Research into Policy and Practice

Session 8

Research influencing (your) practice?

Research influencing policy?

Research knowled

gechange

Mechanisms

Journal articles

Community Anti- poverty Education..

Who is producing the knowledge?How is it produced?What are the different stakeholder roles?What mechanisms of influence are there?What mechanisms of dissemination are

there?

AIMS

to generate new knowledge to assist governments in low income countries, DFID and the international development community to implement initiatives that will improve the quality of education in ways that will benefit the poorest people in the world and will promote gender equity.

EdQualA DFID funded Research Programme Consortium on

Implementing Education Quality in Low Income Countries

University of Cape Coast, GhanaUniversity of Witwatersrand, South AfricaUniversity of Dar es Salaam, TanzaniaKigali Institute of Education, RwandaUniversity of Bath, United KingdomUniversity of Bristol, United Kingdom

5 Large Scale Projects

Implementing Curriculum ChangeSouth Africa, Rwanda, Pakistan

Use of ICTs in Basic EducationRwanda, South Africa, Chile

Language and Literacy DevelopmentTanzania, Ghana

Leadership & Management of ChangeGhana, Tanzania, Pakistan

School Effectiveness & Education QualityBristol, Southern & Eastern Africa

Leadership and Management of Change (Ghana/Tanzania)

Head teachers’ capacity to perform the following seem to be critical to school quality:

effective management of teachers manage cultural values that affect teachers’ performance &

pupils’ learning promote harmony and effective links between the school

and the community promote gender awareness cultivate a child-friendly environment in which pastoral as

well as academic needs of children are recognized and metThe main challenges head teachers in Ghana face in

implementing quality initiatives in disadvantaged communities are lack of leadership-related in-service training

Quality and Disadvantage

It is important to develop indicators of deprivation that take account of a range of intersecting dimensions of disadvantage including socio-economic background, gender, disability, language, remoteness, over-crowded etc.;

There is a need to more effectively target resources and interventions at disadvantaged learners and schools serving disadvantaged communities.

Governance issues

A key aspect of improvement in quality

How could the governance process encourage all educational leaders to be accountable for quality?

What balance should there be between centralised direction and decentralised innovation?

How might Action research best complement other policy making approaches

Makutano Junction.. Kenyan Weekly TV drama

Direct influence research to peopleKenyan TV serial… 6.5 million people watch..DFID fundedThemes are research led

(e.g. RPCs generate themes, created into storylines)

SMS - questionsSMS – for leafletsEvidence that it does impact on behaviour

On-going work

• A personal piece on your engagement with the topic of quality Education

• A review of an academic paper• An analysis of the educational legacies in your

case study context• A model of quality education applicable in your

case study context• A critique of an existing initiative implemented

in your case study context• A biographical narrative of a person from your

case study target group• A literature review of an area relevant for your

case study.• A group class presentation of what quality

education would mean in a specific context in a low –income country.

Session 9/10

Done session 7

Drafted session 6

Anytime

Will discuss now

DONE

Literature reviews

I will create a references ‘page’ on the blog. I will post some references, divided into themes.

If you come across a particularly helpful reference, you can post a comment on that page with the details of the reference, and perhaps a couple of lines of what the reference is about, and why you think it is helpful.

I suggest that we go for quality over quantity.. and so, if each person suggests maybe 2-5 high quality references that will be a great help to all.

I would expect that you would be doing this as you start to prepare for the assignment, so probably during April.

Will this work? Will it be helpful?