Insights

Education is a prominent casualty in crisis situations, but it also plays a critical role in emergency response. Continued access to school provides a place of protection and sense of normalcy for children, while effective approaches to learning and inclusion foster resilience, and support longer-term processes of economic recovery and peace. With refugee numbers hitting headlines again, we reflect on two focus areas developed over more than 20 years’ experience working in fragile and conflict-affected states.

How did schools in Jordan adjust to the sudden shift to distance learning and what can we learn from the country’s approach to inclusive education during the pandemic? Learning Bridges is an innovative blended learning model adopted by Ministry of Education in Jordan in partnership with UNICEF and EdDevTrust. To date, the programme has enabled half a million children to continue their engagement with education during Covid related school closures.

The impact of our work is critical to all we do at Education Development Trust. In this review, the third of our Annual Impact Reviews, we present the ways in which our work has made a positive difference to learners, teachers, leaders and education systems around the world, and how in another exceptional year, we have strived to further our mission to improve lives by transforming education worldwide.

With finite financial resources for education around the world, ministers and policymakers are rightly preoccupied with efficiency and value for money. In our recent side event to the Global Education Summit, ‘High-Impact Domestic Financing: Evidence, Equity, Efficiency’, we heard fascinating insights from ministers and experts into how evidence of different types including disaggregated datadata is being used in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to inform cost-effective, impactful policy which holds the potential to transform the chances of the most vulnerable students. In this commentary, we examine three key themes which emerged from their discussions.

Following our Global Dialogue event earlier this year, our latest report draws on the rich discussions from the event to develop our thinking on some of the key ways in which we may be able to improve education for all as the world recovers from Covid-19. In it, we consider the importance of evidence and data in informing interventions and solution design, the need for mechanisms for participation and problem-solving and the significance of harnessing community and parental engagement.

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.

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.