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Session Submission Summary

The role of champions in scaling the impact of education innovations: Lessons from Real-time Scaling Labs

Wed, February 22, 8:00 to 9:30am EST (8:00 to 9:30am EST), Grand Hyatt Washington, Floor: Constitution Level (3B), Constitution E

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

While great gains have been made around access to school in recent decades, the provision of quality, inclusive, and equitable education remains a challenge, with as many as 80% of children in low-income countries struggling to read by their 10th birthday (World Bank, 2021).
To address this learning crisis, innovations have been implemented and tested in countries around the world in recent decades. However, estimates suggest that only 10 percent of innovations reach scale (Cooley, 2016). Scaling in education is not simply about numbers; it requires examining how to expand, deepen, and enhance the reach, quality, scope, equity, and sustainability of education initiatives so that all children, including the most marginalized, access quality education opportunities that result in relevant learning outcomes. The fact that only a few innovations achieve sustainable impact at scale is often not due to the quality of the innovation, but rather to a range of other factors that are integral to the scaling process. The Center for Universal Education at Brookings (CUE) explored these conditions and how to address them in 14 case studies captured in the 2016 report Millions Learning: Scaling up quality education in developing countries.
One of these 14 key ingredients is the role of champions in helping support scaling interventions (Perlman Robinson, Winthrop & McGivney, 2016). Champions can occupy multiple positions within the system and range from visionary leaders of organizations to political champions (at all levels) to champion educators within the classroom. These individuals can play a vital role in giving the innovation visibility, linking early experimentation to policymaking, and motivating support and buy-in for the initiative from their peers.
At the top level, visionary leaders can be invaluable for their ‘persistence, networking, and coalition-building skills, and their ability to articulate a clear vision and motivate others’ (Hartmann & Linn, 2008). At the political level, champions can help connect experimentation to policy making. Political champions can come from all levels of the political system, and often times mid-level and local level politicians can be the ones with the most knowledge of the local environment and then tenure to see through sustainable change.
However, champions are not just high-level leaders or politicians – for a program to be adopted, adapted, and have impact, it is vital that administrators and educators also buy-in to the innovation. ‘Involving teachers as key agents of change is vital in scaling interventions.’ (Perlman Robinson, Winthrop & McGivney, 2016). While not every innovation relies on teacher delivery, it is always important that educators understand and support the reform.
A final consideration when thinking about champions is identifying individuals who are the opposite of champions - those that stand to lose and those who are critical of the innovation. Involving and working with those who oppose the innovation is equally important and brings in important insights about the innovation that others may not see.
Across all levels, it is important to bring in champions from the very beginning, not just at the end. In addition to their networks and ability to motivate support, champions often have important and relevant contributions to make about both the adaptation of the innovation and the scaling strategy itself.

Learning from real-world scaling experiences

In 2018 CUE launched phase two of the Millions Learning project with the Real-time Scaling Labs (RTSLs), an action research project undertaken in partnership with local institutions and governments to support, learn from, and document the scaling process in real-time. CUE works with six local partners to design and implement the labs in five countries around the world.
This panel will highlight the experiences of several of these Real-time Scaling Labs in Jordan, Botswana, and the Philippines where the role of champions at all levels of the system have played a vital role in the scaling process, albeit in very different ways. The panelist from INJAZ will share lessons from two formal coordinating structures helped bring together key stakeholders from the government and private sector to support the scaling of the National Financial Education Program (FEP) in Jordan. Then a panelist from Youth Impact will share insights about the role of regional leaders in supporting the roll-out of Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) in two different regions in Botswana. To complement findings from these two case studies and bring in perspectives from two teams working across several contexts, a panelist from the TPD@SCale Coalition for the Global South team will share lessons about how to engage government leaders to support teacher professional development programs and a panelist from IRC will share lessons from how teams in Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon are engaging government champions to support early childhood development through the Ahlan Simsim program, a partnership between IRC and Sesame Workshop.
Following short presentations of their research from each panelist, the session chair will moderate a discussion on how and when to identify and include champions in the scaling journey, strategies for identifying and sustaining commitment from champions during periods of transition, and adaptations to foster educator buy-in and support champions at the classroom level. The session will conclude with an opportunity for questions, answers, and sharing of experiences with audience members.

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