In this episode produced jointly between RISE and Building State Capability (BSC) at Harvard University, BSC Director Salimah Samji speaks to Nangamso Mtsatse, CEO of Funda Wande, an NGO that works to catalyse improvements in foundational literacy and numeracy for children in South Africa. They talk about building local teams; creating a culture of measurement, reflection and learning; being intentional; and working within the constraints and opportunities of the system you are in for change.

Links

• Funda Wande through the Lens of PDIA: Showcasing a Flexible and Iterative Learning Approach to Improving Educational Outcomes [RISE Insight Note] by Samji & Kapoor
• Funda Wande [Website]
• What Do Effective Instructional Materials Look Like? [RISE Blog] by Hwa
• What is PDIA - Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation? [BSC Video]
• PDIA Toolkit - A DIY Approach to Solving Complex Problems [BSC Guide]
• To solve the learning crisis, start with the problem [RISE Blog] by Marla Spivack
• Building on Solid Foundations: Prioritising Universal, Early, Conceptual and Procedural Mastery of Foundational Skills [RISE Insight Note] by Belafi, Hwa, & Kaffenberger
• Aligning Levels of Instruction with Goals and the Needs of Students (ALIGNS): Varied Approaches, Common Principles [RISE Insight Note] by Hwa, Kaffenberger & Silberstein
• More on PIRLS Assessment [TIMSS & PIRLS Website]

Guest biography

Nangamso Mtsatse is CEO of Funda Wande (a not-for-profit organization that aims to equip teachers to teach reading-for-meaning and calculating-with-confidence in South Africa). Nangamso is also completing her PhD in Education Policy at Stellenbosch University and is an affiliated researcher at the Research on Socioeconomic Policy (RESEP) group. She has published her research in a number of accredited journals. In January 2019 she was also selected by the International Literacy Association (ILA) as one of the Top 30 Under 30 researchers around the world.

Salimah Samji is the Director of Building State Capability (BSC). She has more than 15 years of experience working in international development on the delivery of public services, transparency and accountability, strategic planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning. She joined the Center for International Development at Harvard University in 2012 to help create the BSC programme. Today, she is responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership, oversight and managing projects and research initiatives. Salimah also leads BSC’s work on digital learning.

Attribution 

RISE is...

In this episode, Marla Spivack speaks to Yamini Aiyar about her new book, ‘Rewriting the Grammar of the Education System: Delhi’s Education Reform (A Tale of Creative Resistance and Creative Disruption)’, which documents the introduction of education reforms in Delhi public schools. They discuss some of the challenges faced throughout this reform as well as lessons that emerged from documenting the reform experience. These include the importance of understanding that everyone is part of a larger system which is conditioning the behaviours and actions of people within it, and the necessity (and challenges) of building consensus for learning throughout systems.

Links

• ‘Rewriting the Grammar of the Education System: Delhi’s Education Reform (A Tale of Creative Resistance and Creative Disruption)’ [Book] by Aiyar, Davis, Govindan, and Kapoor: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/rewriting-grammar-education-system-delhis-education-reform-tale-creative-resistance
• ‘The Limits of Accounting-Based Accountability in Education (and Far Beyond): Why More Accounting Will Rarely Solve Accountability Problems’ [Working Paper] by Honig and Pritchett: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/limits-accounting-based-accountability-education-and-far-beyond-why-more-accounting
• ‘Is Knowledge Power? The Right to Information Campaign in Delhi’ [IDS Discussion paper Sussex; 2007] by Amita Baviskar: http://rtiworkshop.pbworks.com/f/2006-00-IN-Is-Knowledge-Power-The-Right-to-Information-Campaign-in-India-Amita-Baviskar.pdf
• ‘Documents and Bureaucracy’ by Michael Hull [article; 2012]: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~hullm/MHull_2012_Documents%20and%20Bureaucracy.pdf
• ‘Video: Initiatives in India That Align Levels of Instruction with Goals and the Needs of Students’ by Aiyar, Banerji and Hwa: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/video-initiatives-india-align-instruction
• Centre for Policy Research: https://cprindia.org/
• ‘India’s New National Education Policy: Evidence and Challenges’ [Insight Note] by Singh and Muralidharan: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/indias-new-national-education-policy-evidence-and-challenges
• ‘Improving Public Sector Management at Scale? Experimental Evidence on School Governance in India’ [Working Paper] by Singh and Muralidharan: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/improving-public-sector-management-scale-experimental-evidence-school-governance-india

Guest biography

Yamini Aiyar is a research collaborator on the RISE India and Political Economy...

This episode is cross-posted from the Building State Capability at Harvard University Podcast Series and features Matt Crowley, Superintendent of the Public School District in Woburn, Massachusetts, interviewed by Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability Programme. They discuss how this school system pivoted to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of collaboration and adaptability when leading through a crisis.

 Links

• The original episode, first published on the Building State Capability at Harvard University Podcast Series: https://harvardbsc.simplecast.com/episodes/pivoting-education-systems-in-a-crisis
• Building State Capability at Harvard University’s Podcast Series: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/podcasts
• The Building State Capability Programme at Harvard University: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/
• What is PDIA- Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (Video)? https://vimeo.com/262046965
• PDIA Toolkit - A DIY Approach to Solving Complex Problems (Guide): https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/files/bsc/files/pdiatoolkit_ver_1_oct_2018.pdf
• Funda Wande through the Lens of PDIA: Showcasing a Flexible and Iterative Learning Approach to Improving Educational Outcomes (insight Note) by Salimah Samji and Mansi Kapoor: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/funda-wande-through-lens-pdia-showcasing-flexible-and-iterative-learning-approach
• To solve the learning crisis, start with the problem (Blog) by Marla Spivack: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/solve-learning-crisis-start-problem
• Marla Spivack on Diagnosing Education Systems, CID Speaker Series (Podcast): https://riseprogramme.org/publications/podcast-diagnosing-education-systems
• Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action (book) by Andrews, Pritchett and Woolcock: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/building-state-capability-evidence-analysis-action

Speaker biographies

Matt Crowley is the Superintendent of the Public School District in Woburn, Massachusetts.

Salimah Samji is the Director of Building State Capability (BSC). She has more than 15 years of experience working in international development on the delivery of public services, transparency and accountability, strategic planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning. She joined the Center for International Development at Harvard University in 2012 to help create the BSC programme. Today, she is responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership, oversight and managing projects and research initiatives. Salimah also leads BSC’s work on digital learning.

Attribution

This episode was first published on the Building State...

This episode of the RISE Podcast features Luis Crouch, a member of RISE Research Directorate, and the Senior Economist at RTI’s International Development Group. In conversation with RISE Research Fellow Yue-Yi Hwa, he shares perspectives from his 30-year-career across development and education. They discuss the relationship between education and national development goals; socioeconomic development; the importance of purpose in education systems change; the interplay between national priorities and international agenda-setting in education; and the challenges of coordination and unintended consequences, including the effects that these can have in complex education systems.

Links: 

• ‘How to Rapidly Improve Learning Outcomes at System Level?’ (Blog) by Crouch: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/improve-learning-outcomes-system-level
• ‘Systems Implications for Core Instructional Support Lessons from Sobral (Brazil), Puebla (Mexico), and Kenya’ (Insight Note) by Crouch: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/systems-implications-core-instructional-support-lessons-sobral-brazil-puebla-mexico
• ‘Addressing Learning Inequality in Educational Systems Through Foundational Skills’ (Blog) by Rodriguez-Segura et al: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/learning-inequality-educational-systems-foundational-skills
• ‘Looking Beyond Changes in Averages in Evaluating Foundational Learning: Some Inequality Measures’ (Working Paper) by Rodriguez-Segura et al: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/looking-beyond-changes-averages-evaluating-foundational-learning-some-inequality
• ‘Eliminating Global Learning Poverty: The Importance of Equalities and Equity’ (Working Paper) by Crouch, Rolleston and Gustafsson: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/eliminating-global-learning-poverty-importance-equalities-and-equity
• ‘Using Learning Profiles to Inform Education Priorities: An Editors’ Overview of the Special Issue (Schooling Without Learning: Implications of Learning Profiles for the Global Learning Crisis’ by Crouch, Kaffenberger and Savage: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059321001309
• ‘Special Issue: Schooling Without Learning: Implications of Learning Profiles for the Global Learning Crisis’ edited by Crouch, Kaffenberger and Savage, International Journal of Educational Development:https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/international-journal-of-educational-development/special-issue/1035CNWP9N3
• RISE Podcast episode with Dzingai Mutumbuka, Zimbabwe’s first post-independence Minister of Education and Culture: https://riseprogramme.org/podcast/dzingai-mutumbuka 

Guest...

The first RISE Podcast episode of 2022 features Denis Mizne, who is CEO of the Lemann Foundation and leads its efforts to transform Brazil’s education system so that schools deliver learning for all children. In conversation with RISE Research Fellow Jason Silberstein, he explains why foundational skills are a political winner; the Lemann Foundation’s work on Brazil’s Learning Standards; how to balance accountability with support for teachers; what we can learn from Sobral, Brazil’s famous success story; “status quoism”; Lord Voldemort; and much more.

Links:

• The Lemann Foundation: https://fundacaolemann.org.br/en
• ‘Systems Implications for Core Instructional Support Lessons from Sobral (Brazil), Puebla (Mexico), and Kenya’ by Crouch: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/systems-implications-core-instructional-support-lessons-sobral-brazil-puebla-mexico
• ‘Teacher Agency Matters More Than Ever: What Can We Practically Do About It?’ (Blog) by McIntosh and Pereira: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/teacher-agency-matters
• ‘Building on Solid Foundations: Prioritising Universal, Early, Conceptual and Procedural Mastery of Foundational Skills’ (Insight Note) by Belafi, Hwa and Kaffenberger: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/building-solid-foundations-prioritising-universal-early-conceptual-and-procedural
• ‘Teacher Careers in Education Systems That Are Coherent for Learning: Choose and Curate Toward Commitment to Capable and Committed Teachers (5Cs)’ by Hwa and Pritchett: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/teacher-careers-education-systems-are-coherent-learning-choose-and-curate-toward
• ‘The Rebirth of Education: Schooling Ain’t Learning’ by Lant Pritchett: https://www.cgdev.org/publication/9781933286778-rebirth-education-schooling-aint-learning
• The RISE Community of Practice: https://riseprogramme.org/rise-community-of-practice

Guest biography:

Denis Mizne is the CEO of the Lemann Foundation. 

A graduate of University of São Paulo Law School, Mizne was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University Center for the Study of Human Rights, a Yale World Fellow at Yale University and completed the Owner/President Management Progam at Harvard Business School. 

While at Law School, Mizne led the first disarmament campaign in Brazil. The Sou da Paz - I am for Peace - movement was instrumental in approving the Disarmament Statute, one of the most modern pieces of legislation controlling civilian gun possession. The law directly contributed to the reduction in homicides in the country. 

In 1999, Mizne joined Brazil’s Ministry of Justice as special advisor to the Minister and later Chief of Staff. After one year in Government, he came back to São Paulo to create the Sou da Paz Institute, where he stayed as executive director until...

In this episode of the RISE Podcast, RISE Research Director Lant Pritchett speaks to Asyia Kazmi. During the episode, they walk through Asyia’s wide-ranging experiences spanning her 25-year career in education—as a teacher, mentor, advisor, and educationalist—and they reflect on the legacy of Girin Beeharry, the inaugural Director of Global Education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They also discuss the critical importance of getting kids literate and numerate, as well as the need to build systems that champion quality teaching and restore children's confidence in their ability to succeed. 

Links:

• The Girls Education Challenge: https://girlseducationchallenge.org/
• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/
• A Symposium on Girin Beeharry’s Manifesto for Global Education: https://www.cgdev.org/blog/symposium-girin-beeharrys-manifesto-global-education
• The Pathway to Progress on SDG 4 Requires the Global Education Architecture to Focus on Foundational Learning and to Hold Ourselves Accountable For Achieving It, by Girindre Beeharry: https://www.cgdev.org/reader/pathway-progress-sdg4-symposium?page=1
• Sleeping Soundly in the Procrustean Bed of Accounting-Based Accountability by Lant Pritchett: https://www.cgdev.org/reader/pathway-progress-sdg4-symposium?page=16
• Building on Solid Foundations: Prioritising Universal, Early, Conceptual and Procedural Mastery of Foundational Skills: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/building-solid-foundations-prioritising-universal-early-conceptual-and-procedural
• Quality Education for Every Girl for 12 Years: Insights from RISE Programme Research: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/quality-education-every-girl-12-years-insights-rise-programme-research
• Andy Hargreaves: http://www.andyhargreaves.com

Guest biography:

Dr Asyia Kazmi is the Global Education Policy Lead at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a focus on effective instructional practices, education advocacy and edtech. Nearly half of Asyia’s 25-year career in education was spent as a mathematics teacher and teacher coach. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Asyia was a management consultant in PwC leading the Girls’ Education Challenge, a $1bn fund set up by the UK to support the education of 1.5 million girls in 17 countries. Asyia has worked in three UK Government departments: as a senior education adviser in DFID, a project director in the Department for Education, and a senior Her Majesty’s Inspector in Ofsted, where she inspected schools, local authorities, initial teacher education and trained inspectors. Her areas of expertise include teaching, learning and formative assessment; school improvement; and large-scale programme management. Asyia has a Masters in Applied Mathematics...

In this episode of the RISE Podcast, Carmen Belafi, RISE Research Associate at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, speaks with Professor Brian Levy. During the episode, they discuss Brian’s decades of work on governance, and how governance interacts with institutions and power. They talk about systematic ways to analyse different governance contexts, and how this can guide action. They also discuss Brian’s latest book, “The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale of Two South African Provinces,” and how issues around governance matter for aligning education systems for learning. Not least, Brian offers insights on the legacy that South Africa’s first democratic government inherited from the Apartheid regime, and he compares and contrasts the unique challenges that persist in the different South African provinces until today.

Links:

• Levy, B., Cameron, R., Hoadley, U. and Naidoo, V. 2018. (Eds.). The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale of Two South African Provinces. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• Levy, B. 2014. Working With The Grain. Integrating Governance and Growth in Development Strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• World Bank. 2018. World Development Report 2018: Learning to realize education’ promise. Washington DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28340. 
• World Bank. 1997. World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. New York: Oxford University Press and World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/5980. 

Guest biography:

Brian Levy is a Professor of the Practice of International Development at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC and Academic Director of the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town. Prior to this, Brian had a 23-year career at the World Bank, where he was at the forefront of sustained efforts to integrate governance concerns into the theory and practice of economic development. Between 2007 and 2010 he was head of the secretariat responsible for the design and implementation of the World Bank Group's governance and anti-corruption strategy. He worked in the Bank's Africa Vice Presidency from 1991 to 2003, where his role included leadership of a major effort to transform and scale-up the organisation’s engagement on governance reform. He has worked in over a dozen countries, spanning four continents. He has published numerous books and articles on the institutional underpinnings of regulation, on capacity development in Africa, on industrial policy, and on the political economy of development strategy. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1983. 

Attribution: 

RISE is funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Programme is implemented through a partnership between Oxford Policy Management and the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. The Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford supports the production of the RISE Podcast.

In this episode of the RISE Podcast, Yue-Yi Hwa, RISE Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, speaks with Professor Joan DeJaeghere and Vu Dao, members of the RISE Vietnam team based at the University of Minnesota. The conversation focuses on Joan and Vu’s work on a large-scale qualitative video study of teaching and learning in Vietnamese classrooms. Topics explored include ongoing challenges in Vietnam’s education system despite its exceptional success; how teachers can unintentionally internalise prejudices against ethnic minority students (even if the teachers are ethnic minorities themselves); why it is worthwhile to spend countless hours analysing classroom videos and interviews; and how to build strong collaborations with in-country researchers.

Links

Publications so far from the qualitative video study of classrooms in Vietnam include:

•  DeJaeghere, J., Dao, V., Duong, B.-H., & Luong, P. (2021). Learning inequities in Vietnam: Teachers’ beliefs about and classroom practices for ethnic minorities. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2021.1924621
•  DeJaeghere, J., Duong, B. and Dao, V. 2021. Teaching Practices That Support Thinking and Promote Learning: Qualitative Evidence from High and Low Performing Classes in Vietnam. 2021/024. https://doi.org/10.35489/BSG-RISE-RI_2021/024  (associated blog: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/learning-high-performing-classrooms-vietnam)  

Quantitative study from the RISE Vietnam team finding that conventional statistical indicators cannot fully account for Vietnam’s educational performance:

• Dang, H., Glewwe, P., Lee, J., and Vu, K. 2020. What Explains Vietnam’s Exceptional Performance in Education Relative to Other Countries? Analysis of the 2012 and 2015 PISA Data. RISE Working Paper Series. 20/036. https://doi.org/10.35489/BSG-RISE-WP_2020/036
•  Glewwe, P., James, Z., Lee, J., Rolleston, C. and Vu, K. 2021. What Explains Vietnam’s Exceptional Performance in Education Relative to Other Countries? Analysis of the Young Lives Data from Ethiopia, Peru, India and Vietnam. RISE Working Paper Series. 21/078. https://doi.org/10.35489/BSG-RISE-WP_2021/078

Other RISE publications mentioned: 

• On narrowly standardized accounting vs richer narrative accounts in accountability: Honig, D. and Pritchett, L. 2019. The Limits of Accounting-Based Accountability in Education (and Far Beyond): Why More Accounting Will Rarely Solve Accountability Problems. RISE Working Paper Series. 19/030. https://doi.org/10.35489/BSG-RISE-WP_2019/030
• Blog interview with Janeli Kotzé (RISE Fellow based at South Africa’s Department for Basic Education) on bridging research and policy: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/kotze-interview  

Guest biographies

Joan DeJaeghere is a Principal Investigator for the RISE Vietnam team. She is an Associate Professor of Comparative and International Development Education...

In this episode of the RISE Podcast, Jason Silberstein, a RISE Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, speaks to Professor Adam Ashforth. The conversation draws on Adam’s ethnographic research to explore what the education system looks like for the average person in Malawi. He shares accounts from the Malawi Journals Project, which shed light on what most families see as the core purpose of education. In doing so, we learn just how absent the state is in many schools and how this space is filled with local relationships of accountability. 

Links

• An Analysis of the Political Economy of Schooling in Rural Malawi: Interactions among Parents, Teachers, Students, Chiefs and Primary Education Advisors (Working Paper), by Susan Watkins and Adam Ashforth: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/analysis-political-economy-schooling-rural-malawi-interactions-among-parents-teachers
• The Malawi Journals Project (Archive): https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/113269
• Institutionalising Reforms from Below: When the State Fails to Lead (Blog), by Masooda Bano: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/institutionalising-reforms-below-when-state-fails-to-lead
• Summary of RISE’s Political Economy Implementation team and work: https://riseprogramme.org/countries/political-economy-implementation

Guest Biography

Adam Ashforth is a Professor in Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. Adam has published extensively on state formation and the political implications of spiritual insecurity in everyday life in South Africa. During South Africa's transition to democracy he spent many years living and writing in Soweto. He is currently researching responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in everyday life in rural Malawi and ethnic conflict in Kenya's Rift Valley. His publications include four books: The Politics of Official Discourse in Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford, 1990); Madumo, A Man Bewitched (Chicago, 2000); Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago, 2005) [winner of the Herskovits Award, 2005]; and The Trials of Mrs. K.: Seeking Justice in a World with Witches (Chicago, 2018).

Attribution

RISE is funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Programme is implemented through a partnership between Oxford Policy Management and the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. The Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford supports the production of the RISE Podcast.