Using a systems approach to education and development; insights from a multi-country research programme on access and learning

• In Event: Applying Ideas from Systems Thinking to International Education and Development

Proposal

Education systems lie at the heart of development and access to education is both a part of the definition of poverty and a means for its reduction. Since the 1960’s development agencies have prioritised investment in education as one of the primary vectors through which to accelerate economic development, promote social mobility out of poverty, and democratise governance. Educational services are delivered through school systems that are largely publicly financed and shaped by national and individual aspiration, physical infrastructure, pedagogic preference, curricula choices, high stakes selection examinations, resource availability and the roles and responsibilities of administrators, educators and learners. Systems approaches can help frame possibilities and probabilities for development strategies that shape learning opportunities.

This paper presents a way of thinking about education systems developed by a large scale Department of International Development (DFID)[1] programme of research initially commissioned in 2005. This built on a long tradition, dating from the 1960s and before, of using systems thinking of one kind or another to understand educational development and identify policy options and opportunities in low income countries (e.g. Anderson and Bowman, 1963, Coombs 1968, Dore 1976, World Bank 1980, Colclough and Lewin 1990, Lockheed and Verspoor 1990, Grindle and Thomas 1991).

The Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE) worked across four core countries with research teams in national institutions and high level advisory groups. CREATE initiated its research by commissioning system level country analytic reviews undertaken by teams embedded in the education systems in India, Bangladesh, Ghana South Africa led by prominent national researchers. These analytic reviews were launched at national workshops and were a springboard for many thematic studies of different facets of educational access and meaningful learning. CREATE involved over 100 researchers across 10 countries and produced over 200 journal articles, monographs, books, policy briefs and research reports (available at www.create-rpc.org and summarised in Lewin (2011a) and in Lewin (2015)).

This paper focuses on a small part of CREATE’s research and only one aspect of its systems thinking. The basic CREATE model identifies zones of exclusion which condition access to learning and which shape transitions for learners as they progress through education systems. Changing patterns of access to learning illustrate the dynamics of system evolution. The CREATE approach provides a counterpoint to narratives about access, participation, learning outcomes and exclusion based on aggregated data located at single points in time which is removed from cultural and organisational context. Cross sectional snapshots can mislead especially where aspects of development are non-linear. CREATE provided opportunities to reflect on the political economy of transitions and reform using evidential records rather than aspirational ambition. It deliberately took the view that global strategies can provide frameworks but are not blueprints and that educational reform is more system specific than it is generic (Little 2008, Lewin and Little 2011, Little and Lewin 2011).

Author

• Keith Malcolm Lewin, University of Sussex Centre For International Educ