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Session Submission Summary

Education System Strengthening Through Increasing Affinity between Education Outcomes, Governance and Mindset

Tue, February 21, 9:30 to 11:00am EST (9:30 to 11:00am EST), Grand Hyatt Washington, Floor: Constitution Level (3B), Washington Boardroom

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Safe and equitable access to quality education and skills continues to be a worldwide challenge. This panel will look across three countries of focus for Creative Associates: Nigeria, Yemen and Jordan. Although primary education is officially free and compulsory in Nigeria, one in every five of the world’s out of school children is in Nigeria due to a combination of factors, including inadequate teacher preparedness and low motivation; lack of quality teaching and learning materials; insufficient funding to education; and inadequate parental and community support. In Yemen, conflict and internal displacement have depleted personnel at the both the Ministry and school level leaving a fractured and unsupported education system. In Jordan, an oversupply of university graduates and an undersupply of skilled technicians has led to students leaving school without clear career pathways resulting in high youth unemployment and one of the lowest workforce populations in the world.
All three countries face the challenge of strengthening governance and building administrative capacities in making policies, systems, and practices responsive to student and labor market needs. This panel will present how lessons learned from Creative programming in Nigeria, Yemen and Jordan are being used to develop a robust approach to education system transformation. These lessons include:

• Good Governance allows the system to work sustainably. Good governance results in: (i) A legal framework in place based on key principles (accountability, transparency, state of law, concertation, participation), (ii) the operational delivery of the legal framework (iii) incentives and control mechanisms, and (iv) behaviors compliant with the framework. These mechanisms can enable the continuation of effective system level practices.
• Effective Systems require effective interactions and interdependence–Decentralization and collaboration horizontally between the multiple relevant central institutions as well as vertically between the levels of education governance down to schools, empowers actors to activate their roles and responsibilities towards a shared objective – bettering student outcomes.
• Mindset and Behavior Change – Addressing mindset is a key governing principle for education reform. There is an opportunity to harness family, peers and community support for education to create positive conditions for learning. To support this change in mindset, the availability of high-quality relevant information, sharing of robust data, evidence based decision-making and continuous communication is a key enabler for cultural change at national and community levels.
This panel will include three papers focused on education system strengthening. The first paper will focus on creating integrated approaches to education that strengthens human resource and governance systems. The presenters will draw on examples and learnings from Creative programming in Yemen and Jordan and share lessons learned and best practices. The second paper will focus on systems strengthening with a different lens in the context of Nigeria. The third paper will focus on the creation of a national teacher policy framework to strengthen the teacher training system in Jordan. This cross-country panel will shed light on best practices in strengthening education systems.

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