This article adopts a process evaluation approach to identify the challenges and opportunities in scaled implementation of early childhood education (ECE) in Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab. It reports findings from mixed methods, including surveys administered to head teachers, ECE teachers, and parents across 386 schools, and focus…

This paper draws on recent research in Europe and England to discuss the politics of accountability. It is suggested that, as policies in education are increasingly focused on delivering technical-managerial accountability, that is accountability understood as evidenced in international, national, institutional and individual comparative measures…

This article reports on research into headteacher performance management in England. The English school system couples organisational autonomy with close scrutiny of educational outcomes. The management of the performance of headteachers is a central aspect of such a system. The research involved a systematic literature review and the collection…

To improve teaching and learning outcomes, teachers and head teachers need whole-system support to build professionalism and enhance their practice. Roles at the middle tier of education systems, or those professionals working between the school and central level, offer unique capacities to facilitate collaboration, broker knowledge, scale…

To improve teaching and learning outcomes, teachers and head teachers need whole-system support to build professionalism and enhance their practice. Roles at the middle tier of education systems, or those professionals working between the school and central level, offer unique capacities to facilitate collaboration, broker knowledge, scale…

Purpose: Education is a key institution of modern society, long recognized for its central role in the reproduction of inequities and with the potential to challenge them. Schools behave as their systems are designed. Achieving equity and excellence is not possible through attempts to fix "the school" or educators. Principles of systemic…

The teacher retention crisis has led to a strong discourse around the need for teachers to 'build their resilience', which places the responsibility for coping at the feet of the individual teacher. Contemporary research, however, supports a social-ecological approach, which takes account of environmental influences within the resilience process.…

The United Nations has set forth an ambitious vision for education systems around the globe: cultivating life-long learning from early childhood through an individual's civic and work life. Schools must support children and youth in basic learning--including crucial socio-emotional, literacy, and numeracy competencies--to contribute to sustainable…

The alignment of professional development and teacher evaluation has been a growing concern in teacher professional development practices. The issue of how teacher evaluation can help authentic professional development is important in that teachers only learn what is real, useful and valuable to them. Based on our reflections on current…

External accountability policies have spread fast across various educational systems over the past decades. This research examines the relations of internal and external accountability with students' math achievement drawing on PISA 2012. With a sample of 44 educational systems, of which external accountability policies were identified, the…

This article describes the development and use of a rapid evaluation approach to meet program accountability and learning requirements in a research for development program operating in five developing countries. The method identifies clusters of outcomes, both expected and unexpected, happening within areas of change. In a workshop, change agents…

Every teacher's classroom practice is embedded in a system of overlapping contexts that interact with their day-to-day decisions. In this paper, I focus on sociocultural context and how it interacts with teachers' subjective responses to accountability instruments. Drawing on interviews with secondary school teachers in Finland and Singapore --…

The Skills for Jobs White Paper and funding and accountability consultation set out the Government's plans to introduce a greater focus on the outcomes of learning, including a new Skills Measure that looks at the employment and other outcomes that learners achieve. Will this give colleges and providers greater freedom to deliver for learners, or…

This report focuses on systems thinking and its place in education transformation. It reflects on key published literature and on specific outputs from the Education Development Trust's own programme of research. The report offers an overview of the evolution of systems thinking and the relevance for policymakers and practitioners as they tackle…

Drawing on experiences in England over many years, this paper explores the authors' efforts to use collaborative inquiry in order to foster greater equity within schools. All of this is set within national policy contexts that emphasise increased school autonomy, competition, and accountability as central improvement strategies. It is argued that…