Learning Teams for Foundational

by Deborah Kimathi

The Learning Generation Initiative (LGI) exists to empower the people within and connected to education systems to enable all children to be learning within a generation. We achieve this by working with policy makers, researchers and other stakeholders to analyze critical issues for the education sector to generate evidence that informs action with governments and local partners that can be amplified in collaboration with our high-level champions and others in the sector.

LGI’s Education Workforce Initiative (EWI) is a crucial pillar of achieving this mission, and EWI’s vision is for all countries to have a strong education workforce that is designed and supported to help those within education systems collaborate with each other and with those outside the education system to achieve learning for all. LGI published the flagship report Transforming the Education Workforce (2019) which put forth the vision of a collaborative model of education professionals intentionally working together in what we call a learning team approach.

As put forth in the report, the learning team approach has the learner at the center, supported by an effective education workforce collaborating within and across levels and with other sectors to ensure the learner is ready and able to learn. Learning team approaches present a way to rethink the design, support, and functioning of the education workforce to promote quality education for all. Learning teams were referenced in the 2023 Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP) Smart Buys 1 as a promising investment, that requires more evidence.

With learning poverty at an extra-ordinary level, and as a strategic partner of the What Works Hub for Global Education, LGI wanted to take a closer look at the role of learning teams in addressing the global foundational learning crisis. This new brief ‘Learning Teams for Foundational Learning’ brings together the existing evidence on the potential of learning teams, and highlights examples of how they have been harnessed to improve foundational learning in various contexts.

Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing a series of blog posts with insights from organizations who are leveraging learning team approaches to drive impact on foundational learning – join us to engage with voices from across the African continent. LGI is also working in collaboration with The Open University’s Centre for the Study of Global Development (CSGD) to develop a multi-country research agenda. Later this year, the team will share case study findings from Kenya and Nepal that will also inform the wider agenda, helping to identify enabling factors for Learning Team effectiveness across contexts, highlighting barriers and enablers to scale, and illustrating how they succeed and become embedded in education systems.

As you read this brief, please do get in touch and share your own experience with learning teams. If you’re interested in discussing the research findings further, or would like to stay in touch about future events and publications, please sign up here. Also, if you’ll be attending the inaugural EAC Education Conference in Arusha, Tanzania next week, look out for our team, and check out our panel on Learning Teams. The panel, titled Learning Teams for Foundational Learning: Perspectives from East Africa will be moderated by Teopista Birungi Mayanja, Founder and Chairperson of the Trustees Board of Uganda National Teachers Union – UNATU, and Champion of LGI. The panel will feature learning team approaches from Building Tomorrow (Uganda), Dignitas (Kenya), and Grass Roots Innovation for Change (East Africa).

All of this is intended to contribute to a broader research agenda that will establish a critical set of knowledge for those pursuing the transformation of education. This research will:

• Broaden our database of learning team examples and refine the learning team typology
• Deepen our understanding of what prompts, informs and enables the design and establishing of learning teams (or new collaborative practices between different groups of actors)
• Share ideas on how different forms of learning teams can be sustained, including through integration into public education systems (and to consider if longevity of learning teams is always desirable)

Please feel free to reach out to our Education Workforce Initiative Lead Deborah Kimathi for further information (dkimathi@edc.org).