The future of international education development: what we need to do differently

I have been involved in education for over fifteen years, in one capacity or another. I’ve been fortunate to have been involved in some of the fastest growing education technology businesses in the UK, and over the last two years, I have had the absolute privilege of leading edt, one of the UK’s oldest education development organisations. The current context is an interesting and challenging one in which to be leading such an organisation, because the development landscape for education reform in low-income countries has changed so dramatically over the past year. Irrespective of one’s views on the large-scale withdrawal from international aid by the US government, and the further funding shortfalls which have reduced the budgets of other national government organisations (such as the UK FCDO), the end result of this massive reduction in funding is a necessary reassessment of how the sector operates.  

Since the 1960s, rich western countries such as the USA and the UK have devoted some of their national budgets to overseas development. This has included support for education reform. It has inevitably been linked to concepts of ‘giving back’ or contributing to the educational development in low- and middle-income countries, but it can also create economic benefits for donor countries by contributing to the development of economically viable trading partners.  

Sadly, donor-funded education development has not always been done well in recent years. When I began looking into the reasons for this, I realised that part of the problem has been the short-term nature of many of the projects and funding, which has too often been at odds with making a long-term difference. As a for-purpose organisation that does not raise donations or benefit from endowments, edt has long known that everything we do – in addition to fulfilling our purpose – must be commercially viable, focused and sustainable. However, this has not necessarily been ordinary practice for many players seeking to bid for international and (increasingly visible) national government development fund-backed contracts. 

Unfortunately, it has been the case that many of those contracted to undertake development projects have gone into a territory, rapidly delivered a programme, and then exited without sight of long-term outcomes. Sometimes strict time restrictions on fixed contracts have not allowed for the best resources or teams to be deployed, or for a full and nuanced understanding of the local context, infrastructures, and capabilities: simply because there has not been time. Sometimes this has manifested itself in rushed handovers to national governments at the end of a programme, rather than a gradual, earlier-stage handover focused on sustainable, local capacity building. This has been especially the case where local infrastructure or budgets did not allow for significant changes to existing roles or structures. Such models failed to build enough local capacity to continue impactful work, and thereby created a degree of long-term dependency on external development funding.   

Of course, this is not a universal problem – there are examples of best practice and successful projects which have successfully scaled up and made a meaningful, lasting difference to the territories in which they have operated. The Tusome programme, funded by USAID, and delivered by RTI International and the Kenyan Ministry of Education, is a good example: it successfully improved early grade literacy across Kenya, and can be regarded as one of the first successful experiences of taking a piloted literacy programme to national scale. Edt contributed to its precursor, the Primary Math and Reading Initiative (PRIMR), which sought to assess whether a low-cost intervention implemented primarily through existing national infrastructure could support sufficient take-up by teachers to improve pupils’ learning outcomes. It required that the actual training and classroom support be undertaken by existing government officers, to understand whether and how these officers would be able to accommodate these activities within their existing roles and workloads. To its credit, the Tusome programme was designed with this evidence in mind: it was specifically structured to implement activities that would be able to work through existing government systems – an important consideration that many pilot programmes have not taken into account.  

While there are creditable exceptions such as Tusome, short-termism has all too often been a major issue in education development – and there are lessons to be learned from this. Relationship building – with ministries, foundations, and likeminded organisations – is fundamental to ensuring sustainable success. For this reason, edt seeks to have country leads rather than programme leads, to ensure we are able to meaningfully engage with ministries of education, contribute to follow-on programmes or scale-up initiatives, and to ensure continuity of the work we have undertaken. Our own work in Kenya has benefitted from a high degree of continuity over many years. The success of our Girls Education Challenge in Kenya was greatly strengthened as a result of the relationships and knowledge established in previous years. In Zimbabwe, we have been working closely with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) to build capacity and co-create resources at both national and sub-national levels. Crucially, we have strived to ensure that the programme we work on – TEACH – is rooted in MoPSE’s ownership, with edt providing technical support, facilitation, and implementation expertise.   

Where the nature of the programmatic funding landscape has presented hurdles to our long-term involvement in some territories, we have focused on building relationships with foundations and other funding partners to either continue our work or ensure continuity after our own part in the work has come to a close. When we concluded our TARGET programme in Ethiopia, we worked closely with the Ministry of Education and those delivering follow-on programmes to ensure that as many of the gains made during the programme as possible were sustained after it ended. The team developed a comprehensive sustainability strategy and plan, designed to guide actions during the final months of the programme. This strategy focused primarily on results and innovations that have the highest potential for long-term sustainability, which was systematically analysed at both national and woreda (district) levels. We also published a series of policy recommendations in strategically shared learning papers, to ensure that the programme continues to have a long-term and sustainable impact on education reform across Ethiopia in the years ahead. 

We believe that is it crucial that donor priorities and objectives are aligned with those of the governments with whom they are working, and that they need a full understanding of local contexts. A minister from a Sub-Saharan African country expressed his concern to me that many donors and foundations have had their own objectives, with limited alignment with national requirements. It should go without saying that different nations have different needs, priorities, infrastructures, and capacities, making many ‘copy-and-paste’ interventions ineffectual and inappropriate for specific contexts. As one education officer from an African nation said, “We don't need another bank of girls’ toilets so it looks good in a foundation’s brochure.” Instead, any interventions must take full account of local contexts, needs, infrastructure, capability, and priorities – and make these a point of sustained commitment.  

Such long-term commitment to local education improvement priorities can have remarkable results. For example, in the Brazilian municipality of Sobral, unwavering commitment to improving student literacy, pursued through an iterative and adaptive approach to reforms, resulted in profound and sustained educational improvements, with Sobral becoming the highest-ranked municipality in Brazil for basic education – up from 1,366th place.  Without such long-term commitment to local government priorities – spanning the course of almost two decades – relevant monitoring and adaptations may not have been so effective, or may not have even happened at all.   

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In 2025, it is undeniable that the aid and development landscape has changed. Whether we like the changes or not, we need to embrace them, taking lessons learned from previous eras and applying them to this new world. I believe that along with the challenges, there are also real opportunities as we look to the future: giving more control to national ministries, empowering local providers, and ensuring that global donors, such as philanthropic foundations, take a very impact-centric, sustainable approach. Fundamentally, future interventions need to make a bigger impact driven by local needs and handed over to local administrations – using a build-operate-transfer model, rather than a build-operate-exit one.  

The limited availability of funds means that a geopolitical and commercial mindset is required to ensure impact and drive the biggest returns on investment on a sustainable basis. The examples I have cited in this article illustrate this well: from the careful assessment of local infrastructure and capacity in the Tusome programme, to the relentless focus on key priorities demonstrated in Sobral, to the in-country continuity of technical assistance, relationship building, and capacity building evident in edt’s own work in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.  

Ultimately, the new landscape necessitates meaningful and sustainable impact. Now more than ever, this impact must be about more than short-term project outputs: it must be about embedding systems and expertise, local capacity building, and long-term partnerships which make a tangible, positive difference to education systems in low-income contexts – and can ultimately transform students’ lives.