EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS 2030 | 1

EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS 2030

Forum SummaryNOTES FROM THE FORUM HOSTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE, CANBERRA 28-29 AUGUST 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................3

FORUM SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES..........................................................................................3

CONTEXT.............................................................................................................................. 3

2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT...........................................................3

GLOBAL AND DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT...........................................................................3

ROLE OF DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE PROVIDERS...........................................................3

AUSTRALIA’S AID INVESTMENTS IN EDUCATION..................................................................5

EDUCATION FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET: RECOGNISING EDUCATION’S IMPORTANCE IN REACHING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS.........................................................6

BUILDING THE EVIDENCE-BASE FOR LEARNING...................................................................7

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN EDUCATION POLICY AND PRACTICE...................................13

AS A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE, HOW CAN WE WORK TOGETHER TO INFLUENCE TAKE-UP OF GOOD POLICY AND PRACTICE TO MEET THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES PRESENTED BY SDG 4?.......................................................................................................15

POLITICALLY SMART EDUCATION PROGRAMMING............................................................16

Cover image: Rotan prepares to leave for school at a BRAC primary school, Bangladesh. Photo credit Conor Ashleigh for AusAID.

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INTRODUCTIONForum scope and objectivesThe Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade hosted an education policy forum entitled Education for Development: Towards 2030 in Canberra on 28 and 29 August 2017. The forum brought together education-for-development managers and practitioners from international organisations, NGOs, the private sector, academia and government to discuss what makes effective education policy and practice. The purpose of the forum was to strengthen Australia’s education-for-development networks to achieve better education outcomes in our partner countries. The key objectives of the forum were:

Objective 1: To discuss key global issues in education-for-development and Australia’s role in contributing to achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).1

Objective 2: To learn from the experience of others across the education-for-development sector and use that knowledge to build more effective approaches to education policy and programming.

Objective 3: To explore some key concepts, approaches and tools for understanding the political economy of the education sector.

The forum was an important step in articulating Australia’s role and approach to implementation of SDG 4 in our region. It was also an opportunity to establish a formal Australian Education-for-Development Community of Practice.

Context2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, SDG 4 sets ambitious targets to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning. Implementing SDG 4 requires comprehensive actions by governments, civil society, the private sector and communities. The challenges presented by SDG 4 are further compounded by increasingly complex and interconnected global social, economic, political and cultural trends. It will not be possible for governments, organisations or individuals to tackle these challenges unilaterally – a coordinated effort is crucial.

Since adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, impressive gains have been made

globally in access to schooling (particularly primary school), but evidence shows that many enrolled children are deriving limited benefits in terms of learning. Challenges remain in extending adequate education services to all children, with girls, poor children, children with disabilities, and other groups faced with disadvantage being disproportionately affected. Access to early childhood care and education, as well as secondary schooling lags well behind primary schooling in many countries.

The year 2030 is a mere 12 years away – which means there is the imperative now for Australia to build a consensus on how to maximise our impact to improve education outcomes in our partner countries.

Global and development context

Dr Cate Rogers, Assistant Secretary of the Development Policy and Education Branch in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, delivered the welcome remarks at the forum. Dr Rogers outlined some of the key global trends that are impacting on the societies and economies of Australia and our developing country partners, including:

the changing centre of gravity in the global economy to our region – and the rise of the middle class

technology and jobs the increasing complexity and inter-relatedness

of shocks.

Dr Rogers emphasised the role that education plays in addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by these global trends and the SDG Agenda, and Australia’s value-add, given our geographic, economic and strategic place in the world. The full text of Dr Rogers’ welcome remarks can be accessed here.2

Role of development assistance providers

Development assistance providers need to adapt their strategies, delivery mechanisms and organisational capabilities. A recent OECD paper3 on the future of development cooperation found that demand for development cooperation will remain strong given the economic and environmental challenges that lay ahead. However, countries they surveyed expect that donors will shift to a more enabling role in coming years. This means providing catalytic financial support for government led sector programmes, delivering more and better technical and policy support and leveraging more private finance.

1 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.2 http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/pages/education-resources.aspx3 Davies, R. and J. Pickering (2015), “Making Development CooperationFit for the Future: A Survey of Partner Countries”, OECD Development Co-operation Working Papers, No. 20, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5js6b25hzv7h-en

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As development practitioners, the ability to understand how trends at the global and regional levels impact on our ability to implement policies and programs at the local level can feel like a daunting task. It is beyond us as individuals or even organisations to tackle this task unilaterally – which is why investing in the capabilities of individuals, institutions and communities of practice is so important.

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Australia’s aid investments in educationKirsty McNichol, Director of the Education Section in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, gave a presentation entitled Australia’s aid investments in education.4 The presentation drew attention to release of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2018 Learning to Realise Education’s Promise 5 , as an important resource for development practitioners. The report emphasises that education helps individuals, families, communities and nations achieve their aspirations and realise their full potential. At an individual level, for example, each additional year of schooling increases earnings by up to 10%. For societies, education drives long-term economic growth, spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion.

Ms McNichol’s presentation provided an overview of:

the strategic priorities, principles and approaches outlined in the Strategy for Australia’s Investments in Education 2015-2020

Australia’s current education Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), including by sub-sector (refer Figure 1), which will continue to be the second largest sector expenditure across Australian program ODA in 2017-18, at $675.3 million

some of the global and country level initiatives:o the Vanuatu Education Support Program and

the Innovation for Indonesia’s School Children program (INOVASI)

o Global Partnership for Education, Education Cannot Wait, Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) and Research on Improving Systems of Education.6

Forum participants identified the following issues:

In terms of investment needed to address SDG 4, Australia’s ODA budget for education is not sufficient, particularly given nearly 50% of that funding is going to scholarships. There is scope to do more, given the strength of Australia’s gross domestic product.

Australian aid would benefit from an independent analysis of how aid investments are matching need to meet SDG 4 by 2030.

Communications efforts aimed at Ministries of Education would help highlight the issue of sufficiency of funding to meet SDG 4.

Education investment decisions need to consider the number of people that will benefit from the investment (e.g. number of people who benefit from scholarships versus direct education investments). Monitoring and evaluation results from the Australia Awards tracer facility will help shed more light on questions of impact.

It was noted that scholarships are a modality that has impacts across development sectors, rather than solely an investment in the education sector.

Limitations in Development Assistance Committee (DAC) coding of aid investments means that it is not always possible to get a clear picture as to the true extent of investments. For example, investments that target early childhood development may be coded as something else.

Reporting capability may need to evolve under the SDGs, as they are much more detailed than the MDGs.

_____________________________________

System failure at any given stage –at the pre-school level, in primary or secondary school, and in the transition to post-school options –affects life prospects at the individual level, and the human resource dividend at the national level. At each stage, a strong education system requires resourcing, policy, and actors to play their part over a sustained period of time - Strategy for Australia’s Investments in Education 2015-2020.

4 http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/pages/education-resources.aspx5 http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018

6 http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/Pages/education-initiatives.aspx

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Education for People and Planet: Recognising Education’s Importance in Reaching the Sustainable Development GoalsDr William Smith, Senior Policy Analyst at UNESCO in Paris provided an overview of SDG 4 and the Asia-Pacific region’s starting point on the 2030 education targets. Drawing on the 2016 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report,7 the presentation outlined how education and the other SDG goals related to health, environmental sustainability and economic prosperity are co-dependent, with education influencing the potential fulfilment of other SDG goals and progress on other SDGs shaping education.

The presentation concluded with projections estimating whether SDG 4 will be met by 2030 and provided the following overarching recommendations to accelerate progress:

build capacities and collaborations to improve data and monitoring systems and monitor inequalities, learning, and financing more comprehensively;

support collaborations and synergies across all sectors and partners;

integrate formal and non-formal education and training into government efforts to tackle complex problems;

view education as an important means of reducing inequality, but not as a sole solution; and

increase the level and predictability of education system financing.

Dr Smith‘s presentation can be viewed here.8

Forum participants discussed some of the challenges and opportunities presented by SDG 4:

The SDGs are a universal set of goals, with more diversity than the MDGs.

Even though there have been gains in the level of qualifications of teachers,9 the quality of teaching is still a challenge, including how to measure quality, which indicators to use and how to evaluate teaching.

There is a major trend in migration of people from rural to urban areas, which is bringing greater diversity in urban centres but also disparity between urban rich and urban poor. The informal education sector will continue to be of particular importance, as it has the flexibility to reach children across all age ranges.

Environmental education is important in terms of broader developmental impact, particularly in relation to natural disasters and disaster relief. There is a lot to be learnt from indigenous communities in relation to environmental education.

Some of the baseline data for education in the Asia-Pacific,10 and particularly South Asia, indicate that there is work to be done to identify who is missing from the education system, and then mobilising more resources to address the gap.

UNESCO is tracking indicators against the SDGs, with expanded use of household surveys, national assessment frameworks and national monitoring workshops in around 60 countries.

7 http://en.unesco.org/gem-report/8http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/pages/education-resources.aspx9 In 2014, 82% of teachers had the minimum qualifications required to teach in pre-primary education, 93% in primary, and 91% in secondary education.

10 Refer figure 2.

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Building the Evidence-Base for LearningDr David Coleman, Senior Education Adviser in the Education Section in DFAT, gave a presentation on the opportunity for Australia to further define its role globally and in the region on monitoring and reporting progress against SDG 4. The presentation gave an overview of the current state of play in national, regional and global data and metrics, including the landscape of current tools and approaches.

As a way forward, Dr Coleman suggested that we should aim for a clear, relevant and globally agreed approach to data and learning with the following characteristics:

the purpose is easy to understand; fit-for-purpose; single approach with multiple applications; communications focused; and action oriented.The presentation Building the Evidence-Base for Learning is available here.11

Forum participants discussed how Australia can build a constituency in the Asia-Pacific that is interested in data and its use in policy and budget development?

Country level Education Management Information Systems often lag behind in data collection in crucial areas, particularly where data is difficult to access or quantify, such as inclusion and disability.

There is a wealth of data on education that is existing or readily accessible but not routinely reported or used.

Although countries can decide which SDG indicators to report on at the global level, there is a tension between international requirements for the collection of data and the utility of data at the local level.

SDG 4 has a focus on quality of learning, but is it possible to come up with a universal description of how children are learning? The Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML) and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) are important convenors, together with a range of think tanks, civil society actors and the research community.

Reporting on education data at the federal level with Ministries of Education is generally focused on national-level systems, and often do not have the capacity to dig into local-level processes

o however, the adoption of SDG 4 has provided impetus to put new systems in place – for example, in Pakistan the government has set up designated monitoring units to visit provinces each month to monitor teacher attendance

o national assessments versus citizen-led assessments will have a different focus. Lived experience at the community level can be an important reality check as to where the focus of data and evidence should be (e.g. to focus on kids that cannot identify individual letters).

The nexus between Ministries of Finance and Ministries of Education is crucial for linking data, evidence and investment in education.

_____________________________________

Finding out what children know now is the basis for accountability. Finding out what children don’t know holds the potential for better learning._____________________________________ It is important to design data collection with its

strategic, communications and policy uses in mind and to build a constituency at the local level that focuses on data collection that has utilityo technical assistance can be particularly

useful for the development of national level systems, including outreach beyond Ministries of Education (e.g. Ministries of Finance)

o linking sector investments to performance outputs and outcomes can strengthen data frameworks, if well embedded with Education Sector Plans and identified priorities.

Bureaucrats are often swamped with results, but this needs to be translated into policy and related actions.

It is important to build a narrative around data and evidence with a view to strategic communications - who you are trying to influence and where media commentary may have a role in building the narrative. Access to IT tools and real-time data in classrooms can be a powerful tool to influence the right people at the right time.

Dr Jeaniene Spink gave a presentation entitled Data Alignment for SDG 4 Reporting – Australia’s

11 http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/pages/education-resources.aspx

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Contribution to a Global Challenge,12 including the approach in this area by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)13 and GAML14. Dr Spink emphasised that Australia is a leader in this conceptual alignment and empirical linking.

Forum participants identified that Australia has a lot to offer in terms of what we have learnt from Australia’s domestic situation with the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN).15

12 http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/pages/education-resources.aspx13 http://uis.unesco.org/14 http://uis.openplus.ca/gaml/15 https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan

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Global Education FinancingGlobal efforts to mobilise education financing have gained momentum in the past 18 months with calls to dramatically scale up support to an ambitious USD3 trillion by 2030. For this session, representatives from DFAT, the World Bank and Cardno came together to offer perspectives on global, bilateral and national efforts to mobilise education financing.

Natasha Smith, First Assistant Secretary of the Multilateral Development and Finance Division, DFAT, summarised some of the key imperatives to scale up education financing and the value of multilateral approaches:

When compared with other development sectors globally, ODA to education has not increased at the same rate (refer Figure 3).

Financing is essential, but not sufficient, for improved learning outcomes.

There is an estimated funding gap of USD120 billion per year across all low and middle income countries, to get all children learning by 2030.16

Domestic public resources account for 97 per cent of education spends, making this sector unique (in health, for example, much greater shares are spent by households and development assistance)o donors, business, philanthropic foundations

and civil society all have a role to play in advocating for commitment of domestic resources and also providing support themselves.

While the needs in low-income countries are significant, more can be done to incentivise middle-income countries too, including many in the Asia-Pacific region.

Figure 3 – The Education Financing Gap17

Multilateral approaches provide a forum (and funding) for sharing knowledge, experience, new ideas and new norms – often with diverse stakeholders around the table.

In addition to providing an overview of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) (refer Box 1), Sue Graves, Director Health and Education Funds Section, DFAT, and GPE Board member for Australia, outlined some of the benefits of financing through GPE, and areas where more work can be done to close the gap between theory and practice:

GPE emphasises costed sector plans, policy commitments and a systems approach linking funding to performance and accountability.18

The GPE model aims to strengthen systems by linking funding to meeting system improvement requirementso a credible, costed, evidence-based education

sector plan endorsed by in-country development partners (including civil society)

o commitment to increase or maintain domestic spending on education to at least 20% of public expenditure

o a strategy to strengthen data collection and use.

The new GPE Financing and Funding Framework19 expands and enhances the role GPE can play in the broader education financing architecture. Its funding model has the potential to drive improved performance and systems strengthening.

Ensuring that the GPE model works in practice depends to an extent on the strength of the partnership at the country or regional level, and links to other partner efforts.

16 www.report.educationcommission.org17 www.report.educationcommission.org18 GPE Implementation grants are split between 70% fixed and 30% linked to performance.19 https://replenishment.globalpartnership.org/en/chapter/gpes-new-financing-and-funding-framework/

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The GPE model can help catalyse a joined-up approach to enable a greater impact on performance and accountability through inclusive consultation processes and dialogue.

How Australia – and others – engage as a part of the GPE partnership will be one of the determinants of its impact on the ground.

The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity released a report in 2016 entitled The Learning Generation – Investing in Education for a Changing World, which provided a renewed evidence base for scaling up education financing and a series of recommendations for action.

Key recommendations include:

better use of finance from domestic and international sources;

scaling up innovative approaches; and investing in teachers. Chris Tinning, Chief Economist (Development), DFAT, provided some insights on how the Commission’s proposed International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) could work and highlighted the need to address the root causes as to why education funding is not rising:

The proposal for an IFFEd would involve the establishment of a new entity to use guarantees from donors to mobilise greater finance through multilateral development banks. This capital could then be lent to

countries for education. An IFFEd would also seek grant funding from donors to buy down these loans to more concessional terms.

Although no one argues against education, decision makers cannot readily see the results from education spending (as compared to infrastructure or health spending).

The long-term benefits of education are recognised, such as the imperative for more skilled people to enter the future workforce, but there is a gap in terms of feeding results and evidence back into decision-making on national education financing.

There is not always a correlation between increased spending and results, which needs to be addressed.

Venkatesh Sundararaman, Program Leader, Human Development, PNG and the Pacific at the World Bank, raised some key questions and issues about how to partner with the private sector to achieve public goals:

There are many ways to consider accessing more financing for education – increasing domestic revenues through targeted taxes,

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Box 1 – Financing through the Global Partnership for EducationThe Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is a multi-stakeholder partnership of bilateral and multilateral donors, developing country partners, and representatives from civil society and the private sector. GPE’s goal is to provide inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all.

GPE’s objectives are strongly aligned with Australia’s aid priorities:

promoting girls’ education providing access to education to the poorest and most marginalised children including in fragile and

conflict affected states; and focusing on results in teaching and learning

Australia’s support to GPE complements our bilateral education programs in the region and extends our reach in the education sector to a global scale. As a member of GPE’s board, Australia is actively engaged in the governance of GPE.

GPE (and its forerunner, the Fast Track Initiative) has mobilised USD4.3 billion in support of education since 2002 enabling 22.5 million additional children to enter school in 61 developing countries around the world. Australia contributed $340.8 million to GPE between 2007 and 2014. In June 2014, Australia pledged $140 million for GPE’s 2015-2018 replenishment.

expanding the overall tax base in countries, improving legislation for strengthening and supporting private investments, philanthropy and channelling ODA towards the sector.

Three points to consider when thinking about sector financing are: (i) how can we best leverage the private sector?; (ii) are we selling the sector well and/or correctly?; (iii) are we making a mistake by tying the sector to guaranteed “improved learning outcomes”?

Leveraging the private sector: there are many issues to take into consideration including inter alia: (i) ideological debate over public and private schooling, (ii) legislation to create an enabling environment for private sector participation.

The private sector could help improve system efficiencies. In a study in India, we find that private schools achieve similar results in terms of student learning outcomes but do so for a third of the cost.20

Selling the Education Sector to Policymakers and Other Stakeholders: The current narrative (over the last 5-10 years) has been one that the sector has not delivered the expected results over the last quarter of a century. This narrative might need to change. While learning is ultimately the goal of any education system, the progress made in the last twenty five years has been extraordinary.

Tying financing to learning outcomes: Recognising the need to move from a focus on ‘kids in school’ to ‘kids in school and learning’ is evident. Whether we should use financing (or withholding financing) as a way of leveraging or incentivising better performance and accountability in education systems is less clear.

It is important to recognise that even in advanced economies there remain substantial gaps in achievements across sub-populations. Furthermore, children have different learning modes and tying financing to results in education might not be the right way to support improvements in learning outcomes.

Adam Rorris, Principal Education Adviser for Cardno, offered some insights on how multilateral and bilateral education funds are utilised at the national level, and some of the practicalities and issues that governments and other national actors face:

Supporting financing for education requires us to be clear in answering certain questions. Why are we financing? Problem identification should be clear and undertaken in partnership with government and civil society.

How do we invest? Ideally, the investment should link to a broader national plan that supports local ownership of the investment and ongoing activities.

How much to invest? A balance struck based on available funds, task at hand and the knowledge that if you spend more and spend wisely, then you do get the bigger bang for your buck with education spending.

Who will finance? There is gathering interest in new funding modalities that combine local and donor sources, public and private financing options. Final choice will be driven by appetite for risk, quantity of funds required and time-lines.

Political economy analysis is a useful tool to help guide the selection of investments in education and the design of financing and implementation mechanisms/protocols. For example, the power and demand of the urban class is often driving more investment in higher education at the expense of rural access to basic education.

While there are benefits to multilateral funding, bilateral funding enables people-to-people connections that are important, particularly in the Small Island States.

There is a need to identify actors who have power to influence political outcomes. Ministries of Finance and Ministries of Education speak a different language. Need Ministries of Finance on board with sector planning and related budgets.

Participants identified the following challenges and issues in the area of education financing:

20 Karthik Muralidharan And Venkatesh Sundararaman (2015), “The Aggregate Effect of School Choice: Evidence from a Two-Stage Experiment in India” The Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 130 Issue 3.

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There are Least Developed Countries with a high risk of not covering their debt burden. Low interest loans for these countries are not always feasible.

More thinking needs to happen on how we get the best out of both low-cost private schools and public schools, avoiding an either/or scenario.

Returns on education investments take a long time, including allowing for error and correction. In an age where government wants results quickly, this presents a real challenge. For example, it took 10 years for Australia to rewrite its curriculum, whereas it is more like two years to see results of infrastructure investments. We still don’t have enough evidence from longitudinal studies.

Education is a long-term investment, and the job of the education-for-development community is to build a business case. DFAT is not the only voice that needs to do the convincing – we need a chorus of convincing.

Part of the business case for education is that the outcomes are the larger goals of society: good citizens that contribute to society, earning potential, better health.

Results-based financing can have different effects when focused on outputs (such as number of teachers turning up at school), rather than outcomes (ie. learning achievements).

Teacher training is a key issue for many countries, and particularly Pacific Island Countries.

A key driver for some people to have an education is that it allows citizens to work overseas and send back remittances.

Women are at the heart of education, and girls’ education needs greater attention.

ODA pots are not getting bigger so financing is necessary, but not sufficient – financing has to come from all sources (multilateral, bilateral, private sector). We also need more innovation and to find new partners.

The World Bank’s World Development Report 2018 Learning to Realise Education’s Promise is an enormous opportunity for all of us to make some crisp, clear messages.

With outputs based education there is a divide between educationalists and investors, and we need to be cognisant of what language we are using for convincing.

Strategic use of live data and an appreciation of the political economy of the given context

can have a powerful influence on policy dialogue.

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Bridging the Gap Between Education Policy and PracticeNicole Rodger, Program Manager of early Childhood Education and Development & Education at Plan International Australia interviewed Heidi Peterson, the Cambodia Programs Director at Oaktree, Catherine Johnston, Senior Education Adviser, Save the Children Australia, and Mary Kimani, Senior Program Manager, ECCD & Education, Plan International Australia.

In many of the countries in which Australian non-government organisations (NGOs) work, governments have early childhood, basic and inclusive education policies that are largely aspirational. The panellists emphasised that NGOs have experience and capacity to operationalise policy at grassroots level and to ensure education systems reach the most marginalised children.

The case studies highlighted the role Australian NGOs play in brokering local partnerships with service providers and government at all levels. The presentation on Bridging the Gap Between Education Policy and Practice can be viewed here,21and further detail on the case studies is available in the Australian Council for Development – Reach, Relationships and Results: Case Studies of Australian NGOs’ Work in Education22 publication.

Catherine Johnston spoke on how Save the Children has worked to overcome challenges in the implementation of policy for early childhood in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.

Save the Children project in Solomon Islands sought to closely align its work in the provinces with the government’s early childhood policy. After a period of implementation, the government’s policy was found to be highly regulated, not adequately resourced, nor readily translatable to provincial level implementation.

This led to a need to recalibrate project expectations and the evolution of a community based model of Early Childhood Development that drew on the assets of the community.

Traditionally NGOs were perceived as occupying the space of government in the

Solomon Islands and not readily accepted as effective partners, but now NGOs are playing a more productive role to support roll out of critical policy at the provincial level and building community capability.

Collaboration and adequate implementation planning is crucial where there are multiple agencies involved in regulation. For example, in Bougainville, early childhood education is regulated by two agencies. Mapping the implementation stage took 12 months and included training for teachers, support for boards of management and intensive support to schools.

With a clear policy and plan from government, there was a clearer role for NGOs, greater visibility of actors and clear delineation of responsibilities.

Heidi Peterson spoke on the role of social media as an advocacy tool in promoting education reform in Cambodia, and some of the key insights are summarised here:

There has been limited impact on education quality in Cambodia despite substantial aid investment. Major issues include poor school governance, corruption and mismanagement.

The Beacon School Initiative23 aims at introducing a new model that improves effective school management through measures that increase teacher and student engagement and leadership.

Social media plays an important role, both in enabling information exchange and professional development activities for teachers and principals, and also as an advocacy tool for communicating program results to government.

Lessons learned were the importance of knowing the context, addressing the root causes of the development challenge, allowing public debate (particularly through social media), taking calculated risks and adapting the program as needed.

Mary Kimani spoke on how Plan International Australia has worked to operationalise policy with government, schools and communities in Bangladesh through developing practical

21 http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/pages/education-resources.aspx 22 https://acfid.asn.au/sites/site.acfid/files/resource_document/Reach-Relationships-and-Results.pdf 23 http://www.oaktree.org/cambodia

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strategies for inclusion, focusing on children with disabilities:

Although there is an Inclusive Education Policy Framework already in place in Bangladesh, the needs of disadvantaged and marginalised children were still not being met in practice.

The model developed was aimed at providing practical classroom strategies for inclusive education, which had strong community building benefits. For example, all children were trained in sign language, not just teachers and those with a disability.

The model has also focused on accessibility and child-friendly environments. Communities asked themselves how they could support teachers, and developed resource groups to support teachers.

As a result, there has been an increase in enrolment of those previously excluded, and the model is now operating in around 200 schools in Bangladesh.

NGO representatives and forum participants shared some overarching perspectives on the role that NGOS play in bridging the gap between policy and practice and opportunities for stronger partnership:

NGOs have national level technical expertise as well as expertise in contextual analysis to understand the policy implementation process and challenges.

NGOs use participatory processes and play a strong convening role between communities, governments and researchers; are able to address problems with how policy is interpreted for local implementation and play an important role in influencing policy debates.

Although there is development of international best practice, guidelines, frameworks etc, what is needed is more time for discussion, debate and integrated approaches based on what is realistic and achievable.

Where there is a gap between partner government ambitions and what can be delivered, there could be value in NGOs and DFAT jointly encouraging governments to take more time in the planning phase, and incorporate adequate consultation.

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As a community of practice, how can we work together to influence take-up of good policy and practice to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by SDG 4?This session included brief presentations by three panel members to provide a range of perspectives and stimulate discussion on the question above.

Richard Geeves, Senior Education Adviser from ChildFund Australia, spoke about the enormity of the challenge presented by SDG 4 and the need for a multi-layered response from development actors, including demonstrations of practice in local contexts.

Aryanti Savitri, Unit Manager in the Human Development Section at the Australian Embassy in Indonesia spoke about how the suite of Australia’s education investments work together to contribute to SDG 4 in Indonesia.

Shannon Ryan, Director of DFAT’s innovationXchange spoke about the role of innovation in meeting education challenges, including the Education in Emergencies Challenge24 and the Atlassian-MIT Solvathons on the Future of the Workforce . 25

Panel representatives and forum participants identified the following areas of focus for an Australian education-for-development community of practice:

SDGs are very ambitious and comprehensive, and will need prioritisation.

In terms of influencing people in a way that has personal resonance, authentic demonstration projects are sometimes the only way to demonstrate potential.

Establishing an Australian education community of practice that incorporates government, NGOs, the private sector and academics would be a great precedent.

There is always scope to strengthen multi-level responses. For example, with DFAT’s role to liaise with governments, including incoming governments, there could be value in having a coordinated approach (e.g. with input from NGO, private sector and academic sectors), to strengthen the evidence-base and business case for education investments.

It is important to do stakeholder mapping and to build trust with a diverse range of stakeholders in partner countries, at both the high level policy dialogue and technical level.

Champions are important for the sustainability of efforts in the education sector. But champions need to be identified and supported on an ongoing basis, and from a diverse and multi-layered pool of playerso school and municipal leaders can be very

effective championso Australia Awards Alumni can be powerful

agents of change. Working multilaterally and regionally can be a

useful complement to bilateral and civil society advocacy.

Sometimes policy and implementation plans need to be ambitious, to be able to hold governments to account, as is joint messaging and advocacy with other donors.

24 https://ixc.dfat.gov.au/projects/the-education-in-emergencies-challenge-a-mikta-initiative-delivered-by-australian-aid/25 https://ixc.dfat.gov.au/projects/solvemitchallenge/

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Politically Smart Education ProgrammingMuch of the recent research and analysis on 'what works' in development broadly points towards the effectiveness of donor approaches that are both technically sound and politically possible. This approach requires us, as practitioners, to design and deliver programs that are politically possible.

The Politically Smart Education Programming training session included a series of presentations on the concept of diplomatic tradecraft and political economy analysis. The presentations can be viewed here , 26 The training also included group discussions to test political economy analysis tools.

Graeme Tinney, Director in the Diplomatic Academy, provided an overview of the Diplomatic Academy, including plans for training to be open across government and internationally through development cooperation.

Sandra Kraushaar, Assistant Director in the Governance Section in DFAT explored some key concepts, approaches and tools for understanding the political economy of the education sector, including:

The World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law27approach to political analysis (Figure 4).

Figure 4 – WDR 2017 – The policy effectiveness cycle

Three core ‘politically smart’ principles:o understanding the political economy

contexts in which we operateo being able to respond to the domestic

environmentso being flexible and adaptable in design and

implementation. Three political economy analysis tools:

o Political Economy Analysis Framework (DFAT/Overseas Development Institute)

o Everyday Political Analysis (Developmental Leadership Program)28

o Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation29

Dr David Coleman, Senior Education Adviser in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, presented on DFAT’s Education Strategy using the political economy lens.

Figure 5 – Strategy for Australia’s aid investments in education 2015-2020 – Making informed investment choices

26 http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/investment-priorities/education-health/education/pages/education-resources.aspx27 http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr201728 www.dlprog.org29http://journal2.investecassetmanagement.com/j2/governance-matters/the-good-governance-gamble

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