Insights

During National Careers Week in the UK, Mark De Backer, EDT’s Deputy Director for Young People’s Services, considers whether 2024 could be the year that England shapes its careers system’s future. While there have been promising steps forward in shaping England’s careers provision in recent years, there remain significant opportunities for improvement.

High-quality early years education – in the first five years of life – is a hugely important foundation for lifelong learning and behaviour. An increasing number of governments around the world are recognising its importance and are reorientating their understanding of early years provision to focus on not just childcare, but more on early education. Here, we consider this growing interest and the importance of high-quality training and development for early years educators in optimising their environments and thereby giving children a strong start in life.

Our fifth Annual Impact Review reveals phenomenal growth in the reach and impact of our programmes to improve education across the world. The report – focusing on the year to September 2023 – shows how we have engaged with more teachers, leaders and education systems internationally than ever before and improved outcomes and experiences for learners.

Lifelong learning – learning beyond compulsory schooling – can be an important factor in enhancing an individual’s employability and personal development, as well as social inclusion and active citizenship. As part of Lifelong Learning Week, this article examines the connection between lifelong learning and careers guidance.

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, technology has become an integral part of the learning process. Whether in traditional classrooms or virtual environments it can be easy to forget that the brain is always there – doing what it has done for millions of years. If we are going to make instruction design as effective as possible and embrace the full potential of edtech to enhance learning experiences, it is important for us to understand how the brain functions and apply principles from the biology of learning and cognitive psychology to create effective learning materials.

In response to concerns over youth unemployment, skills mismatches and gender labour market segmentation and in alignment with the Ministry of Education's Education Sector plan (2018-22) and the National Strategy for Human Resources Development (2015-25), the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is experimenting with new approaches to career guidance in partnership with the UK-based Education Development Trust (EDT).

A child’s early years – between birth and age five – are fundamental to their development, laying a foundation for future learning, skills and behaviours. Early years educational provision is therefore hugely important, and play is at the heart of effective provision. Supporting play in early years settings is crucial: it improves children’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional wellbeing and helps them to learn about the world and themselves, laying the groundwork for their future learning and development potential. In this commentary, we consider not only the importance of play, but what this means for early years practitioners and how these practitioners can best be supported through effective professional development.

How do teachers and school leaders protect and preserve teacher professional development when disruption hits, as in the Covid-19 pandemic? In case studies from Kenya and Rwanda, where ‘communities of practice’ were already in place to support teacher training and learning, we explore how collaborative learning and elements of technology mitigated some of the challenges facing educators during periods of school closure and remote education.

Learning at Work Week (15-21 May 2023) celebrates the value of lifelong learning and creating learning cultures in the workplace. Its theme, ‘Create the Future’, highlights the year-round job of employers to support, encourage and direct their employees to develop the skills needed to meet business goals. Skills are (the most important) part of what makes the business a success. Here we look at some of the work that is taking place in the UK to inform this understanding.

In recent years, huge strides have been made in girls’ education. In many countries, girls are now just as likely to attend primary school as boys. More girls than ever before are finishing primary school and transitioning to secondary education, and in many countries, female university graduates easily outnumber their male counterparts. So why do we still need to talk about girls’ education? In this article, we explore the systemic challenges which continue to prevent many girls from accessing and completing high-quality education, and the implications of these inequalities for millions of girls and their communities worldwide.

Children account for 41% of the over 89 million people who are forcibly displaced worldwide, and education is key to their life chances. It is therefore critical to consider the question of who teaches refugees, what challenges these teachers may face, and what support is needed to ensure better teaching and learning outcomes in these communities. Refugee teachers are an absolutely vital resource in their communities but have not received sufficient attention in the past. Here, we reflect on our research and expertise working with teachers of refugees to provide insights into the crucial ways in which they can be effectively supported.

In the face of a widespread crisis of teaching and learning, policymakers around the world must consider how best to strengthen their education systems to improve teaching and learning outcomes – and to do so at scale. One key element of the education workforce is too often neglected in this mission: the middle tier. Here, we share insights, based on our research with IIEP-UNESCO, on the creation of an environment which unleashes the potential of a professionalised middle-tier workforce. If properly enabled, the middle tier – rather than being a marginal part of the education system – can be a vital asset – pivotal to policy implementation and transformational change.