Celebrating the Raising Learning Outcomes Programme

This collection profiles a selection of the research and impact funded by the ESRC-FCDO Strategic Partnership through the Raising Learning Outcomes in Education Systems Research Programme. This selection of resources highlights the opportunities and collaborations that can arise during the course of research and the multiple, unique and sometimes surprising paths to achieving impact.

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Focus projects:

Schoolchildren in Sonargaon, Bangladesh.

Investing in our future: the early childhood intervention and parental involvement in Bangladesh

Principal Investigator: Asadul Islam. Lead Organisation: Monash University

Co-investigators: Ummul Ruthbah; John List; Anya Samek; Steven Stillman; Stefan Boes

Vukani Primary School, Cape Town, South Africa.

Succeeding against the odds: understanding resilience and exceptionalism in high-functioning township and rural primary schools in South Africa

Principal Investigator: Servaas Van Der Berg. Lead Organisation: Stellenbosch University

Co-investigators: Nicholas Andrew Spaull; Ursula Kate Hoadley; Jaamia Galant; Nicholas Christopher Taylor

The Literacy Laboratory Project (LLP) under the Northern Uganda Literacy Program

The Literacy Laboratory Project (LLP) in Uganda aims to scale up and evaluate the Mango Tree literacy program, promoting reading and writing, especially in local languages, as a meaningful part of daily life in households and communities.

Students at the Cestos High School, Liberia.

Partnership schools for Liberia: impact on accountability mechanisms and education outcomes

Principal Investigator: Justin Sandefur. Lead Organisation: Innovations for Poverty Action

Liberia's public education system is moribund. The civil war of 1999-2003 and the Ebola epidemic of 2014 have left the Ministry of Education with little capacity to run a national school system.

Pedagogies for critical thinking: Innovation and outcomes in African higher education

This project aims to expand the existing evidence base around how pedagogical practices affect the development of critical thinking at African higher education institutions in Kenya, Ghana and Botswana.

Pupils attending deaf school in Sri Lanka

Learning outcomes and teacher effectiveness for children facing multiple disadvantages, including those with disabilities: India and Pakistan

The research delivers an in-depth understanding of the problems that teachers face supporting students from diverse backgrounds, the teaching practices they adopt, and the kinds of support they need to help all children fulfill their learning potential.

Literacy development with deaf communities using sign language, peer tuition, and learner-generated online content: sustainable educational innovation

This pilot project provides English-language teaching for members of the deaf community in India including young people in high poverty contexts, and drafts a model of language-teaching interventions. It is an interdisciplinary collaboration including sign linguistics and technologists.

A mother with her daughter in Nancholi village on the outskirts of Blantyre, Malawi

Improving curriculum and teaching methods to influence policy and increase the quality of ECDE provision for children with disabilities in Malawi

The University of Birmingham (UoB) and Sightsavers International invited researchers and academics from leading institutions working in the areas of early childhood development and education (ECDE) and special educational needs and disability (SEND), educational psychology, applied anthropology, and epidemiology in Malawi, the UK and the USA to co-design and conduct an innovative three-year study.

A child at school in Sierra Leone, with a globe showing Africa.

Constructing a global framework for analysis of social exclusion from and within learning systems

In this research we aim to fill a gap that exists between idealistic policies that define equality as a main objective of education, and assessment of progress that remains focussed on isolated indicators of equity in access to structures.

Can schools' accountability for learning be strengthened from the grassroots? Investigating the potential for community-school partnerships in India

Principal investigator: Ricardo Sabates.

Organizational Perspectives on Accountability and Learning (OPAL): school management models and the social impact of schooling in Mumbai and Kathmandu

Principal Investigator: Robin Shields. Lead Organisation: University of Bath

Co-investigators: Stephen Carney; Swati Banerjee; Hugh Lauder; Andres Sandoval Hernandez; Ganesh Bahadur Singh; P.K. Shajahan

The project will investigate how the accountability of schools differs according the school management model and whether accountability is linked to differences in learning outcomes.

Indian children at school near Bodh Gaya

Rights and Accountability in the Indian System of Education (RAISE)

This project focuses on learning outcomes for 'disadvantaged learners' in India: children of primary school age who are disadvantaged by a range of structural inequalities, which are often cross-cutting, such as gender, location, caste, and class.

Accountability for gender equality in education: Critical perspectives on an indicator framework for the SDGs

Principal Investigator: Elaine Sara Unterhalter. Lead Organisation: University College London (UCL).

Co-investigators: Relebohile Moletsane (University of KwaZulu-Natal); Rosie Peppin Vaughan (UCL); Catherine Marion Jere (University of East Anglia); Dorothy Cynthia Nampota (University of Malawi)

Researcher: Helen Ruth Longlands (UCL)

Examining effective teaching in rural Honduran secondary schools

This project will examine a number of questions regarding factors to support effective teaching in poor, rural communities in Honduras. The research will also provide a unique opportunity to develop improved measures of educational quality and adolescent girls' empowerment.

Children walking to school in Niger’s Diffa region

Promoting children's learning outcomes in conflict-affected countries: evidence for action in Niger

Principal Investigators: John Lawerence Aber. Lead Organisation: New York University

Co-investigator: Jeannie Annan

Toward the Development of a Rigorous and Practical Classroom Observation Tool: The Uganda secondary school project

An accurate way of measuring instructional practices and classroom processes is through observational methods. This project aims to develop an affordable, scalable, tool for assessing teacher practices and classroom processes, and assure its use in policy and practice in Uganda.

Improving teacher development and educational quality in China: examining schools as professional learning communities

Explores teachers' professional development in China and the concept of professional learning communities to evaluate and enhance teacher quality and school effectiveness in secondary schools.

Student Yosef Yebas writes on the blackboard at Hidassie School. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Transforming the pedagogy of STEM subjects

Investigates how pedagogy for STEM subjects in Ethiopia can be transformed using dialogical discourse, and the effects this generates in improved student learning and attitudes.

Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings

Principal Investigator: Nicola Ansell. Lead Organisation: Brunel University

Co-investigator: Peggy Froerer; Ian Rivers; Roy Huijsmans

Three young boys, some deaf, some hearing, in Kochi, India

Peer to peer deaf multiliteracies: research into a sustainable approach to education of deaf children and young adults in the Global South

The exclusion of deaf children and young adults from access to school systems results in individuals and communities being denied quality education, leading to unemployment, low income, and increasing poverty.

Menstruation and the Cycle of Poverty: does the provision of sanitary pads improve the attendance and educational outcomes of girls in school?

Principal Investigator: Catherine Dolan. Lead Organisation: School of Oriental and African Studies

Co-investigators: Paul Montgomery; Linda Marie Scott; Caitlin Ryus

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Celebrating the Raising Learning Outcomes Programme

Focus projects:

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