The 59th annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) took place last week in Washington, DC. The sheer size of this event can be overwhelming: more than 3,000 participants, 710 sessions stretched over 6 days, not counting receptions, speeches, and impromptu gatherings in the corridors. And thousands of PowerPoint slides!

This year’s theme was: “Ubuntu, engaging a humanist education globally”. The topics of all sessions I attended were directly relevant to the work we, at the Global Partnership for Education, engage in to support developing countries’ education efforts.

Research findings challenge accepted theories

It is the very raison d’être of researchers and academics to question accepted concepts and, through carefully crafted methodologies and peer reviews, look for evidence to validate or dispel them. Several things I learned were surprising, some extremely complex, some really promising. Here are a few of them:

• Nicholas Spaull (University of Stellenbosch) and Stephen Taylor (Department of Basic Education) from South Africa found that there is actually no hard evidence that quality of education declines when access increases. Their study covered ten Southern and East African countries between 2000 and 2007, and showed that learning levels in reading and math actually improve even when more children are able to go to school. You can read the study here.
• There is not a single paper making factory in all of Africa. So when ministries of education want to print textbooks, they must either do it abroad, or import large quantities of paper, which unfortunately are heavily taxed. Hence Christophe Barthe of publisher Burda Druck explained ways to reduce the cost of producing textbooks, for example by choosing a paper quality that is less heavy (to reduce shipping costs). Paper represents 55% of the cost of a textbook.
• With as little as 20 hours of training, almost everyone can write a children’s book. This is especially useful in countries that have many different languages and little availability of books that children can read in school or take home in their native tongue. A software called Bloom developed by SIL International allows to use templates, simple illustrations and translation tools to create inexpensive books for young children to learn to read. You can watch a video about Bloom here.
• Research by Furio Rosati of Understanding Children’s Work shows that providing grants to allow poor children to go to school may not decrease child labor but instead make it rise. Why? In some cases, opening a school in a remote village means that children don’t have to walk long distances to school, and hence they have more time to not only go to school, but also to work and support their families. In other instances, school grants may not be sufficient to cover all the costs associated with attending school. So children’s work help to cover these costs. This points to the importance of carefully designing interventions and ensuring that not only their direct impacts are measured, but also their side effects.

Equity as a common thread

The word “equity” was spoken many times during the conference. The sustainable development goal (SDG) for education that will succeed MDG 2 later this year is defined currently as: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Equity is clearly at the heart of the post-2015 agenda.

But measuring equity is tricky. Heather Simpson of Save the Children cited these numbers: in Nigeria, children go to school for an average of 6.7 years. This doesn’t seem so bad compared to other countries. However when drilling down in the data, she found that rich rural Nigerian boys spend an average of 10.3 years in school, while poor rural girls of the Hausa tribe spend only 0.3 year in school.

On the gender equity front, Nora Fyles of UNGEI said that collaboration between UNGEI and the Global Partnership for Education will soon produce Gender Analysis Guidance, a tool that will be launched at several regional workshops to strengthen the capacity of developing country education actors to ensure that gender sensitivity is included in education sector policies and strategies.  

Finally, Patrick Montjourides of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) explained how difficult it is to define equity indicators for the new education SDG. Using a concrete example, he showed that data can produce opposite results depending on which equity dimension – wealth or gender – was used.

Partners present GPE-funded research

Over the past two years, the Global Partnership for Education has been funding research in various areas to support its five strategic objectives through the Global and Regional Activities (GRA) program. Seven of the 16 GRA projects were presented at CIES:

• Candy Lupaz of the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) is studying how school grants contribute to equity. Preliminary results show that it is difficult to find the best way to target the children most in need.
• Gabrielle Bonnet and Luc Gacougnolle of UNICEF are helping countries produce school profile cards to improve the management of resources and ensure that these are allocated where most needed.
• Maya Prince of UIS described the new catalogue of learning assessments, a repository of national and international assessments, and public examinations, currently covering 30 countries.
• Ousmane Diouf of IIEP showed what a national education account looks like, and why it was important to help developing countries collect data and maintain these.
• Marguerite Altet and Nicuzon Sall presented the results of their research in Burkina Faso to improve teaching practices.
• World Bank explained research in Pacific island countries on how to improve early reading skills.
• Finally, UIS and UNICEF colleagues presented the results of their work on the Global Initiative on Out-of-school Children, which produced among other things a new report and an interactive data tool.

The GRA program aim is not simply to generate new knowledge, but mostly to share lessons learned across countries and regions to enrich the basis from which they can develop relevant policies for the education sector.  Look for more in depth reporting of the GRA program on this blog in the coming weeks.

Karen Mundy, our Chief Technical Officer, gave the presidential address at the conference, as the outgoing president of CIES. She said that, while some of her colleagues questioned her decision to leave the academic world to join the Global Partnership for Education, it was a very sensible choice for her. Indeed, it is crucial to connect the two worlds of research and development. What use would this wealth of information have if not transmitted and applied in the countries that need it most?