know that sustained learning outcomes at the classroom level depend on local education systems that are coherent and aligned to learning, but the processes to improve the performance of an education system remain a challenge and a key area for learning and adaptation.

This session responds to the conference theme by exploring the role of technology for education systems and accountability. This will include highlighting how technology can strengthen systems through digitized data collection and sharing, and the incorporation of other digital solutions (e.g., virtual teacher coaching, timely data analyses and feedback from national/regional student assessments) to inform policy and quality of classroom instruction. This panel will offer practice-oriented evidence and learnings from three activities funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) working to strengthen local systems' ability to improve and sustain learning outcomes. The panel will reflect on the transition from a service delivery model to a systems-strengthening approach and discuss the rationale for the latter as well as the tradeoffs involved. Strengthening local systems can enhance the quality and relevance of education and ensure that progress is maintained and scaled even after external assistance diminishes.

Through case studies of USAID-funded education activities in three different West African countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal), the session will explore common challenges to systems strengthening (e.g., top-down vs. bottom-up accountability, securing political commitment and resources) and highlight opportunities made possible through systems strengthening to improve and sustain learning outcomes. This session will also discuss in depth what the activities are learning around effective technical approaches from the design of award mechanisms utilizing government-to-government (G2G) awards and fostering demand-driven technical assistance to forming effective partnerships and strengthening accountability with government stakeholders at multiple levels from the classroom to the national level.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Benjamin Piper, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Individual Presentations

• Increasing Accountability to Boost Learning Outcomes: A Reflection on Ghana’s Systems Strengthening Journey - FREDERICK BIRIKORANG, Ghana Education Service Headquarters

• Strengthening Education Governance and Accountability for Foundational Learning Outcomes through Partner-Driven Technical Assistance in Nigeria - Ossom Mmah OSSOM, Universal Basic Education Commission UBEC; Leesa Kaplan, Reframed Learning LLC

Discussant

• Benjamin Piper, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation