This brief provides an overview of the research, including research design, sampling, data collection tools, ethics, analysis, and lessons learned of the Education for Life: Well-being and Resilience in South Sudan and Uganda report.

Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) is a global research and learning partnership that strives to transform education policy and practice in conflict and protracted crisis, through building a global hub for rigorous, context relevant and actionable evidence base.

The paper explores horizontal and vertical alignment within the education system in areas such as financing, curriculum, teacher training and measures of learning outcomes. The study brings attention to several critical issues: low normative commitment to education among humanitarian and federal-level government actors; suboptimal coordination between humanitarian and state-level government actors; ambiguous distribution of responsibilities within the government’s education sector; challenges in teacher recruitment and training; and gaps in data utilisation.

This policy brief presents a variety of examples of misalignment between key education sector actors with respect to the goals and outcomes of education in conflict-affected areas in Northeast Nigeria. It draws on the findings of a longer ERICC working paper based on key informant interviews conducted in 2022 by ODI and the Common Heritage Foundation alongside a broad literature review.

This policy brief draws from the findings of a longer ERICC working paper, which explored the drivers and outcomes of dissonance between official intentions for cross-sectoral coordination, also referred to as the ‘humanitarian-development nexus’, and the default operations of the Education Sector.