News

This year has been an especially challenging one for education around the world, but as we mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we must acknowledge that in many places, the Covid-19 pandemic has deepened the barriers to learning faced by children with disabilities.

The OECD has just launched its Global Teacher InSights Policy Report, featuring new findings on the teaching of mathematics in secondary schools around the world. We are delighted that Education Development Trust has contributed to this innovative study, leading the study in England in partnership with the University of Oxford, on behalf of the Department for Education in England.

The Covid-19 crisis has caused disruption for approximately 1.6 billion learners worldwide and exacerbated existing inequalities in education – but it has also demonstrated the importance of education research in addressing such profound challenges. Across the world, education leaders, policymakers and practitioners have turned to the field of education research to inform high-stakes decisions as they move through the crisis. Throughout this period of uncertainty, Education Development Trust has conducted rapid research to build the evidence base on learning in times of crisis, and our findings have helped to inform a recent white paper by Bett.

When schools in England closed their doors in March this year, school leaders were thrown into the unknown, needing to make quick decisions and rapidly develop practical solutions to a whole range of new issues and challenges. Throughout this crisis, our Schools Partnership Programme has provided a reliable support network for participating schools, and has developed a Rapid Response model to better support the school leaders we work with in a context of continuing change and uncertainty.

Education Development Trust works closely with agencies around the world to improve education outcomes, informing collaborations with partners, policymakers and clients to transform lives. The global education challenge was already vast prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, with 260 million children around the world out of school, and many millions further in school but learning very little. Now, the lives of the world’s children and young people have been impacted beyond imagination as 1.6 billion children and young people – 80% percent of whom live in developing countries – have faced major disruption to their education disrupted as a result of the pandemic.

We were delighted to co-host an online panel session with IIEP-UNESCO last week to mark World Teachers Day 2020. The event, ‘Change agents: the emergence of professional learning leaders at the middle tier of education systems’ examined a new trend in education leadership: the rise of expert practitioners at the ‘middle tier’ of education systems, who can act as catalysts for change.