ERICC Application of the RISE Diagnostic for Teacher Management in Jordan
The study presented here applied systems thinking to the context of Jordan to assess the wider factors and potential misalignments affecting teacher management in the country. The study was conducted by a team of researchers from New York University-TIES and the Queen Rania Foundation (QRF) in Jordan as part of the Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) Research Programme Consortium (referred to in this report as the ERICC team).
The ERICC team set out to apply the RISE Diagnostic Framework to the case of Jordan’s education sector, ultimately adapting and applying the tool to identify and prioritise misalignments within the country’s teacher management system. In doing so, the RISE Diagnostic Framework helped the ERICC team to map the varying purposes for which different parts of the teacher management system were aligned.
The RISE Framework proposes that education systems consist of four key relationships of accountability between different principals and agents: Compact (Relationship between the highest authorities of the state and education authorities including the Ministry of Education, or MoE); Management (Relationship between the education authorities and frontline providers of education i.e., schools, principals, teachers); Voice and Choice (Relationship between frontline providers of services and recipients of services); and Politics (Relationship between citizens and the highest authorities of the state). Of these relationships, the study was limited to examining the first two relationships, Compact and Management, in the context of teacher management in Jordan.
Based on the RISE diagnostic analysis, the ERICC team finds that Jordan’s teacher management system appears to be primarily aligned for access and process compliance, with pockets of stakeholders attempting to bring greater focus on, and alignment for, learning outcomes. Seven misalignments are identified, primarily within the Management relationship. In addition, the team identifies three recommendations and considerations for future applications of the diagnostic in conflict-affected contexts: (1) limited accessibility and interpretation challenges of MoE policies and the invisibility of policies related to refugees’ education provision; (2) the tool likely requires additional piloting in order to operationalise best practices; and (3) a system-wide diagnostic has tension between inclusivity of minorities and overall influence within the system.