Postdoc Working Group "Rethinking Accelerated Learning": Online Lecture on 22 January 25
Abstract
- Abstract
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Under the theme “Global Learning Crises and the Role of International Organisations,” Dr. Iris Santos (Tampere University, Finland) and Professor Aaron Benavot (University at Albany-SUNY, USA) delivered two lectures on 22nd January 2025.
Dr. Santos shared her research on “The Global Learning Crisis: Perspectives from Finnish Education Experts in UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank.” She critically examines how international development agencies, led by the Global North, construct and perpetuate the learning crisis narrative. Based on interviews with 23 Finnish education experts, her study highlights systemic challenges and power dynamics shaping global education governance. It reveals how international organisations often rely on narrow, technical, and short-term solutions that overlook local socio-economic and cultural contexts, reinforcing dependency and inequality in the Global South.
Professor Aaron Benavot, in his lecture ‘The ‘Global Learning Crisis’ and Ready-Made Policy Solutions’, explored the long history of educational crises and the growing focus on a ‘global learning crisis’ among international organisations and aid agencies. He highlighted how this narrative has spurred interest in ‘effective’ interventions such as accelerated learning to combat the crisis.
Find out more about the Postdoc Working Group here: https://www.bayreuth-academy.uni-bayreuth.de/en/postdoc-working-groups/Rethinking-Accelerated-Learning/index.html
Description
- Transcript
- and today I'm delighted to introduce you to two um distinguished um distinguishes um speakers um doctors Santos who is the researchers based at the faculty of administration and Business tampara University in Finland um her current work focuses on International dynamics of global education governance her research interest includes policymaking international organization and Global government of Education global citizenship education sustainable development from a critical decolonial point of view uh today Dr Santos going to share with us her work her latest work on the policymaking process and international organization um so I would um I would introduce Professor Aon benos from University of amban Sunny later um when he started his um his presentation we have the first half an hour Dr Santos uh floor is your now I'm going to stop sharing my screen and um so I can share mine yes okay can you can you see my screen okay and now you can see only my screen not my notes right yes yes okay all right hello everyone uh good afternoon and thank you for inviting me uh for this talk uh today I'm presenting an article titled uh Finland uh from Finland to the world interrogating the Global Learning crisis written with my colleague ieta silova from Arizona State University in the USA so the aim of this study was to critically examine The Narrative of the learning crisis from a point of view of Finnish education experts focusing on how International Development agencies construct and perpetuate this crisis narrative the data was collected from interviews to 23 finish education experts affiliated with um UNESCO and UNICEF and the World Bank as well as through the analysis of international organizations reports and webs websites and we perform qualitative content analysis to both data sets the decision to focus on finish education experts was intentional given finland's International reputation for Education excellence and strong tradition in involvement in cooperation and development um since the 70s uh Finland has uh priori prioritized Equity Trust inclusion and well-being as Central values of its education system uh culminating in global loued outcomes such as top tier results in Pisa the focus of finish education experts offers a unique lens uh through which to examine the interplay between Global and local education paradigms these individuals navigate dual commitments uh to the values and priorities of their host organizations and those rooted in Finnish in finland's distinctive uh educational philosophy theoretically we take the colonial stance um understanding that framing the learning or education crisis we use these terms interchangeably in this article as an acute um crisis often obscures historical and structural conditions underpinning education disparities and we also use the concept of Crisis epistemology which Kyle white describes as a narrative strategy that constructs challenges uh as an unprecedented emergencies necessitating Immediate Solutions driven responses so The Narrative of the education as in crisis has been recurring a recurring team in International Development shaping how education systems are governed funded and reformed and I will discuss this with some examples just briefly uh the uni the universal Declaration of Human Rights uh in 1948 established education as a universal right framing it as a pathway for to individual and social um progress but it's but still during the post World War II period uh there is a shift in the emphasis to education becoming uh described as an institution fr with discri deficiencies re requiring urgent uh reform to meet Evol evolving Global challenges this became even more evident after events such as the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957 which symbolized the technological and ideological advancement that directly implicated education as critical uh to National Security and Global Leadership education was then refer him as a geopolitical imperative uh the crisis discourses emphasized aspects such as measurable outcomes Workforce Readiness and technological innovation uh by the time that the first International Conference on a world crisis in education conven in 1960 uh 1967 the rhetorical the rhetoric of global education interdependence was fully institutionalized and such conferences exemplified the growing consensus that education crisis were not only National concerns but Global challenges requiring coordinated International action this sentiment has been Incorporated in the operations of organizations such as UNESCO UNICEF and the World Bank which have used crisis narratives to mobilize resources get Global benchmarks uh set Global benchmarks and influence uh National Education policies the world Declaration of education for all uh sets the ambition ambitious Vision every person child adult or youth uh shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities designed to meet their basic learning needs and these needs are acknowledged uh and knowledge are such as writing reading and NS and tools such as uh skills values and attitudes while positioning themselves as as the at the center of the global uh education complex International organizations are often seen as key uh actors with the resources and the capacity to mobilize coordinate and facilitate efforts to address issues like the so-called learning uh crisis in education reports from UNESCO and the World Bank is exemplify well this how this crisis rhetoric is used to sustain a sense of urgency the rhetoric of the crisis is invoked by politicians academics and international organizations alike in in uh highlighting that uh particularly in the world most vulnerable regions millions are not learning enough if at all this rhetoric frames uh education shortcomings as threats that only to indiv not only to individual well-being but also to economic and social development so with this introduction finalized we move to the findings of this study that uh is in this article iCal Finnish education experts working in International Development often navigate the tension between their personal and professional values and the mandates of their organizations research suggests that over time this professionals adapt to align with the dominant narratives and priorities of their organizations however the findings of this study reveal that while some finish experts adopt this institutional perspectives they are they also attempt to challenge the system indeed the majority of interviewees reiterated familiar narratives often presented in International report uh development reports framing the learning crisis as a disconnect between education access and quality this argument underscores a common concern that while significant progress has been made it in getting children into school the outcomes of their education often fall fall short far short of expectations one of the interview summarize it we have kids in school but they are not learning in school and another interview we noted that the crisis is particularly AC acute in primary education where fun foundational skills are most lacking it's in basic education interview 8 says the fact that kids don't learn basic skills Reading Writing numeracy while this critic uh identifies a real problem its Reliance on universal metrics of success such as literacy and numeracy pretat a narrow vision of Education rooted in Western paradigms neglecting the broader soci so social uh cultural and con structural context that shape education experiences several interviews however problematize the uh Universal this universalizing narrative pointing out that so the so-called Global Learning crisis is not truly Global if context is taken into consideration the crisis have uh different meanings in different context and one of the interview says we can talk about Global Learning crisis but what's defined by the international but that's defined by the international agencies and we need to look at the local as well we need to see the learning crisis in every cont context when zooming in the local uh the interviews point to critical shortcomings in International Development industry including a lack of systemic approaches uh structural inequalities and geopolitical hierarchies and a wi saer complex and I will delve into this in the next sessions some interview is suggest that the issue is far more complex and deeply rooted in the lack of systemic approaches to education reform this is especially common in contexts where rapid pushes to increase School enrollment were uh not followed by the necessary infrastructure or resources such as teachers not well prepared and qualified plus poor salaries and also poor work conditions and lack of recognition of the profession in the existence of enough quality materials and not enough schools reflecting on their experience one of the interviews argues there was a lot of P push particular partially from the mdgs to getting kids into school but there wasn't the full consideration there aren't enough resources to a compan that's that massive growth of uh in Access so we have ended up with too many children in schools with not enough teachers who aren't educated well enough so the teachers lack their skills and then we don't have enough School we don't have enough materials we don't have a lot of things that you actually need for a child to learn shortterm interventions um worsen these challenges for example brief teacher training workshops often offer offered by as part of International Development programs filed to address the depth uh of preparation require required for effective uh teaching one interview we criticized this approach by explaining how one or two weeks of teacher training programs on school management cannot replace an education such programs while well intention lack the continuity and depth needed to create sustainable developments that teach uh in teacher capacity it is therefore fun Al to address not just individual aspects of Education reform but also the deeper structural UNC contextual factors that shape Educational Systems it calls for a shift away from fragmented Technical Solutions and towards recognizing education as an interconnected ecosystem shaped by both structural conditions and human uh relationships one of the interviews argues kids go to school and they are hungry it is very difficult to concentrate on learning if you are hungry of course if the school is not able to accommodate the learning needs of the kids it's about the teachers resource it's about leadership it's about the whole system so it's a systemic problem interviews reflect on the filler uh in the development industry to recognize education as deeply interen uh with broader social economic and cultural Dynamics to focus narrowly on what happens within School walls without addressing the social structural realities outside them is to Mis understand the very nature of the problem structural in uh inequalities and geopolitical hierarchies profoundly shape the challenges faced by education systems globally perpetuating disparities in funding access and outcomes these Dynamics are deeply entrenched within Global Systems of power that dictate how resources are distributed how interventions are designed and whose priorities are prioritized funding is a prime example of how this inequalities manifest when interview he argues that there is enough money there is not the lack of money it's just not being shared equally poor allocation of resources reflects a broader systematic failure a systemic failure to prioritize Equity leaving the most Mar marginalized communities out without adequate support interview is also a draw attention to the volatile nature of funding associated with International Development it's initiatives for example they note that funding from International organizations often arrives as a temporary influx with insufficient consideration for how local governments will sustain these programs once external resources are withdraw this Dynamics can erode trust in both International organizations and the local governments communities May p uh May perceive this interventions asn't reliable reinforcing a sense of instability and neglect one interview we offers a particularly pointed critic to the to this Dynamic say there is a sudden cash flow from the funding of schools for the funding of schools in a certain District where schools are needed but then after the funding arrives State funding holds because of course we have now a new International funding so there is this Dynamic where there is an intervention that comes and goes and then may change the ways that the state sees it their role in providing long-term support and then when this funding abruptly ends the community is left in a worse scenario than they were before the influx of such said um funding such Dynamics show uh the consequences of dinner driven interventions that prioritize measurable outcomes and quick winds over sustainable locally rooted Solutions when external funding displaces State responsibility it undermines the very foundations of public education systems creating cycles of dependency and instability the inequitable distribution of resources reflects but one facet of the broader structural inequalities that underpin the International Development industry as the interview is noted these inequalities are deeply embedded within so societal hierarchies that prioritizes certain groups while systematically excluding others reflecting on their uh work in the Asian context an one interview explains how this Dynamics are normalized in this region the Global Learning prices means that anyone who is in a weaker position is Left Behind and that's the status quo and that seems not to change this testimony highlights how systemic exclusion is not merely a byproduct of Education systems but a fundamental feature of their design as another interview we elaborated it is not NE necessary learning learning crisis it's a crisis of inequality that has gone worse in almost any aspect of the term inequality when it comes to income wealth but also when it comes to education as well this perspective um challenges the Technical deol depoliticized Solutions often uh promoted by International Development uh initiatives these interventions fail to address the socioeconomic and cultural inequalities that shape who have access to Quality education and under what conditions as a result it is uh it the result is a perpetuation of the very hierarchies that these initiatives claim to dismantle then uh while many of the interviewed experts develop uh wait showed the critical awareness of the complexities and challenges featuring International Development Dynamics their Pat Uh perspectives reveal an underlying paternalism or a white several mentality that H either imp implicitly or explicitly undermines local agency for example one one expert highlighted the need for development agencies to help the ministry changes change their processes and make the ministry listen reflecting an assumption that external actors know better than local actors about how to improve their education systems while this approach might seek to build long-term sustainability of Education reforms it reinforces the framework where International Consultants take the role of knowledgeable advisers while governments are positioned as incompetent and passive recipients of guidance another expert agreed that International organizations should have this kind of more elevated role in terms of coordination in terms of trying to find the best possible solutions this paternalism is further echoed in the narratives of uh um in capacity building for example one interview we acknowledged the slow painful process of developing the capacity of mysteries as well as training teachers and providing materials Pro yes providing materials the Savor mentality becomes particularly sharp Stark uh when training when external agendas overshadow local priorities one interviewee critics the influence of development agencies which often push their own agendas over the priorities of the local government and then there are other players like the World Bank or USA who have huge influence on what's happening in education but they may not always follow the governments on priorities they come with the strong own agenda because they have so much money they do have that influence power influencing power because the money is there this Dynamic describes a stronger on agenda reflects a NE Colonial logic where development is driven by donor interests rather than the needs of the recipient countries some interview is draw on explicit explicit comparison to Colonial practices noting how development agencies do not involve or Empower local actors and fail to build local capacity leaving communities dependent on external actors and their systems and changed sometimes the organization come and they do the thing themselves and they do not include the locals they do not change the structures they do not teach the people in that country they just come and do things for that country and when they leave there's nothing left I think it's a little bit like a colonial thing also that white men come and give advice and recommendations and then they leave some participants take a clear stands against the Sai mentality arguing that International organizations should not dominate the education space and that leadership should always be in the hands of governments and local actors one of the interview says my view has always been that countries solve their problems themselves there is no this sa mentality education is a national mandate you work there in the country for the country on the country's terms the emphasis on Country specific approaches shifts the focus from top- down interventions to genuine Partnerships that Empower local actors this requires moving away from viewing development as oneway transfer of knowledge and uh resources from the global North to the global South instead collaboration must be seen as a two-way exchange where both sides learn from and contribute to the process as one interview we explained the knowledge does not come from the north the north does not solve these problems finally in in addition to to centering local uh leadership some interviews highlight the potential of international organizations as space spaces for fostering uh dial dialogue and facilitating the chain the exchange of ideas in multiple directions this rule however must involve um from merely bringing together dis disparate voices to actively supporting the co co-creation of knowledge and solutions sharing information what is happening here there what's happening here to really building this kind of Global Knowledge and share it by creating platforms for dialogue these spaces could move Beyond superficial consultations and meaningful collabor to meaningful collaboration where local expertise shapes Global strategies and vice versa so now just briefly some conclusions um the perspectives of Finnish experts working within International Development agencies illuminate a critical tension between the narratives they adopt and the systemic realities they encounter while their alignment with institutional Frameworks reinforces uh the dominant framework of the learning crisis as an issue of access and quality their Reflections also exp expose cracks in the narrative that point to the deeper structural and geopolitical INE qualities underpinning Global education systems from a the colonial perspective the learning crisis is not simply a de deficit to be addressed through Technical Solutions but a symptom of entrenched Lo Colonial Logics that reduce education to measurable outcomes and impose uh standardized Frameworks across derse contexts the focus on literacy and numeracy as univers unversal metrics of success for instance perpetuates a narrow Western Centric vision of Education while erasing the social cultural and historical specificities of the communities it seeks to serve finish experts call for contextualized relevant contextually relevant approaches and their critics of externally imposed agendas Echo this the colonial critics yet the interviews also reveal the limitations of these critics while many Finnish experts highlight the inequalities perpetuated by International organizations their perspectives often remain rooted in emonic epistemological Frameworks of development these Frameworks grounded in north in global North ideals and capitalist um principles prioritize growth efficiency and standardization often sidelining the diverse realities and aspirations of the global South even as the power dynamics and structures created by International organizations are critic the architecture of development cooperation itself characterized by the push by its push for modernization remains largely largely unchallenging this disconnect reflects hmed itic of the mismatch between Global North ideals and Global South realities The Finnish experts Reflections highlight this dissonance revealing the limitations of development apparatus that prioritizes scal scalability over equity and contextual relevance their insights over underscore the risk of perpetuating a self-reinforcing cycle in which the learning crisis narrative legitimizes interventions that ultimately sustain rather than disrupt existing inequalities ultimately the firming of the learning crisis risks becoming a self-perpetuating cycle that reinforces the status quo rather than challenging the power dynamics and epistemologist sustaining education disparity disparities to break to break this cycle International Development must move Beyond narrowly defined metrics of success and engage with the diverse lived realities of the communities itself seeks to serve this reaging reimagining requires a sh a shift from imposing Global solutions to co-creating locally grounded globally informed future Futures that prioritizes Equity inclusion and the decolonization of knowledge and practices the Finish exper dual roles as both P participants in in and critics of the development apparatus offer a critical entry point for this shift here's some references and thank you very much for your attention thank you very much Irish for your um presentation very comprehensive uh I just have one minute for any quick question and I saw that um Dr Junu tamy toer um did you raise your hand earlier or it just a mistake sorry are you there I can still see your hand up if you you're not there I just um abuse the the uh the role of a chair I would like to ask Iris about the research method you mentioned at the beginning that 18 finished experts that you interviewed so all the no 23 23 23 but they are all from Finland they all from Finland and they're all working in different organization Yes actually this is part of a bigger study that we did for the Finnish from uh Ministry for foreign affairs and for that we also interviewed uh people working in other International organizations such as non-governmental organizations but for for this paper we only use the ones working in UNESCO UNICEF and World Bank as inter intergovernmental organizations yeah and they all from fin Finland and they are all Finnish yes they are all from Finland and I cannot specify much more because there is like there is like 30 people working from clarify um where the data sought um because they were very interesting data but thank you very much um if you have any other question um burning to ask you can ask now but otherwise please do use the CH and I would like to introduce Professor Aon benos um he has a long um professional career in in um educa comparative education research and he has been leading uh an organization called Global monitoring um report Jem Global education monitoring report Jam for a number of year and he um has long um career in um working with government and um Global education policy making um today he shared with us um both the history of the concept learning or education crisis as well as as the role of high of uh International Organization um plays in Contracting as well as resolving uh those crisis over uh a few decade um Professor benos floor is yours would you like me to share the the slide or you can share it by now yeah yes thank you Irish can you go to the beginning of the presentation nears great so thanks so much uh Ken for your very kind introduction and uh also for the invitation to make a presentation here um I uh as noted have worked as it were in the belly of the Beast uh at UNESCO headquarters for on and off for about eight years uh mainly uh in the context of This Global education monitoring report first as a senior analyst and then as the Director so many of the insights that I have are from that experience um and so I'd like to share them with you I really appreciate the previous presentation that provided I think a a a broader Theory theoretical and epistemological kind of perspective and critique of some of the issues that I wish to look at more from a uh partly technical but in some sense uh social construction of reality uh how we got to this place that we make reference to a Global Learning crisis and how certain kinds of solutions are being promoted next slide please so my presentation is to say just a few words about this idea of accelera learning which many of you are quite familiar with um and then a little bit uh what is meant Often by a Global Learning crisis at least in terms of the evidence and I wish to um spend a little bit of time talking about Global Learning metrics which in many ways are a tool by which uh this notion of a learning crisis has been constructed and how we came about a Global Learning metric which is not an ins significant matter in and of itself and then some critical Reflections at the end of my talk next slide please so as many of you know um you know ideas around accelerated learning have been around for quite a while um certainly uh in the country where I live in the United States um they go back um many decades um you know based on various kinds of theoretical conceptions around multiple intelligence and how how they could be leveraged in order to Foster learning uh at some differential rate or in different patterns aligned much more with the needs of individual students especially students from very diverse uh backgrounds it's important to keep in mind that this idea of accelerated learning isn't just a reform that was promoted by uh academics and researchers in the US but it was embraced in part by the federal government and resources from the federal government which doesn't happen too often by the way um resources were then allocated to different states in the US to use the notion of accelerated learning to uh improve uh their learning levels many of the ideas that originated in the US then disseminated to other parts of the world not to say that there weren't other ideas in conjunction with those in the US but um certainly uh the dynamic from the US had an impact on uh many other parts of mainly the global North it is important to note when this idea gains recognition by an international agency and in particular the World Bank and we see the embracing of this idea of accelerated learning in the aftermath of the covid pandemic and in particular a report that talks about learning recovery to acceleration which is based on uh what a review of what countries or at least 60 education systems uh did in the uh aftermath of the covid pandemic to try to recover and accelerate learning given the disruptions that had occurred in the school closures and in particular this report talks about something called the rapid framework uh which stands for reaching all children assessing learning prioritizing fundamentals increasing the efficiency of instruction and developing social psychological health and wellbe and in some ways this rapid framework was meant to be a platform for countries to promote some kind of accelerated learning strategy um in their uh individual countries and much of this is because of the nature of the World Bank is being directed at countries in the global South next slide please so let me shift now to speak a little bit I think Iris did a wonderful job in talking about the deeper roots of this idea of a learning crisis I'm just going to point to a few other uh kind of historical conjunctions in which we we often make reference to at least in the literature of comparative education um there was a comparative educationalist Philip kums who wrote about the world educational crisis both in the 1960s and in the 1980s mainly with reference to the global South um and mainly in reference to uh enrollment and access less about quality but we can also see in individual countries such as the US and Germany um you know the use of the term crisis or shock to make reference to the appalling State of Affairs and education and in particular around learning um you know we talk about the P of shock in Germany we talk about uh you know a nation at risk which had a huge impact in the US in terms of um uh fostering all kinds of reforms uh at many different levels as Iris mentioned in uh 2013 the global education monitoring report in its um thematic uh report on quality education also highlighted a Global Learning crisis estimating for the first time that about 250 million children could not read write or count well and that nearly 3/4 of a billion adults lacked basic reading and writing skills so this were this was the kind of evidence that was being used in order to kind of create the idea of a Global Learning crisis how they arrived at these estimates uh at at the time is is not something I'd like to go into but I do also wish to talk about a very important report in 2018 by the World Bank talk uh that's titled learning to realize education's promise that here too The Narrative around the learning crisis especially in countries in the global South is a pervasive part of the text schooling is not the same as learning children learn very little in many education systems around the world even after several years of being in school millions of students lack basic literacy and numeracy skills and many countries are failing to provide learning for all uh and uh and some exacerbating existing inequalities um and so on and so forth so in some ways partly because the World Bank is also differentiating between access and quality although they're mainly making reference to it in terms of learning for the first time uh you know the human development report is focused on learning this is uh one of the kind of major uh let's say um Publications by International agency uh that had wise spread uh pickup at that time next slide please so um we know that there's a long history of talking about education crisis what we are seeing though is that the idea of a learning crisis is more recent and I would like to especially at the global level and I'd like to give you some sense of some of the evidence that's being used to kind of construct this notion of a Global Learning crisis next slide please so so one of the ways that uh one could look at this is um uh as some of you know you can go into Google and uh Google has digitized millions of books around the world and you can put in a term to see to what extent the books um the publication of the books at different points uh include material related to a particular term and here you see um we put in three terms here learning loss learning crisis and Global Learning crisis that we can see that uh in the in the period after the pandemic there's a huge uptake in books that make reference to learning losses partly because of school closures and increasingly we see a growing uh discussion and discourse around learning crisis and although the Global Learning crisis is is less uh an animated uh thing it certainly is gaining uh also a lot of of support and if you go to the next slide you can see by contrast that if you put in the notion of accelerated learning you get a very different pattern which uh represents as I mentioned earlier uh a policy strategy that has a much longer uh kind of uh history and in some ways is orthogonal or somewhat unrelated to recent discussions around uh learning loss and the learning crisis next slide please here's the kind of evidence that uh is the let's say the hard evidence that she used to talk about learning losses here we have the average oecd scores uh using Pisa at multiple uh P of waves and you can see that in each of these uh figures uh there's a kind of a not only a leveling off but in recent years especially in the years after uh 20 2018 and including 2022 a real decline especially in mathematics and reading uh in terms of the average oecd score this is uh using I believe 23 oecd countries so there's a real drop off in mathematics and reading that's less the case in science and it's important though to note that the oecd talks about that this decline occurred even before the pandemic so there was a evidence of a declining Pisa uh performance even before the pandemic but seems to have been exacerbated uh in part due to the pandemic next slide please another source of evidence would be from the US that has one of the oldest standardized um uh performance assessment uh that have been carried out actually since the 1970s and 1980s and here again you can see um very clearly the decline uh during the gray period of uh the reading and writing proficiencies at three two different grade levels grade uh four and grade eight and then a projection by the McKenzie uh consulting firm how many years it would take in order to get back to the levels of reading and Mathematics proficiency that were obtained let's say in 2019 before the pandemic next slide please this slide is in some sense the most telling and this slide comes from the most recent gem report and here what we see for the first time at a global level is evidence of average percentages of students that achieve a minimum proficiency level and we'll talk a little bit what we mean by that in just a moment in reading and in mathematics and here the evidence is uh in reference to the end of lower secondary the end of compulsory education and you can note that as you see by the legend that in almost every part of the world in every type of country both middle income High income uh you can see declines uh between 2012 to 2022 now th this doesn't include as many uh it doesn't include low-income countries where there's a real deficit of a real deficiency of evidence but here we see very clearly that for middle and high income countries a real decline in average as it were uh proficiency levels in reading of mathematics now when I look at this table and I compare it to the two previous tables I ask myself how in Heaven's name did they AC did they conjure up a kind of a a global average of learning levels of proficiency levels unlike the oecd that has a kind of a very highly developed you know kind of assessment platform known as Pisa that has been you know developed over many years and kind of f is standardized and conducted in a very standard way over uh you know the last two decades and the same is true for the US it's the same test but we don't have a global literacy or we don't have a global reading or mathematics test what we have are these numbers and the question is how in Heaven's name did they arrive at these numbers and that's what I would like to start to deconstruct here next slide please so the point that I wish to make is um next slide please um you know there's been there no back the previous one there's always been variation uh in learning levels that's not something new uh we see that for decades what is new is that for the first time in the last uh especially in the last decade the world bank and the UNESCO Institute for statistics are creating Global Learning metrics in which the learning levels of students of all countries around the world regardless of their income level their education system their historical cultural background are all being placed on a single scale or what is sometimes referred to as a progression and that these um the rankings of countries on this scale is being deployed as a way to motivate action among education reformers and donor agencies to some extent and other policy makers and to mobilize the media to name and shame countries about the poor quality of Education in their countries so here we see that in many ways in order to understand the idea of learning loss in Global Learning crisis we need to understand what are the conditions that led to the creation and institutionalization of these Global Learning metrics next slide please um there isn't a single definition of what we mean by a a glm but uh what we do know is that you uis the UNESCO Institute for statistics has been developing tools and definitions to support the alignment and comparability of results from different assessments International Regional and National learning Assessments in the two relevant domains U both in reading and Mathematics and this this would be based on a nationally representative assessment or a sample in each country but to the extent that they can uh bring there can be aligned with a kind of a universal metric that would be the way to bring in those scores um next slide please so um uh you know this idea of constructing a Global Learning metric is very new it really transforms the usual discussion about International Development uh in education from one based on issues of access completion and let's say gender poverty uh gender parity and uh getting all kids in school to issues on quality education but primarily in terms of learning outcomes and certainly for the World Bank uh has been very supportive has had some donor agencies in enabling uis to develop the tools or the kind of platform or resource es necessary to create this kind of Global Learning metric next slide um so it's important to understand also what's being replaced or at least what's being Sidelines here you have a list of some of the proxy measures that traditionally have been used to talk about poor quality education low retention rates large classrooms insufficient instructional time uh you know insufficiently qualified or trained teachers poor C uh teaching conditions low public expenditure you know traditional curriculum or pedagogy typically when we talked about poor quality um we talked about the inputs and the process through which students learn and didn't Focus exclusively or um entirely on the outcomes so what we see in the new learning metrics is uh a real shift in focus to the outcomes next slide um I think we should just move through this slide to the next one please so what we you know what I'd like to mention is that you know this uh focus on learning and learning metrics uh was also something that evolved especially uh in the last two decades there were many different kind of important points along the this way here but a lot of it has to do with the massive expansion of learning assessments that has occurred since the year 2000s next slide please I typically uh next slide I typically distinguish between five kinds of learning assessments the international ones that most of us are familiar with the Tims the pearls the Pisa uh and such the regional assessments that have been conducted in subsaharan Africa in Latin America and more recently in the Pacific Islands National assessments which you'll see in just a moment have increased dramatically in the last 20 years citizen Le assessments which are not school-based starting in India but spreading to other parts of the global South that do assessments of basic uh issues of literacy and numeracy and then early grade assessments that have been conducted primarily by consulting firms with the support of the world bank early grade reading assessments many of which are not nationally B based on nationally representative samples next slide here you just see very quickly how much National learning assessments have increased in the last 20 30 years um and I wish to kind of again make the distinction between the international the regional and these National assessments the national assessments are very much contextualized in ways that are different from the regional and the comparative International ones they can include many different content domains there can be uh the way in which they are applied or implemented is quite different so we see here uh a lot of uh National learning assessments that have emerged often with the support of international agencies like the World Bank and some of the donors uh partly to support U policy makers in developing evidence for where they should be focusing their reform efforts next slide please um it's important to keep in mind that most of these National learning assessments are uh low uh Stakes they are curriculum based unlike Pisa they tend to focus on cognitive outcomes and they basically ask a simple question have students learned what they should have been taught and learned in the classroom in other words you know do they know what they should have been taught in a particular subject area they are mainly administered by National ministries of Education or national research institutes the funding though can come from multiple sources next slide it's also important to keep in mind that we can assess student learning in many other ways using format of Assessments not just uh you know the kind of Assessments that I've just mentioned there are lots of high States assessments examinations that are used uh in many different systems inspections U but most of the idence that looks at learning tends to focus on summative assessments uh that are low stakes next slide in uh okay now the other key kind of enabling condition is one also that was mentioned by iris is the fact that when the SGS were established in 2015 and adopted and especially sdg4 the first Target uh was was all about learning uh was was about both uh compl uh completion and learning uh next slide and in particular the global indicator for 4.1 uh keep moving I'm not going to go through these most everyone is familiar with the SGS they're familiar with SG4 right here stop notice that the global indicator for Target 4.1 which is to ensure that all children all girls and boys complete free equ able and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes the indicator is all about the percentage of children and young people at the end of each level of Education that achieve a minimum Proficiency in Reading in mathematics let's move on that's the that's the key Point here next slide next slide so what we see in the SG the global goal education is very much a learning agenda it is I didn't go through it but there are many other targets that talk about learning outcomes not just about foundational skills so it it PR the SG4 presents actually a very broad learning agenda for the first time uh in international policy history it talks about things that are meant to be lifelong and lifewide and it talks about uh learning proficiencies and a wide range of subject domains in in a wide range of skills and competencies having said that most of the effort of the international agencies and in particular the World Bank and the global Partnership of Education have been focused on a very narrow learning agenda which is do students develop adequate foundational skills primarily in reference to Target 4.1 and so almost all the money and most of the effort has been focused on developing how we can combine on some kind of Global Learning metric evidence about basic foundational skills next slide next slide I'm not going to go through this but just to give you an idea of all the many steps that have been undertaken both by the high level committee that oversees uh stg4 by uis all the different kinds of Frameworks conceptual framework Works uh kind of uh what's called metadata uh in order to find ways to calibrate the results of different assessments into one single Global Learning metric next slide um so I'm just going to show you very quickly what this looks like next slide uh one way to think about this next slide is that the the main point is that these assessments that they're trying to harmonize really differ in terms of their design the kinds of uh items that are included even the knowledge domains that are put together they even have different kind of sampling designs the quality assurance there's lots of things that make some of these assessments higher or lower quality next Point next slide but what uis has tried to do with the support is to see as you can see in this slide above are the different assessment platforms Pisa Tims and Mathematics and Science pearls and reading Pac is in subar Africa T is the Latin America sechic and so what they've done is they've taken the the proficiency levels in each assessment and devised the the harmonized one on the far left that's the Global Learning metric so you can see that there are eight levels from level one to level eight and what they've tried to find a way to do is to use the evidence from each assessment and to put it on a global scale so essentially the levels in each assessment can be right different but then they're trying to find ways to put it into the global scale and the global scale it is is what is being used to devise that U table that I showed earlier about um the the the the per the the percentage of students who uh complete or that have um basic proficiencies in mathematics and reading next slides please continue please continue So based on this kind of evidence um you know the the the uis some years ago said you know essentially 600 million Children and adolescents uh will not reach a minimum Prof efficiency level in reading and in mathematics to give you an idea of the scale and scope of what they've done next slide next slide this is the kind of uh way in which they display the evidence was to break it now down by uh country so you can see which countries are meeting their as it were proficiency levels and which ones are not and notice how few countries know longer have no data partly because these are the countries that there are no assessment data they can draw upon next slide next slide so in I'd like to now conclude uh based on part on some of what I've presented here next slide so um what we've seen is that that learning has become Central to the international policy agenda Prim primarily through SG4 and in particular although there's a broad agenda embedded in SG4 most of the efforts in financing uh and prioritization has gone for Target 4.1 that talks about minimum proficiency levels of students at three uh points in the education system grades two and three the end of primary and the end of lower secondary in two knowledge domains exclude ively or two skills reading and Mathematics um next slide so in some sense um what uis and the World Bank financing have been able to do is create a metric that would have been Unthinkable some years ago and it is based on these metrics that we're able to pinpoint or make statements like uh most students in the global South cannot read or write a simple sentence by the end of grade three like 60% or um you know uh 60% of the students in grade 8 cannot do a two-digit kind of calculation those statements that are often become stylized facts and have animated much of the con discussions let's say the transforming education Summit some years ago and in many other International meetings since are all based on these Global Learning metrics that have been devised in particular over the last 10 years what we do see very clearly is that other knowledge domains and other complex learning outcomes are not being assessed we know very little about uh areas like the social science es about geography history uh social studies we know nothing about many of the 21st century skills and in some sense the fixation on the foundational skills has marginalized or placed on the side uh any attempts to put together a more holistic or comprehensive view of what students may take from their experiences in schools these assments also convey a very deficit model in which uh only certain learning is being valued and other kinds of learning not only learning in school but also informal or non-formal learning outside of school is being either undervalued or devalued and we also can see evidence of a lot of unintended consequences that many schools and school districts are using in order to increase their test scores on some of these assessments as a way of indicating uh as it were uh the the you know the improvements of their students even though no such improvements have taken place or teachers or Min or School Masters May disinvite certain students uh from taking the assessment when they know it's going to be held next um slide so generally these Global Learning metrics reinforce a view that educational progress on learning outcomes can be easily measured and Quantified which is not the case um they only partially correspond I think Iris made this point very clearly they correspond very much to a a kind of an international uh very much a global standardized view of what should be uh the content of National Education systems and they don't uh necessarily represent the priorities and the education sector plans of the countries um they can be used as a basis for sanction in or reducing Aid to countries that are not making efforts to uh measure learning so it isn't simply a technical activity is very much a political activity that has many different policy ramifications next slide we also know that the funding for these kinds of assessment uh exercises is typically coming from external sources so these are not things that are being funded by the countries themselves but by power powerful actors that provide the funding uh in order for countries to construct and to participate in these kinds of G uh uh Global Learning metrics and in some cases private companies also have a monetary interest in these uh Global Learning metrics because they can use the results to basically come to countries and say listen your country your students are performing very poorly here I have a reform package in order to help improve your uh learning so it's clear that uh this this kind of uh metric has being used for um as it were as part of a broader capitalist system a market that is uh that has benefits for some and uh uh you know taking funds sometimes very uh important funds uh being used for other kind of purposes next slide so finally um it's clear that in this new environment in which we've created through various kinds of technical agreements a platform that we measure learning in some very narrowly defined skills reading and writing that um in the in the in the context of the co F pandemic and the closure of schools and more recently by the way in in relation to the effects of climate change that are also being used in a in a very similar way that a lot of schools are being closed because of extreme heat or flooding that in some sense all of this is being used to further construct this idea of a Global Learning crisis that needs to be and now we have evidence of it and that this needs to be uh uh addressed through a PO a comprehensive policy solution so in some ways the accelerated learning idea is being even though it has very different Roots is is being as it were adapted and standardized as a solution package that can be proferred by International agencies in light of This Global Learning CR uh crisis I believe I might have one last slide but I think that's the end of my presentation it's important to ask I think critical questions here first of all are these Global Learning metrics really fit for purpose are they serving the interests of the government of the governments and the and the education stakeholders that are really looking to make progress do they serve the interest of the Educators and the Learners themselves especially those from marginalized backgrounds um you know how are they going to be using this information if at all uh after it's been created does it really bring about um uh real improvements in the provision of quality education or simply reinforce the views that teachers are not meeting their responsibilities and holding them guilty and uh is this kind of Global Learning metric and the implications thereof really helping to be a driver of transformative change uh in the global uh agenda around education because it lacks a more holistic view of the kind of knowledge attitudes and skills Beyond foundational skills and literacy numeracy that would be needed in order to bring about the kind of social economic and uh Global uh transformation that is needed thank thank you very much sorry I've taken too too much time but uh no no no um thank you very much Aron
Origins & context
- Title
- Postdoc Working Group "Rethinking Accelerated Learning": Online Lecture on 22 January 25
- Language
- English
- YouTube playlist
- Postdoc Working Group Accelerated Learning
- Date
- February 24, 2025
Identifiers & sources
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Knowledge graph
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