Research and insights

Accountability, quality assurance and school inspections have long been at the centre of Education Development Trust’s work in the Middle East. Drawing on this experience, we explore the importance of accountability and the use of evaluation as a tool for improvement.

At Education Development Trust, the impact of our work is critical to all we do. 2019/20 was an exceptional year in many ways, as we rapidly adapted and pivoted our programmes and research to meet the needs of learners, educators and leaders around the world during the Covid-19 crisis. In this review, the second of our Annual Impact Reviews, we present the ways in which our work has made a positive difference – both in rising to the education challenges of the pandemic and in more broadly furthering our mission to improve lives by transforming education worldwide.

As Covid-19 has forced governments around the world to close schools, policy responses to ensuring educational continuity are rapidly changing. As countries formulate and implement their strategies for education provision, our report examines the key themes emerging in the worldwide policy landscape and assesses which approaches are – and which are not – working well.

We have reviewed and measured the impact of our work over the 2018-19 period and published the results for the first time.

Governments rely on our expertise to deliver far-reaching English language teaching programmes. We recruit, develop and support qualified English-speaking teachers to transform the life chances of future generations – in particular in Brunei, the Middle East and India.

Our work in response to the Syrian refugee crisis has three core elements: we upskill teachers of refugees on the ground in Lebanon and Jordan; we advise and support governments and agencies on policy; and we contribute to the much-needed evidence base through our research.

Our specialised solution resulted in a transformation of performance with more than half of the government school student cohort obtaining grades equivalent to native-speaker level (A*-C); an increase of more than 30 per cent in a 10-year period compared to a 5 per cent increase in the previous 10 years.

We have been working with ministries of education and government bodies in the Middle East and the Gulf countries to support school improvement and inspections of schools since 2007.

Our English language teaching work in the Middle East is largely funded by the ringfenced funds resulting from our merger with the Alexandria Schools Trust (AST) in 2014. We are committed to fulfilling the former charity’s mission, promoting and maintaining teaching of the English language in the Middle East.

Education Development Trust has been working with the Ministry of Education in Brunei since 1984. We lead the world's largest, longest running and most successful English-speaking teacher scheme recruiting top quality teachers to teach in Brunei's schools.

Education Development Trust has built a reputation as the world's leading authority on school inspections, evaluations and accountability. In 2007 the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) along with Education Development Trust assisted in the development of the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau (DSIB).

We are a world authority on school inspection and we apply our international best practice in our work in the Middle East. We design and tailor inspection frameworks, recruit and train inspectors and deliver inspections in private and government schools with detailed reports and data capture.