
The Sierra Leone School Leadership Program: A competency-based approach to improve safety, inclusion, and teaching & learning
Education Workforce
The Sierra Leone School Leadership Program: A competency-based approach to improve safety, inclusion, and teaching & learning
This report examines the implementation and early results of Sierra Leone’s School Leadership Programme, a competency-based professional development initiative designed to strengthen school leadership, safety, inclusion, teaching, and learning. Drawing on survey and interview data from school leaders, teachers, and programme mentors, the study finds reported improvements in inclusive practices, positive discipline, lesson observation, teacher support, and school improvement, while identifying considerations for future scale-up and sustainability.

Teacher Workforce Planning and Management: Rapid Mapping of Tanzania’s Teacher Life Cycle Policy Brief
Education Workforce
Teacher Workforce Planning and Management: Rapid Mapping of Tanzania’s Teacher Life Cycle Policy Brief
This policy brief presents key findings and recommendations from a rapid mapping of Tanzania’s teacher life cycle, from pre-service training and recruitment to professional development, deployment, and retention. Drawing on stakeholder input and current workforce data, the brief identifies persistent challenges affecting teacher management and outlines eight priority actions to strengthen coordination, improve equitable deployment, enhance data systems, support inclusive education, and ensure sustainable financing for the education workforce.

High Touch High Tech for All: Policymaker Brief
Education Workforce
High Touch High Tech for All: Policymaker Brief
What does it take to deliver personalised learning for all students? This brief shares evidence from HTHT pilots across four countries and offers practical guidance for policymakers on technology use, teacher support, and enabling systems.

Middle Tier for Foundational Learning
Education Workforce
Middle Tier for Foundational Learning
Middle-tier personnel play a critical role in translating policy into practice and supporting improvements in teaching and learning. This research note defines the middle tier, synthesizes emerging evidence on how it contributes to foundational learning, and highlights key functions such as instructional support and data-informed decision-making. It also outlines considerations for policy and practice to strengthen the middle tier’s role in sustaining and scaling improvements in foundational literacy and numeracy.

High Touch High Tech in Action: Strengthening Teaching and Learning in Cambodia through Personalised, Adaptive Approaches
Education Workforce
High Touch High Tech in Action: Strengthening Teaching and Learning in Cambodia through Personalised, Adaptive Approaches
This report explores the High Touch High Tech (HTHT) pilot in Cambodia, integrating adaptive digital learning with teacher-led, data-informed instruction in lower secondary classrooms. Over eight months, students achieved significantly greater gains in math—equivalent to eight additional months of learning—demonstrating the model’s potential to strengthen foundational skills and reduce learning gaps within public education systems .

High Touch High Tech for All: Empowering Teachers and Learners in the Philippines with Digital Personalised Learning to Improve Learning Outcomes
Education Workforce
High Touch High Tech for All: Empowering Teachers and Learners in the Philippines with Digital Personalised Learning to Improve Learning Outcomes
This report examines the High Touch High Tech (HTHT) approach in the Philippines, combining adaptive technology with teacher-led, data-informed instruction to personalise learning in public elementary schools. It finds that students made significantly greater gains in math over just 12 weeks, highlighting the potential of integrating technology and strong pedagogy to accelerate learning in low-resource contexts.

What Is High Touch High Tech (HTHT)?
Education Workforce
What Is High Touch High Tech (HTHT)?
This brief presents High Touch High Tech (HTHT), an approach that combines teaching and adaptive technology to enable personalised, data-informed learning at scale—helping accelerate progress, especially for students furthest behind.

Transforming Teacher Deployment: Lessons from a matching algorithm tool
Education Workforce
Transforming Teacher Deployment: Lessons from a matching algorithm tool
This policy brief distills key lessons from Sierra Leone’s first data-driven teacher deployment using a matching algorithm. The tool aimed to make teacher placement more transparent and equitable by combining data on teacher preferences, qualifications, and school needs.

Shifting Power Dynamics in Education Decision-Making: Investigating the role of a matching algorithm to improve teacher deployment in Sierra Leone
Education Workforce
Shifting Power Dynamics in Education Decision-Making: Investigating the role of a matching algorithm to improve teacher deployment in Sierra Leone
This paper examines how a data-driven matching algorithm transformed teacher deployment decisions in Sierra Leone. By digitizing recruitment and introducing a centralized, tech-enabled process, the study explores how technology reshaped efficiency, transparency, and accountability in education decision-making.

A missing link for inclusive education
Education Workforce
A missing link for inclusive education
This paper explores the experiences of teachers with disabilities working in mainstream classrooms across low- and middle-income countries. It highlights the need for inclusive policies, accessible infrastructure, and better data, drawing on teachers’ voices to offer practical recommendations that promote equity and diversity in the education workforce.

Leveraging the potential of the middle tier to improve education outcomes
Education Workforce
Leveraging the potential of the middle tier to improve education outcomes
The middle tier connects schools and central systems, translating policy into practice and supporting education reform. This paper outlines key functions, capacity gaps, and a new assessment framework to help governments strengthen the middle tier—unlocking its potential to improve teaching, equity, and learning outcomes across education systems.

Dynamics of middle tier support in the South African education system: contextual and institutional influences
Education Workforce
Dynamics of middle tier support in the South African education system: contextual and institutional influences
This report explores the critical role of middle-tier education professionals in bridging policy and practice. Drawing on research from South Africa, it examines their impact on education outcomes, the challenges they face, and opportunities to strengthen their role in supporting teachers, school leaders, and equitable learning for all students.

Learning Teams to Support Children’s Learning and Wellbeing
Education Workforce
Learning Teams to Support Children’s Learning and Wellbeing
This report explores how learning teams can improve education systems by fostering collaboration among educators, communities, and other sectors. Through four case studies from Nepal and Kenya, the report examines the origins, practices, and impact of these teams. The research offers insights into how learning teams can enhance student outcomes, teacher well-being, and governance, while informing future education reform efforts.

Transformative Teaching & Learning: High Touch High Tech for Engaged and Adaptive Classrooms
Education Workforce
Transformative Teaching & Learning: High Touch High Tech for Engaged and Adaptive Classrooms
Transformative Teaching & Learning: High Touch High Tech for Engaged and Adaptive Classrooms" project (2021-2024), led by CEIBAL and Education Commission Asia, aimed to enhance teaching and learning in 5th-grade math and 7th-grade computational thinking in Uruguay. Through HTHT lesson plans, teacher training, and ongoing support, the project reached over 10,000 students in 249 schools, with independent evaluations by global education experts.

Learning Teams for Foundational Learning
Education Workforce
Learning Teams for Foundational Learning
Learning team approaches aim for groups of education professionals that collaborate at every level—classroom, school, district, and central—to ensure learning for all. This note aims to set the agenda for further research on learning team approaches by defining what they are, briefly synthesizing the evidence for them, and providing a few examples of how they have been harnessed to improve foundational learning.

Leaders in Teaching Research Note: Evidence on supporting effective secondary school leadership
Education Workforce
Leaders in Teaching Research Note: Evidence on supporting effective secondary school leadership
This research note explores evidence on effective secondary school leadership, focusing on school improvement plans (SIPs), instructional leadership, teacher motivation, and promoting female leadership. It highlights the need for sustained professional development, targeted support, and data-driven strategies to equip school leaders in improving teaching, learning, and overall education outcomes.

Leaders in Teaching Research Note: School leader use of data for school improvement
Education Workforce
Leaders in Teaching Research Note: School leader use of data for school improvement
This research note summarizes evidence on school leaders’ use of data for school improvement, focusing on enablers, challenges, and best practices. Drawing on global examples, it highlights the need for targeted training, technical support, peer networks, and middle-tier engagement to cultivate a data-driven culture that improves school-level outcomes.

Leaders in Teaching Research Note: Evidence on coaching and mentoring for education leadership
Education Workforce
Leaders in Teaching Research Note: Evidence on coaching and mentoring for education leadership
This report summarizes evidence on coaching and mentoring for school and middle-tier leaders, with a focus on Africa and low-resource contexts. Highlighting proven strategies, country examples, and key takeaways, it underscores the positive impact of leadership development on school outcomes, collaboration, and leadership capacity, while offering actionable recommendations.

Education Workforce Initiative Overview
Education Workforce
Education Workforce Initiative Overview
The Education Workforce Initiative (EWI) is part of the Learning Generation Initiative (LGI), whose
mission is to empower the people within and connected to education systems to enable all children to be learning within a generation. This 2-pager outlines the vision of the EWI transformation: for all countries to have a strong education workforce that is designed and supported to help those within collaborate with each other and with those outside the education system to achieve learning for all.

High Touch High Tech for All
Education Workforce
High Touch High Tech for All
High Touch High Tech for All (HTHT) is an approach that brings together the unique strengths of teachers (High Touch) and AI-enabled adaptive learning technology (High Tech) to personalize education, particularly for the most disadvantaged learners.
Governments and partners provide locally available technology that delivers adaptive content and assessment aligned with national curricula, allowing students to learn at their own pace. Teachers then use real-time data to tailor instruction and foster critical thinking, collaboration, and social-emotional growth. When combined with teacher training and support, HTHT has the potential to accelerate learning at scale.

Leadership for Foundational Learning in Africa: Evidence and Considerations for the Future
Education Workforce
Leadership for Foundational Learning in Africa: Evidence and Considerations for the Future
Read this brief discussing the evidence-based reforms to improve school leadership and learning outcomes in Africa

Foundational Learning & the Education Workforce: Global Evidence & Implications for Pakistan
Education Workforce
Foundational Learning & the Education Workforce: Global Evidence & Implications for Pakistan
Read the brief on foundational learning and the education workforce in Pakistan produced in partnership with Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government with support from UK Aid

Inclusive, engaging, and adaptive pedagogies rubric
Education Workforce
Inclusive, engaging, and adaptive pedagogies rubric
A practical diagnostic tool for national stakeholders to assess existing pedagogies in their primary education systems and identify gaps and priorities to strengthen IEA pedagogies moving forward

Innovative Pedagogies Project: Policy brief
Education Workforce
Innovative Pedagogies Project: Policy brief
Read the brief resulting from work in Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda to create greater action towards adopting inclusive, engaging, adaptive, and playful pedagogies

School Leaders’ Preferences on School Location In Sierra Leone An individual and school level study
Education Workforce
School Leaders’ Preferences on School Location In Sierra Leone An individual and school level study
This paper presents findings from a survey of school leaders' perceptions regarding what shapes school location preferences in Sierra Leone and the necessary incentives to address the imbalanced distribution of qualified teachers. This paper accompanies a qualitative inquiry on the same topic: What Matters Most for Teacher Deployment? A case study on teacher school choice preferences in Sierra Leone (McBurnie et al., 2022). Together with the qualitative study, our findings aim to address a gap in empirical evidence on equitable distribution in Sierra Leone and contribute to a growing literature on teachers’ preferences in low- and middle-income countries.

What Matters Most for Teacher Deployment? A case study of teacher preferences in Sierra Leone
Education Workforce
What Matters Most for Teacher Deployment? A case study of teacher preferences in Sierra Leone
The report explores what factors shape where teachers want to work in Sierra Leone. In doing so, it aims to better understand why the inequitable distribution of teachers persists in Sierra Leone and to generate evidence to inform future teacher deployment reforms.

Teachers and Beyond: A Mapping of Prominent Education Workforce Tools and Frameworks
Education Workforce
Teachers and Beyond: A Mapping of Prominent Education Workforce Tools and Frameworks
Joint publication with the Global Partnership for Education.
Teachers and Beyond: A Mapping of Prominent Education Workforce Tools and Frameworks

Bridging the Evidence to Policy Gap: A Learning Partnership Approach to Research
Education Workforce
Bridging the Evidence to Policy Gap: A Learning Partnership Approach to Research
At the height of the pandemic, WISE, the Education Commission, and Education Development Trust came together with the aim of generating new evidence on effective school and system leadership during COVID-19. This learning partnership approach helped close the gap between research and evidence, and policy and action. Learn more about the learning partnership approach to research.

Rwanda learning partnership report
Education Workforce
Rwanda learning partnership report
At the height of the pandemic, WISE, the Education Commission, and Education Development Trust came together with the aim of generating new evidence on effective school and system leadership during COVID-19. This learning partnership approach helped close the gap between research and evidence, and policy and action. Learn more about the learning partnership approach to research.

Lebanon Policy Dialogue report
Education Workforce
Lebanon Policy Dialogue report
This report shares key insights and evidence, including breakthrough approaches, to tackling common challenges in teacher allocation. It includes case studies of new technologies and innovation shared by international experts at a policy dialogue event in Lebanon. Read about innovations in teacher deployment and distribution.

An Education Workforce to Support the Learning of Girls and Students from Marginalised Communities: Evidence-based Action Areas
Education Workforce
An Education Workforce to Support the Learning of Girls and Students from Marginalised Communities: Evidence-based Action Areas
Read the evidence overview for an education workforce to support the learning of girls and marginalized students, used to inform a Southeast Asia Policy Dialogue

Transforming the Education Workforce and COVID-19: Leadership
Education Workforce
Transforming the Education Workforce and COVID-19: Leadership
The COVID-19 crisis forced countries to strategize how to accelerate the transformation of education systems to be more resilient and flexible. Strong leaders are needed to drive this transformation. Read the second in a series of briefs on Transforming the Education Workforce and COVID-19.

Transforming the Education Workforce and COVID-19: Learning Teams
Education Workforce
Transforming the Education Workforce and COVID-19: Learning Teams
To build more robust capacity post-COVID, education systems should look at their education workforce holistically and leverage the existing expertise and experience of their leaders, support staff, and communities in a learning team approach that can facilitate quality education for all children. Read the first in a series of notes on Transforming the Education Workforce and COVID-19.

Sierra Leone country report
Education Workforce
Sierra Leone country report
This report describes outcomes from a project supporting the Teaching Service Commission in Sierra Leone to research, analyze, and propose solutions for critical education workforce issues, including improving the supply and demand of teachers in the most disadvantaged areas. Read about innovative education workforce analysis for more equitable education in Sierra Leone.

Ghana country report
Education Workforce
Ghana country report
This report focuses on findings from a project supporting the Ghana Education Service (GES) to redesign the education workforce at all levels of the education system. Using an organization design approach, the project integrated structures, processes, and human capacity to address workforce issues and enhance the GES institutional reform. Read about redesigning the education workforce in Ghana.

Vietnam country report
Education Workforce
Vietnam country report
This report outlines findings from the impact of a High Touch High Tech approach to grade 7 math and considers implications for the role of the teacher and other members of the workforce when leveraging technology. Read about the High Touch High Tech prototype in Vietnam.

Sierra Leone flipbook
Education Workforce
Sierra Leone flipbook
Read about EWI’s analysis for the Teaching Service Commission to help improve the supply of qualified teachers in hard-to-reach areas

Change agents Emerging evidence on instructional leadership at the middle tier
Education Workforce
Change agents Emerging evidence on instructional leadership at the middle tier
A joint publication with EdDevTrust and IIEP-UNESCO,
that outlines the change agents at the middle-tier of education systems

Transforming the Education Workforce: Learning Teams for a Learning Generation
Education Workforce
Transforming the Education Workforce: Learning Teams for a Learning Generation
This major report offers new visions for strengthening, diversifying, and reimagining an education workforce that can deliver inclusive, quality education for all.

Transforming the Education Workforce: Learning Teams for a Learning Generation
Education Workforce
Transforming the Education Workforce: Learning Teams for a Learning Generation
This major report offers new visions for strengthening, diversifying, and reimagining an education workforce that can deliver inclusive, quality education for all.