Education Development Trust and UNESCO: a collaborative research programme

Assisting teachers to support learning recovery: understanding learning loss and learning gains during school closure

Wednesday 6th October 2021 – 11:30 to 12:30 BST

Join us for this interesting session where representatives from the Education Development Trust will present the most interesting findings from the first phase of their research to our Warwick in Africa Lead Teachers on the final day of their annual conference. Teachers at our partner schools in Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa will be invited to share their own experiences of teaching during the pandemic, and to suggest ways in which the output of this research could be helpful to them when facing the inevitable challenges of lost learning during the pandemic.

*There will be a Q&A session at the end of the session – questions from WIA Lead Teachers will be prioritised.

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Dr Anna Riggall

Dr Anna Riggall leads Education Development Trust's global research and consultancy services and promotes evidence engagement across the organisation. She has over 20 years’ experience leading international educational research and holds an MA in Education & Development Studies and PhD in Education. She specialises in the areas of education system reform, evidence for policy and practice, educational quality improvement and technical QA for large scale research work.

Dr Elnaz Kashefpakdel

Dr Elnaz Kashefpakdel joined Education Development Trust in 2021 and is leading the public research portfolio working in partnership with global education leaders, to deliver an internationally recognised portfolio of research. Elnaz has ten years of research experience in the field of careers, school-to-work transitions, youth labour market and employability skills, with her work cited in UK government policies including The Career Strategy 2018 and the Industrial Strategy 2017, and other major sectoral publications and events such as World Economic Forum, OECD Career Readiness and the Careers and Enterprise Company. Elnaz is a trained quantitative researcher and has published numerous academic and professional papers over the course of her career using quantitative research methods. Elnaz has a PhD in Education from the University of Bath, with a focus on widening participation in higher education and teenage aspiration. Elnaz is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Centre for Guidance Studies (iCeGS) at the University of Derby where she is advancing her academic credentials working with rounded academic experts in the field of careers.

Ella Page

Ella Page is a researcher with particular expertise in girls’ education and over ten years of experience in monitoring and evaluation, research and literature review. Before joining Education Development trust she worked for clients including FCDO, Plan International, the Varkey Foundation and UNGEI on research around girls’ access to schools, skill development and tackling discriminatory social nots. Ella works closely with our programme teams in East and Southern Africa and is committed to the transformative impact for the most marginalised. She holds an MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation from the London School of Economics.

Who are the Education Development Trust?

Education Development Trust is an international not-for-profit organisation working to improve education outcomes, and the transition from education to work, through expert research on what works, and the intelligent design and delivery of highly contextualised improvement programmes which operate at scale. Education Development Trust is a trusted partner of governments, academics and multilateral agencies across the globe. Their work helps to drive global understanding of education solutions, and they support global dialogues among international policymakers on education system improvement.

What is this research?

Covid-19 has caused considerable disruption to education around the world. Disadvantaged and marginalised learners are being particularly hard-hit. Naturally, earlier in the pandemic, the focus of much attention was on how to safely reopen schools, often featuring a preoccupation with hygiene and social distancing considerations. A shift is now noticeable and welcome. With schools in many jurisdictions reopening partially or fully, there is now a growing interest in the immensely important area of recovering the learning lost while pupils have been away from face-to-face education. Teachers were already in the education spotlight before the pandemic, with a focus on the learning crisis and learning poverty, but the return to face-to-face learning will see this increase. Globally, our teachers will be charged with the heavy lifting when it comes to leading learning recovery. As school systems continue to reopen, teachers will need to respond not only to students’ deepened academic losses (and possibly some gains), but also to their socio-emotional wellbeing. Education Development Trust and UNESCO are collaborating on a research initiative to explore these themes, with a focus on the most marginalised students. Their work will provide information to help teachers, schools and governments as a member of the Covid-19 Global Education Coalition launched by UNESCO.