Welcome to the Education Systems Course!

While schooling attainment has expanded rapidly in low- and middle-income countries in recent decades, in many countries children continue to learn little during their years in school. Many children emerge from primary school without the foundational skills necessary for later learning and for leading a full adult life as a citizen, community member, parent, and worker in a 21^st century economy.

This course covers emerging evidence on the learning crisis and how education systems can better deliver learning for all. It introduces tools for analysing and visualising data on learning outcomes, and discusses policy and reform approaches that aim to create education systems aligned for learning. The course also covers the international aid architecture, teacher careers and support, assessment systems, instructional alignment, and more, all with a focus on improving education systems’ delivery of learning for all.

The course is designed for graduate-level students and education professionals interested in education policy, planning, and reform, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. This syllabus and the video lectures for this course are open-access under a CC-BY-4.0 license, and we welcome the use of these resources by others. The units are modular, and can be used all together as outlined below, or particular units can be used for particular training or learning purposes. Materials may be adapted and incorporated into other courses and trainings.

The course was developed by faculty at four renowned universities: the Institute of Education at University College London in the UK (led by Caine Rolleston); the Syed Ahsan Ali and Syed Maratib Ali School of Education at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan (led by Faisal Bari and Rabea Malik); the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana (led by Michael Boakye-Yiadom); and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at University of Toronto in Canada (led by Karen Mundy). The Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) Programme has played a facilitating role in helping to develop the public goods for this course.

For more information on this education systems course, please visit https://riseprogramme.org/tools/education-systems-course.