School years
System strengthening, education workforce development, equity in education
Driven by impact, powered by collaboration and innovation.
We deliver customised solutions wherever we can make an impact. We take a system-wide approach to tackling educational inequality, removing barriers so every learner can access quality education and realise their potential. From girls’ education to displaced learners and those in crisis-affected settings, we design inclusive, sustainable solutions that answer real needs. By partnering across sectors and harnessing the potential of technology, we create impactful, scalable programmes and solutions that strengthen systems and develop capabilities in collaboration with the communities in which we work.
Empowering excellence in primary and secondary education.
We work with schools, ministries, and at national and local levels, to build strong education systems with a high-quality, motivated workforce, and improve the quality of learning for all. Our solutions are designed for scalable, sustainable impact and are co-created with local partners and educators. By embedding capacity building at every level, from classroom to policy, we support governments and communities to achieve lasting and meaningful impact.
We generate and apply evidence to drive better decisions in policy and practice, combining respected research with extensive programme evaluation to share what works and refine what doesn’t. Shaped by real-world experience, we convene global partners and contribute to the dialogue on school system improvement, identifying ‘bright spots’ and helping others build on them.
We build measurement into every stage of our work, so change is both visible and lasting. By strengthening system-wide capacity for the use of evidence and evaluation, we ensure our work continues to deliver long after projects end.
Our work across the school years includes:
• Policy design and strategic reform
• Accountability and quality assurance mechanisms
• Workforce development from classroom to leadership
• School-to-school collaboration and capacity building
• Delivery of complex, multi-year programmes across diverse contexts
• Supporting partners to build their own capacity for measuring success
• Sharing insights to inform wider policy and practice
Making a global impact System strengthening
Individual schools are unlikely to improve unless they are supported by highly effective school systems, with good local support networks and a high-performing, central ministry of education. Research shows that strong education systems require good data at a granular level so that the performance of individual schools and different groups of students can be fully understood. We also strengthen systems by improving accountability and approaches to national-level student assessment.
Policymakers all over the world are grappling with the challenge of delivering quality teaching and learning at scale. It is one thing to build school infrastructure for access, but quite another to ensure there are skilled, supported, and motivated teachers in every classroom, with students ready to learn.
Policymakers are skilled at dealing with complexity, but our partners and clients tell us that the education quality challenge remains stubborn. What action can policymakers take to cut through all the noise – and be confident that their investments in education will deliver results? At EDT, we give these questions careful consideration, both as researchers investigating powerful international case studies of successful school reform, and as practitioners working in partnership with ministries of education to deliver school improvement at scale in jurisdictions as diverse as Rwanda, Brunei Darussalam, England, and Jordan.
Our distinctive school ‘System Reform Framework’ identifies the six core capabilities of rapidly improving school systems, culminating in improved outcomes for all learners: vision and leadership, coalitions and capacity building for change, delivery architecture, data for accountability and improvement, teacher and school leader effectiveness, and evidence-informed policy. We call these ‘School System Accelerators’, and they can offer a clear direction for policymakers on the capabilities needed to succeed in at-scale reform. They are not the only areas policymakers could invest in, but evidence shows that investing in these capabilities leads to more rapid, more sustainable improvements to teaching and learning quality.
Some examples of our work in system strengthening include:
Consultancy team
Our consultancy team supports systems reform worldwide with expert guidance, technical assistance, and planning for education reform.
In 2023-24, we supported policymakers in 32 countries, mainly through capacity building at a government ministry level, to strengthen education systems and improve learning outcomes at scale.
Engeza
Engeza, the technical assistance hub that we manage on behalf of the Gates Foundation, is collaborating with the Nigerian government and World Bank to create a tool for evaluating foundational literacy and numeracy teaching and learning materials. The findings from the pilot will guide efforts to improve and expand education provision in Nigeria, and the evaluation tool will eventually be made publicly available for governments, donors, and other partners to use worldwide.
SCALE
In 2024, we began work on the UK-funded SCALE (Scaling Access and Learning in Education) programme, which aims to improve foundational learning outcomes in low- and middle-income contexts. We support the provision of technical assistance to the FCDO overseas, while helping to shape and deliver the UK government’s international education development strategy.
Assignments so far have included studies of education policy issues across Sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region – providing technical support to government officials and policymakers.
Sierra Leone Secondary Education Improvement Programme
In Sierra Leone, funded by the UK government as part of the Sierra Leone Secondary Education Improvement Programme, we support the Central Ministry of Education to build capacity, with a particular focus on data-driven policymaking and implementation. This work contributes to the government’s policy commitment to ‘radical inclusion’ and to transforming the education system across Sierra Leone in the coming years, to ensure that children from vulnerable backgrounds have access to quality education.
Large-scale education workforce development programmes
Many of our large-scale education workforce development programmes (such as Building Learning Foundations in Rwanda and TARGET in Ethiopia) have, in the long-term, influenced nationwide education system reform. This reflects the commitment of EDT and its Ministry of Education partners to translate evidence and programmatic learnings into sustainable policy and practice.
Teaching quality is the single biggest driver of student learning outcomes within the school environment.
Education workforce development
Teaching quality is the single biggest driver of student learning outcomes within the school environment. Improving the professional practice of teachers is, therefore, key to raising education outcomes and is a fundamental component of education reform in both developing and developed contexts. However, getting a skilled and motivated teacher in every classroom, and supporting every student, is a challenge shared by policymakers globally.
The professional development needs of individual teachers are likely to be dependent not only on the diverse contexts in which they work, but also the stage of their professional life: teachers at different stages of their career will require different types of support. Many teachers arrive in their profession with passion, motivation and determination, but these attitudes must be nurtured throughout their careers.
Our teacher professional development model is based on findings from our own public research programme over the last 25 years; our delivery experience spanning four continents; and our research and development programme, which invests in the ongoing review and improvement of our education solutions. Our findings form a set of key principles. These set out that teacher professional development focuses on classroom practice, is collaborative, and is not a stand-alone event but a continual process of improvement. Quality teacher development should also include expert input or best practice guidelines, offer a fresh perspective, and feature subject-specific techniques. Finally, teachers should be accountable for, and active participants in, their own learning, but should also be motivated by school culture and leaders.
We support teacher professional growth at scale by improving both local capacity for school leader support, and national capacity to build aligned and constructive accountability systems paired with strong data systems for adaptive teacher development policies.
Some of our experience in the development of the education workforce includes:
Education Services team
In 2024, our CfBT Education Services team marked 40 years of continuous partnership with the Ministry of Education in Brunei Darussalam, where we recruit and deploy expatriate English language teachers to government schools. We also provide school-based professional development training to Bruneian teachers, along with one-to-one mentoring on the English Language Peer Partnership programme.
Workforce professional development has been at the heart of most of our large-scale education programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Zimbabwe, we deliver the teacher professional development component of the UK-funded TEACH programme, improving the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning outcomes across the country. Since the programme began, we have engaged with over 70,000 teachers and 5,800 school leaders across 42 rural districts, reaching approximately one million children so far.
Evidence-Based Supervision (EBS) TARGET programme
Since 2017, our innovative professional development programme has supported Ministry of Education supervisors in the Middle East who manage the performance of classroom teachers. Our approach is known as Evidence-Based Supervision (EBS) because we help supervisors use the best available research-based evidence when coaching teachers to improve their pedagogical practices. In 2023–24, we delivered EBS training in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, using funds from our own Alexandria Schools Trust (AST). This work enabled these three governments to build the capacity of teachers and supervisors to use English as a medium of instruction – while improving their teaching strategies and techniques.
Early Career Framework
In the UK, we are a trusted partner of the Department for Education (DfE), and our work on delivering the UK government’s Early Career Framework was recently rated by Ofsted as ‘Outstanding’. Other workforce professional development programmes we have delivered on behalf of the DfE include the National Tutoring Programme, National Professional Qualifications, and Future Teaching Scholars.
Over a four-year period, the TARGET programme in Ethiopia improved school leadership by providing training and support to over 9,800 school leaders, reaching over 5.5 million learners across the country.
The programme led to significant improvements in the quality of teaching, school improvement planning, safeguarding, data usage, and teacher attendance. Competency assessment results showed that the proportion of school leaders at the level of ‘competent leader’ or above rose from 15% to 74%.
Also in Ethiopia, our Engeza team is engaged in an assignment to improve pre-service teacher training, ensuring educators are equipped to deliver effective foundational learning, on behalf of the Gates Foundation.
This initiative supports the government’s fouryear ‘Education Transformation Programme’, which aims to tackle barriers to learning achievement and retention across the education sector.
CfBT
TEACH programme
School improvement
Supporting schools to grow, connect, and demonstrate quality at every stage of their development.
EDT delivers a comprehensive, evidenceinformed school improvement offer that supports schools to grow, connect, and demonstrate quality at every stage of their development.
At the core is our International Schools Quality Mark (ISQM) – a progressive framework for effective schools that helps them evaluate practice, plan improvement, and gain recognition for their achievements. In future, through our new digital platform, schools will be able to access expert tools, resources, and a global peer-learning community with the opportunity to work toward specialist quality marks in areas such as behaviour, future readiness, and teacher development.
EDT’s global reputation in inspection and accreditation is unparalleled. We have authored and implemented inspection frameworks for governments across the world, trained inspectors, and have conducted international and national inspections, including for the UK’s Department for Education as one of few organisations authorised to inspect British Schools Overseas (BSO). This ensures schools are not only improving but meeting trusted external standards.
This principle of ‘the rest learning from the best’ is exemplified by our collaborative, cluster-based School Partnerships Programme (SPP), which has been making an impact on leadership, teaching quality, and whole-school capacity in schools across England and Wales since 2014, and is the UK’s largest peer-review model. SPP is now being applied in other territories and settings.
Schools in England are facing increasingly complex challenges in behaviour management. The Behaviour Hubs programme, which we operated on behalf of the DfE, provided tailored support to school leaders and teachers – leading to a significant improvement in school behaviour culture between 2021 and 2025.
As part of our UK-funded TEACH programme in Zimbabwe, we have provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) to update their inspection framework, shifting the focus from mere compliance to quality education and school leadership. As part of the change, inspectors now have access to e-tools that enable access to real-time data on learners and teachers’ performance to inform decision making at all levels of governance. Inspectors also engage stakeholders, teachers, parents, and pupils to co-define quality indicators that improve teaching and learning within schools.
Quality assurance and accountability
Flexibility to innovate, whilst
being supported by frameworks that ensure quality, equity, and alignment with system goals.
Accountability is a key factor in developing successful and sustainable education systems, but schools also require the flexibility to innovate, whilst being supported by frameworks that ensure quality, equity, and alignment with system goals.
We work with ministries to improve their inspection and quality assurance systems, enabling policymakers and practitioners to use data for decision-making and accountability at all levels. Key actors at the middle tier of education systems, such as district education officers and mentor teachers, are then uniquely effective in supporting teachers to deliver quality education.
Our work on the UK-funded TEACH programme in Zimbabwe is dedicated to enhancing the quality of education by focusing on system strengthening, continuous teacher professional development, improving equity, school leadership and pedagogical quality. To ensure reforms are sustainable and scalable, they are integrated within MoPSE’s infrastructure and owned at every level of delivery, enabling sustainable change.
The programme builds the capacity of system leaders at the middle tier, including inspectors, cluster chairpersons, teachers, and headteachers, using high-quality resources and toolkits jointly developed with MoPSE, and low-cost edtech platforms.
EDT has been supporting the Ministry of Education in Kenya for over 30 years in national policy reform. Currently, through the UK-funded INSPIRED programme, we are supporting the ministry to develop foundational learning guidelines that are aimed at enhancing the quality of education and improving learning outcomes for children in pre-primary and lower primary. To complement this, we are also supporting the review of the National Education Quality Assurance and Standards Framework (NEQASF) to fully integrate early childhood education (ECE) levels.
The updated framework will promote the use of effective teaching methods, ensure that ECE programmes have access to appropriate teaching and learning materials and provide a positive and enriching learning experience for young children, contributing to their holistic development. EDT will build the capacity of the Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (QASOs) at the Directorate level, and this will be cascaded to the sub-national levels.
Equity in education
Our programmes are accessible to all learners.
Students facing challenges such as special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), displacement, or gender-specific barriers tend to benefit the least from school improvement strategies.
Therefore, it is essential that equity is considered carefully in all system strengthening and education initiatives. This may include redistributing resources, adapting policies, and ensuring that all learners have access to quality education.
In all our work, we ensure SEND-focused components are embedded to ensure our programmes are accessible to anyone with a barrier to education, and we build the capacity of teachers and systems to ensure they understand and can address the needs of students with SEND into the future.
EDT has nearly 30 years’ experience of supporting education in emergencies and refugee settings, and working in fragile conflictaffected states. We provide education response support in times of crisis and technical assistance for post-crisis capacity building, recently including programmes for Syrian and Palestinian learners and their teachers, in partnership with the Ministries of Education in both Lebanon and Jordan.
We also build on the findings of our multi-country research projects to develop programmes that enable teachers to meet the needs of refugees and displaced learners, and support governments with national education system reform. Our six-year study with IIEPUNESCO delved into promising policies and practices for teaching refugees and displaced learners, and together we published case studies on Uganda, Jordan, Kenya and Ethiopia, and produced a series of three short films.
We know that good-quality pedagogy improves learning outcomes for girls and boys alike – and that schools can either entrench or transform gendered beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. Teaching and learning methods; materials; language; school; classroom and behaviour management approaches; and curricula can all consciously or unconsciously reinforce gender stereotypes that disadvantage girls and negatively affect their ability to learn. Our transformational girls’ education model is informed by what we know from the global evidence and robust impact and evaluation data from our large-scale delivery programmes across high-, middle-, and low-income contexts.
Girls’ education has been fundamental to much of our programmatic work in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Kenya, we have helped some of the world’s poorest girls better their lives through education on our Wasichana Wetu Wafaulu (WWW): Let Our Girls Succeed programme – part of the UK-funded Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) – improving their academic, access, and training opportunities and outcomes, as well as their socioemotional wellbeing. On our Building Learning Foundations (BLF) programme in Rwanda, also UK-funded, we amplified the voices of girls through girls’ club interventions, increasing their knowledge of their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and increasing their academic confidence and aspirations.
Recently published research and insights
Head to our website to discover our latest insights and research findings.
Evidence-based policy levers for school improvement
Collaborative behaviour improvement in schools: implications for global policymakers
School leaders and teachers need more support: insights from Behaviour Hubs applications data
Predicting later classroom practice in those new to teaching
Joint practice development through a peer-led school improvement partnership
Climate change and education: from evidence to action
Raising student achievement in literacy and numeracy through a teacher coaching programme: a case study from Brunei Darussalam
Multiple research on: The dilemmas facing disabled people in the world of work, Geographical divides affecting SEND employment across the UK, and Demographic differences in SEND employment in the UK
Learning to change the world
Education is one of the most powerful levers for change. When it’s equitable, evidence-informed, and of high quality, it has the power to create opportunity for everyone.
As a not-for-profit organisation, we exist to increase the life chances of individuals by improving education and skills outcomes.
For nearly 60 years, we’ve partnered with governments, donor agencies and school networks across the globe to strengthen education systems, shape career pathways, and support people to thrive. From classrooms to communities, early years to adulthood, our work delivers meaningful impact that lasts.
School years
To find out more about edt School years, our research, and how EDT is working to improve life chances through improving education and skills outcomes, please get in touch. enquiries@edt.org edt.org
LinkedIn: Education Development Trust
