8 June 2018

Peace and security depend on innovation in education

By Joanna Hindley

Global education reform is having a zeitgeist moment. It’s prominence on the agendas of the G7; World Bank and World Economic Forum this year are a testament to that.

The clamour about the failing state of education systems across the world and the impact poor education has on global peace and security only grows louder.

Yet even as it becomes more obvious that Western countries cannot insulate themselves from the world’s problems, the public has, in many cases, opted for retrenchment rather than largesse. That was obvious from the recent shift in the Department for International Development’s recent shift in policy framework, strengthening and promoting private sector involvement to deliver more effective outcomes, is indicative of this.

At the heart of these debates is the question of effective education delivery mechanisms, which is currently a sector in crisis. Yet it is also the most effective way to break the poverty cycle, and subsequently ensure economic and political stability. However, there is also a growing consensus that aid alone cannot deliver education reform.

Nowhere has this been more noticeable than in the UK, where the 0.7 commitment to aid has undergone a radical shift in popular support. The public is now demanding a prioritisation of public services at home rather than those on distant shores. The shift in popular support significantly impacts how aid can be structured to enable a long term commitment and emphasises the necessity of proven impact.

A recent poll revealed that over half of the British public support private sector partnerships in education. The UK is not alone. The outwardly proclaimed isolationist agenda of the US administration has transformed America’s aid framework. Now there is an expectation that it will deliver results that are both scalable and sustainable.

These domestic political shifts come at a time when the global conversation about failing education systems has never been more pronounced. Agencies such as the UN, World Bank and UNESCO have always banged the drum but now political leaders of all hues are engaged. Organisations such as the Global Partnership for Education are gaining momentum.

Success in tackling the learning crisis will enable opportunity over the coming century. The Education Commission estimates that there are 263 million children worldwide who are not in school and 330 million children who are in school but not learning.

The consequences that the scale of this crisis could have on stability and security of our global community is deeply worrying. A lack of education begets conflict and violence; it perpetuates instability and ideological dogma. It prevents the progress of women; damages our ability to combat disease and negatively impacts GDP growth.

Yet, the scale of the challenge means that rebuilding weak public school systems; putting in place capacity building programs; re-invigorating teacher training programs and enabling governments to generate enough financing to fund all this will take many years, if not decades. More financing alone will not be enough; it will also take the utilisation of new models such as Bridge International Academies.

Innovative solutions that can reform public systems combined with sustained political leadership needs to be deployed urgently. This is challenging. Education reform is politically complex and somewhat fraught. It takes place often in unwieldy and ever changing regulatory environments. Many countries struggle to provide legislation that reflects the reality on the ground.

Take Kenya, which has emerged from a turbulent election period. The country has over two million children attending “non formal” schools, which fall outside the regulatory framework. However, there are hundreds of thousands of them and they are educating children in a country where 17 per cent do not attend primary school and less than half pass the primary exit exam.

To adapt and innovative, the Government has spent a decade developing the APBET to enable “non-formal” schools to be registered. Its implementation remains a struggle. And that gets in the way of  long-term investment and innovation. All the while, one million children remain out of school.

In West Africa, the Liberian government has taken on a public private partnership for education delivery. It is a bid to deliver radical solutions at scale. Using private operators, the Government has set out to reform and reinvigorate an education system with disturbingly low levels of literacy. The approach produced an overall 60 per cent increase in learning. Although, following elections a new government has yet to declare the partnerships’ future. Private sector involvement need a modicum of stability to be viable.

So, as the G7 meets in Canada, the question must be what can be done to create an environment within countries that will enable long term and viable reform. Lasting change will require innovation and political willpower from the inside; from countries with parents and communities on the frontline who are currently being failed.

Many of these nations have limited national budgets and sustainable reform must be ultimately deliverable within those budgets. If new models such as Bridge can deliver learning gains at scale in a sustainable way then revolutionary education reform is possible. Children could really learn and the consequences for stability, growth and prosperity, both on a micro and macro level, are immense.

Joanna Hindley is Vice President of Public Relations at Bridge International Academies.