Learning Partners

Global Learning Partners

Global Learning Partners work on strategic research themes across the entire portfolio of EOL grantees. They work to ensure that research-based findings contribute to the sharing of EOL-related learning as global public goods. Global Learning Partners collaborate with a selection of EOL grantees and analyse and aggregate experiences and best practices, distilling knowledge to be used by the grantees and EOL to improve work and programme implementation. The Global learning Partners’ initiatives are also meant to benefit the wider community of education stakeholders with insights and knowledge on advocacy, policy influencing, and accountability, among other themes.

EOL’s collaboration with the first group of Global Learning Partners is for a 2-year period from 2022 till the middle of 2024.

A new Call for Expression of Interest has just closed. The next group of Global Learning Partners is expected to be engaged with EOL from August 2024 until the middle of 2026.

You can see a few examples and descriptions of the work of the current Global Learning Partners here, here and here.

Accountability Research Center (ARC)

American University, School of International Service, Washington D.C., USA

ARC is an action-research incubator with a goal to strengthen and learn from the work of civil society organizations and policy reformers on the frontlines of accountability initiatives in the global South. ARC collaborates with partners to contribute to global thinking on how to improve public accountability and build more inclusive societies and believes that research can contribute more to practice if civil society actors are directly involved in setting research agendas.

As an EOL Global Learning Partner, ARC has focused on three research areas in the first year:

Co-construction of an analytical and methodological approach to understanding the role of civil society in national education policies

In collaboration with various EOL stakeholders, incl. EOL grantees and an expert advisory panel, ARC has developed an approach to investigating how civil society has influenced national education policy. During meetings and participatory workshops, this approach has been finetuned to inform ARC’s research and engagement with grantees as described in the accountability brief The Role of Civil Society in National Education Policy in the Global South (January 2024).

Analysis of the role of civil society in national education policy in the published and grey literature

ARC has aimed to establish what is already known about how civil society actors are shaping national education policy in the global South. It has produced an annotated bibliography of over 315 references and abstracts on this subject and conducted a literature review focused on analysis of civil society activism at the national level.

Analysis of EOL grantee strategies for influencing education policy

ARC has conducted an analysis of more than 60 EOL grantees and their strategies for influencing education policy in light of the suggestions and advice from the expert advisory panel and in response to the findings from the literature review. The analysis explores the extent to which grantee strategies reflect continuity with tried-and-tested strategies, innovations worth testing in other contexts, and effects of these strategies.

ARC is building on the knowledge gathered from the analysis and review to identify case studies which are conducted in partnership with grantees to test hypotheses indicated in the literature review.

Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

IDS is a leading global institution for research, teaching and learning, and impact and communications. IDS works with partners such as governments, foundations, NGOs, academics, and civil society to transform approaches to progressive social, political and economic change in ways that ultimately make a difference to people’s lives. IDS’ mission is to deliver world-class research, learning and teaching that transforms the knowledge, action and leadership needed for more equitable and sustainable development globally.

As an EOL Global Learning Partner, IDS is focusing on three areas of work:

Learning accompaniment

IDS has reviewed the learning plans of EOL grantees and of the four EOL regions, categorising learning needs and highlighting patterns in relation to specific learning themes. One recommendation from the review is the conduct of a dialogue-based process for identifying grantees’ learning needs and this has been taken up by EOL. IDS has also facilitated a process within EOL to stimulate conversation, reflection and ideas on adaptive management, and how best to enable and institutionalise adaptation at various levels of the EOL programme implementation.

Advocacy in challenging contexts

IDS has concluded an action research process with 15 EOL grantees, exploring how their advocacy approaches have responded and adapted to different kinds of challenging contexts, and drawing out lessons from their experience and reflections to communicate with others in a video. The action research efforts are linked to an upcoming EOL guidance note on education advocacy in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Gender and inclusion

IDS has carried out a preliminary exploration on how gender and inclusion priorities are incorporated in EOL systems and practices, an insight that will be further taken forward in a gender and inclusion ‘systems check’ to inform more gender transformative practices within EOL, both in learning activities and in EOL delivery.

International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)

UNESCO, Paris, France

IIEP is the planning arm of UNESCO and its mission is to strengthen the capacity of UNESCO Member States to plan and manage their education systems. IIEP has a solid record for capacity strengthening at country level, through analysis, training and technical cooperation, and for the provision of knowledge on educational planning and management, through research and knowledge sharing.

As an EOL Global Learning Partner, IIEP is focusing on two areas:

The role of civil society in promoting transparency and accountability in education

IIEP has conducted an online certificate course in English and in French, for EOL grantees and relevant government partners on tools to promote transparency and accountability in education. In addition, IIEP has held two webinars on how to engage citizens in open school data, and in open governance. In this focus area, work is also ongoing on an online inventory of innovative uses of new technologies as transformative tools for improving transparency and integrity in education sector management.

Engaging CSOs in education sector policy design and implementation

IIEP’s research on the role of CSOs in education policy has informed another online certificate course for EOL grantees and other stakeholders on the basics of educational planning and management which will be conducted in March-April 2024. A course will also be offered to government staff to guide them in how to engage CSOs in local education groups and the use of open governance tools, with CSOs providing some of the inputs and case studies to the course.

MDF Training and Consulting (MDF) & Australian Council for Education Research (ACER)

Ede, The Netherlands & London, United Kingdom

MDF is an industry leader in training and development planning and management and provides learning trajectories, advisory guidance, facilitation, evaluations, and partnership services worldwide. MDF aims to foster competent professionals and improve the functioning of organisations and networks to increase their positive social impact.

ACER is a leading organisation in educational research, monitoring and evaluation. Its mission is to create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services for improved learning. ACER is involved in a broad range of areas such as learning assessments, 21st century skills, curriculum reform, early childhood education, and teacher professional development.

As an EOL Global Learning Partner, the focus of MDF and ACER is on:

Civil society’s different approaches and methodologies for education advocacy and policy influencing (API)

Through a process of action research with three selected EOL grantees, MDF&ACER have developed a research framework and an actionable learning agenda, which includes workshops, analytical exercises, and consultations. The developed API methodology was applied during three country-level learning workshops, supporting the participating grantees in reflecting on their advocacy and policy influencing efforts and in identifying effective strategies for instigating change at local, regional and education system levels. The findings from this process have fed into three case studies and a synthesis report.

Online learning for advocacy and policy influencing

The advocacy tools and interactive learning notes developed through the action research are the basis for online learning modules under development to be made available at the learning platform of Global Campaign for Education so that a wider stakeholder group will be able to benefit from the learnings.

Regional Learning Partners

EOL engages Regional Learning Partners with specific context-relevant knowledge and experience and language competences of grantees in each of the regions of EOL.
Regional learning partners are identified and pre-qualified by the four respective EOL Regional Management Units via a pre-qualification process in an open call for expression of interest (EOI).
Support from regional learning partners targets different types of needs or strategic priority areas as reflected in the EOL Regional Learning Plans. Regional Learning Partners strengthen capacities of civil society actors/grantees by tailored support such as:

Targeted capacity building
Mentoring/coaching for grantees
Facilitation of Learning Collaboratives (see below)
Facilitation of experience exchange/peer learning
Supporting learning in the organisations
Supporting setting up adaptive management systems
Distilling learning and documenting and sharing lessons learnt

EOL draws up a Term of Reference for the various learning efforts planned for and send out to two or three prequalified learning partners with the relevant expertise. If they are interested in the assignment, they will then submit a proposal with ideas, approach, methodologies, and budget. EOL intends to ensure relationship building and more profound knowledge of grantees’ capacities by using the same learning partner for the same group of grantees for a longer period. They can also be hired as mentors for a particular grantee after a joint training of a group of grantees.

Learning Collaboratives

Learning collaboratives are groups of grantees coming together to learn from experiences of one another around a specific thematic topic, or organisational or advocacy areas of learning. EOL currently supports 28 Learning collaboratives in the four regions of EOL operation. They can be very different in form and ways of working and being a mix between online work and physical meetings. Depending on topics and dynamics, the collaboratives run between 3 months to a year with a mix of physical workshops and online sessions for sharing and learning. Regional coalitions or Learning partners are engaged by EOL to facilitate the learning collaboratives.

Currently, the following learning collaboratives are active:

West- and Central Africa

ReLus Learning collaborative: Participants include NECs from all the five Portuguese-speaking NECs in the EOL portfolio (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Timor L’este (Asia Pacific)), and three outside EOL financed coalitions (São Tomé e Príncipe, Brazil, Portugal). Learning cycles focus on a) advocacy strategies for fulfilment of SDG 4; and b) institutional strengthening/movement building within the NECs. Read more here.
Environmental Education: NECs from Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Senegal, and Togo participate. Facilitated by the National Education Coalition of France. Focus on sharing and documenting existing good practices of Environmental Education and Sustainable Development (EESD) for actors in education. Published a fact sheet on Education and Environmental Challenges.
Learning Collaborative on Education in Fragile contexts: OC1, 2 and 3 grantees of Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mali, Togo, Benin, Cameroon. Focus on identifying, documenting, and sharing best practices in terms of promising approaches and experiences for influencing educational and socio-professional reintegration of children and young people in emergencies situation.

Horn, East and Southern Africa

The Africa Education and Learning Platform constitutes a steering structure for all 24 grantees covered by the RMU HESA. Under this, there are seven thematic learning collaboratives lead by different grantees, although these are currently not up and running. However, a sharing platform for the learning collaborative is running, providing opportunities for regional learning The Africa Education and Learning hub.
Malawi National Learning collaborative: OC1 and 3 grantees/alliance members in Malawi, facilitated by the NEC. Includes some non EOL grantees like Save the children and District Education Network representatives from the districts. Focus on joint coordination on advocacy in the country.
ACEA Learning Collaborative with participation of 11 NECs in the MENA region, including Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Egypt and Afghanistan. Focus is on the five tracks of transformative education with the purpose to strengthen the capacity of CSOs in Arab countries education sector to advocate for transformative education. During the period the academy focused on two learning areas i.e., Policy Analysis & Dialogue and Attitude and Transformative Education & Social accountability mechanism, where the sessions focused on discussing educational mechanisms which are compatible with the SDG4. The participants are currently preparing an Arab regional report on protecting the right to education, the report will be an important reference for the coalitions in Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Egypt to prepare reports parallel to Voluntary National Review report of their governments.

Latin America and the Caribbean

CLADE (Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education) Sub-regional advocacy agenda, Central America: NECs from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica are having this space to create an influencing subregional agenda for the accomplishment of the human right to education for marginalized groups and migrants.
CLADE Youth Working Group: NECs from Bolivia, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras. To build a formal youth space within CLADE. The purpose is to strengthen the participation of young people in CLADE and CLADE members.
CLADE Communication Working Group: NECs from Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Bolivia. To identify the communication activities developed by CLADE members; reflect on how to strengthen communication actions; develop joint strategic actions; and share learning.

Asia Pacific

ASPBAE (Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education) Learning collaborative on gender responsive sector plans: with participation of NECs in Asia Pacific Region (12 OC1 grantees). Focus on enhancing capacity on understanding, how to analyse, and advocate for gender responsive national education sector plans (ESPs).
ASPBAE Learning collaborative on youth engagement: Focus on NECs sharing learning on how to better engage marginalised youth, build the youth constituencies of coalitions, and build capacities of youth for advocacy and campaigning on the right to education at national, regional and international platforms and processes.
ASPBAE Learning collaborative on evidenced based advocacy: To strengthen the advocacy agenda and contribute to the credibility of the proposed advocacy agenda, especially through participating in and reflecting on a data collecting / research activity.
ASBAE Learning Collaborative on engagement in LEG: Focus on strengthening coalition engagement and advocacy in the LEGs and other key policy processes.
ASBAE Learning Collaborative on financing education for youth: Focus on national budget analysis and advocacy. Sharing learning on tax justice and advocacy positions to expand their resource base and learning about the impact of Ed-tech and privatization.
ASPBAE Learning collaborative on sustainability: Focus on resource mobilization with the aim of supporting the NECs with their sustainability plan and exploring resources for sustaining advocacy efforts.

Global Campaign for Education Learning communities

These are open to all NECs globally. There is however not reporting from GCE of how many are participating.

Education in Emergencies (EiE) Learning Community: GCE revised the EiE learning community ToR and integrated new mechanisms to strengthen and promote the Learning Community. Some of the new innovations introduced include monitoring the membership and rolling out a membership registration process, setting up EiE Learning Community online page on the Learning Hub with the dedicated community email address: eie@gcelearning.org.
Education Financing (EdFin) Learning Community: Collaborating and taking joint actions in responding to education financing thematic issues of concern.
Inclusive Education and Early Childhood (IEEC) Learning Community: Focus on collaborating and taking joint actions in responding to inclusive education and early childhood thematic issues of concern.
Gender Learning Community: Focus on collaborating and taking joint actions in responding to gender thematic issues of concern.