A future for systems approaches in education? Part II: Global education funders, the learning crisis and the word ‘system’

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

“A series of waves of enthusiasm for systems and systems ideas which has happened over my lifetime, and in the period before; these waves of enthusiasm and activity have always attracted an interesting group of people but they’ve come crashing to the ground without much effect, without being institutionalized, and without sustaining themselves over the longer term.” Ray Ison, Interview at Systems Innovation Conference, 15 September 2019.
The current wave of enthusiasm for systems approaches in education is evidenced by a range of programmes, projects, quasi-experiments, and policy papers and tools. We hear many education stakeholders using the word “system” where they used to say “sector”. Yet the meaning of and implications of this change from sector to systems is not yet well characterised. Nor are there clear paths towards institutionalization and sustainability, should that be desirable.
These CIES panels proposes to examine the diversity of systems approaches currently being theorized and applied to education in middle and low income countries. Understanding the variety of meanings associated with the term “education systems” can inform us about how such approaches may contribute to improving learning outcomes, policy and practice effectiveness, and the satisfaction of all education stakeholders. This panel will showcase the range of innovation in the emerging field of education systems in research and policy; collate new frameworks and tools for understanding education systems; and debate why this matters for policy and practice.

Part 2: Global education funders, the learning crisis and the word ‘system’
The second part of this panel on systems approaches will take the form of a roundtable, which assembles senior experts in the field of international cooperation and aid to reflect on upon how useful they have found the concept of ‘education system’. They will each set out what understanding of an education system they pursued; what they sought to change with this; and what happened.

The word ‘system’ is used abundantly in global education discourse nowadays. Global organisations seek to fund ‘systems change’, or to take a ‘systems approach’ to education reform. Major global education documents are peppered with the ‘s’ word. A sub-field of global ‘education systems research’ is flourishing, and education practitioners are turning to systems thinking for tools to understand education challenges in their context. But what meanings are ascribed by the global education aid community to the word ‘system’? How do certain international cooperation actors understand education sectors as ‘systems’, and what difference does this make to what they fund, or how they fund? What have the experiences of global aid actors been in seeking opportunities to fund ‘systems change’? This panel is linked to the previous panel that explores the theoretical and intellectual underpinnings of this discourse shift: what is systems thinking in global education, how can it help to conceive the global education crisis differently, and what is the current status of intellectual debate on this topic?

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Moira Vincenza Faul, NORRAG, Graduate Institute

Individual Presentations

• The challenge of systems change - Jason Weaver, Wolrd Bank

• Systems approach for aid to development - Raphaelle Martinez, Global Partnership for Education

• Beyond inputs to systems - Laura Savage, DFID