n New York two years ago, I was struck by the unity of vision. Consensus around the need for change in education is not the difficult bit. The challenge? Implementation.
The obstacles in connecting policy to the classroom are considerable, especially amid funding issues. But difficult doesn't mean impossible. When governments commit to understanding problems in detail, sequencing actions effectively, and keeping accountable to teachers and students—we see them delivering. Governments like Mongolia, where we've worked with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to analyze their education system and create a roadmap for improvement. They are now working on year two of implementing that plan.
The challenges don’t have to be tackled alone and, fortunately, there’s also been increased peer–to–peer collaboration across borders. Programs like the HP Cambridge Partnership for Education EdTech Fellowship create spaces for leaders to share knowledge, to explore evidence, and then apply it in their contexts. This goes hand–in–hand with greater emphasis on local leadership. Overall, there has been more focus on the often forgotten SDG17 (my favorite of the Goals)—the power of partnerships. Education took up more space at COP, the African Union Summit, the World Economic Forum.
But, as we all know, teachers must be at the heart of transformation. As a global community, not only have we not made progress here, but the teacher recruitment and retention crisis is actually worsening. At the 2022 summit, UAE Minister His Excellency Dr. Al Falasi said “education is only as good as the teachers providing it.” One year later at our roundtable, UN Special Envoy Leonardo Garnier said that if an education initiative "isn’t in the classroom, it doesn’t exist". We must listen to teachers. We must involve teachers. And we must invest in them. We’ve partnered with Learning Possibilities to bring their platform for capturing and disaggregating data together with our approach to system analysis to support governments making this happen.
Finally, we face an escalating issue affecting the entire agenda: growing conflict and disasters. We must innovate so that emergency relief lays the foundations for stronger education systems in the future. Short–term measures no longer suffice in protracted crises.
We cannot ignore the considerable challenges, but we must also hold our feet to the fire of progress. We need to plan, to partner, to push, because inclusive, quality education is the cornerstone of a just and prosperous future for everyone.
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Vision easy, implementation tough for education transformation
Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash.
June 27, 2024
The obstacles to connecting policy to the classroom are considerable, especially amid funding issues, but difficult doesn't mean impossible, writes Jane Mann.
I
n New York two years ago, I was struck by the unity of vision. Consensus around the need for change in education is not the difficult bit. The challenge? Implementation.
The obstacles in connecting policy to the classroom are considerable, especially amid funding issues. But difficult doesn't mean impossible. When governments commit to understanding problems in detail, sequencing actions effectively, and keeping accountable to teachers and students—we see them delivering. Governments like Mongolia, where we've worked with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to analyze their education system and create a roadmap for improvement. They are now working on year two of implementing that plan.
The challenges don’t have to be tackled alone and, fortunately, there’s also been increased peer–to–peer collaboration across borders. Programs like the HP Cambridge Partnership for Education EdTech Fellowship create spaces for leaders to share knowledge, to explore evidence, and then apply it in their contexts. This goes hand–in–hand with greater emphasis on local leadership. Overall, there has been more focus on the often forgotten SDG17 (my favorite of the Goals)—the power of partnerships. Education took up more space at COP, the African Union Summit, the World Economic Forum.
But, as we all know, teachers must be at the heart of transformation. As a global community, not only have we not made progress here, but the teacher recruitment and retention crisis is actually worsening. At the 2022 summit, UAE Minister His Excellency Dr. Al Falasi said “education is only as good as the teachers providing it.” One year later at our roundtable, UN Special Envoy Leonardo Garnier said that if an education initiative "isn’t in the classroom, it doesn’t exist". We must listen to teachers. We must involve teachers. And we must invest in them. We’ve partnered with Learning Possibilities to bring their platform for capturing and disaggregating data together with our approach to system analysis to support governments making this happen.
Finally, we face an escalating issue affecting the entire agenda: growing conflict and disasters. We must innovate so that emergency relief lays the foundations for stronger education systems in the future. Short–term measures no longer suffice in protracted crises.
We cannot ignore the considerable challenges, but we must also hold our feet to the fire of progress. We need to plan, to partner, to push, because inclusive, quality education is the cornerstone of a just and prosperous future for everyone.
