Commentary

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.

Careers support interventions in England have long been designed and delivered separately for young people and adults, creating a siloed system. In January 2021, the government’s ‘Skills for jobs: lifelong learning for opportunity and growth’ paper highlighted that the careers landscape in the UK is ‘confusing, fragmented and unclear’. What could be the benefits of a more joined up approach? In this commentary, we discuss the opportunity to streamline provision of services and create a continuum of support across all ages.

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.

Improving learning outcomes for girls requires gender-sensitive, participatory, and context-driven solutions. In this commentary, we reflect on the results of a recent baseline analysis conducted for our latest pilot intervention under the Building Learning Foundations Programme – the launch of girls’ clubs in Rwanda.

The links between education, gender and climate change have been the subject of growing attention in recent months, but must be viewed with attention to nuance. In this commentary, we reflect on these connections and the related discussions from the 2021 WISE Summit, where we hosted a panel session on these important issues.

The need to improve the quality of learning outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged students, is the greatest challenge facing education policymakers around the world – and improved teaching quality is perhaps the biggest driver for improving learning outcomes. In this report, we reflect on the practical steps that have been taken in England to improve teacher professionalism, but we believe that the insights this example provides will have a resonance and relevance for policymakers and education leaders in many other countries across the world.