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A panel of education leaders explore the potential barriers that prevent change in education
Tuesday morning kicked off with a panel examining some of the issues that create hurdles in education reform, with speakers pointing to examples they have encountered in their journeys and work to uncover elements that have worked and haven’t in different education systems around the world.
Featuring Alex Beard, head of the global learning lab at UK-based Teach For All, Sucheta Bhat, CEO of Dream a Dream in India, Gillian McFarland, deputy director of education recovery in England’s department of education, and World Bank senior economist Koji Miyamoto (based in France), the panel was moderated by Aida Ridanovic, the director of communication and external affairs at Qatar Foundation International.
Systemic issues, attitudes towards change, and cultural idiosyncrasies were highlighted as some of the factors that can affect the successful implementation of strategies that aim to change parts of existing systems. Panelists spoke from their own experiences, talking about the failures they have seen along the way and the ways in which they have learnt from them, in order to recalibrate the solutions to suit the contexts they are in.
Resource constraints, particularly in developing nations, present a number of hurdles when it comes to putting into place some of the potential changes that could adapt systems to benefit students more greatly. When it comes to evaluating the stakeholders in an education systems, changing around their roles and degree of inclusion, particularly at decision-making level, in systems has the potential to build lasting change. Including parents, and teachers, in certain processes, and thereby giving them purpose in the broader system as opposed to viewing them as passive participants may be helpful in accelerating a lasting way forward.
An understanding of the purpose of the change, and mindfulness of the context in which these changes are operating, may unlock a more sustainable implementation that results in reform that is more beneficial to students in the long-run. While the cost of inaction is very high, the results of participation in an ecosystem will yield positive and lasting change.