Unlocking data: Scaling up uses and users of data in education systems

Education data system management across sub-Saharan Africa faces many challenges, including overly theoretical strategies and policies, limited resources and human capacity, fragmented and outdated digital platforms, and poor coordination among government bodies as well as among donors. Research and civil-society organizations continue to implement initiatives that generate data and evidence critical to informing practices within the education sector. All too often, however, this data is not widely shared or used, resulting in missed opportunities to fill data and evidence gaps and leading to duplication of effort.

This project seeks to address the gap in knowledge on how to adaptively scale up the use of existing education data by policymakers and researchers, specifically in relation to foundational learning for primary-school-age children (4-10 years). It will increase the uses and users of education data by scaling up the “unlocking data” approach, which consists of mapping data systems to address priority research questions and supporting learning within and across countries. The project will use a design-based implementation research (DBIR) methodology to facilitate multi-stakeholder reflection, iterative improvement, agile development, learning and questioning. Evidence will be generated in Kenya, Malawi and Cameroon and at the regional level over three cycles of DBIR.