Calling for an Education Knowledge Bridge

This White Paper, created for anyone interested in improving education outcomes, responds to discussions with policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. It draws on a thorough 12-month analysis of 45 organisations and 80 interviews with Ministers of Education and their officials, academics, knowledge actors, education practitioners, and leaders and experts from International and Non-Governmental Organisations. Its Key findings are:

 In education, the greatest obstacle to progress isn’t the lack of research but the failure to use existing research:

• While vast sums of data do already exist, these resources are not easily accessed or used by policymakers and practitioners, preventing the development of evidence-based policies that could improve children’s learning globally.
• This knowing-doing gap is at the root of the failure to improve children’s learning worldwide, with the greatest impact on vulnerable and marginalised children – especially girls, minorities, those in poverty, displaced children, and children with learning differences and special needs. 
• A critical part of the response to the learning crisis can be met by urgently addressing the education sector knowing-doing gap.

While the building blocks of an Education Knowledge Bridge do already exist, this White Paper calls for urgent collective action to fast-track progress and close the knowing-doing gap in the next ten years. This can be achieved through:

• promoting generation of user-oriented research focusing on evidence gaps in highest areas of need; 
• building capacity for sector-wide synthesis comparable to what already exists in the health sector and has turbocharged progress;
• creating actionable guidance from the synthesis for policymakers to seize;
• implementing change by helping policymakers turn guidance into policies and practices;
• building a culture of evidence use in education.