Experts: education investment should be based on evidence

Dar es Salaam. Global education experts have revealed that there is need for research-based evidence to guide effective investment being done by governments.

The Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP) revealed that despite the fact that there are many areas where governments have been investing regularly in education, there is little research evidence to guide it.

Along with that, Tanzanian experts complain that despite the existence of such “little evidence,” many policy decisions have always been based on the wishes and experience of decision makers, something that has been negatively hitting back on education progress.

Launched in 2020, the GEEAP is an independent, cross-disciplinary body composed of leading education experts from around the world. Its mandate is to provide succinct, usable and policy-focused recommendations to support decision making on education investments.

The group told The Citizen yesterday that there were issues of schooling and learning where the government had to take action, such as training, among others, but the setback remained little ‘research ‘evidence to guide implementations.

The challenge, according to them, lies in too little research that has been done with interventions to improve access for children with disabilities; or because the evidence available is inconclusive, or even discouraging.

“There is an urgent need for more research and careful evaluation in these areas, to find the most cost-effective approaches,” said Ms Sara Ruto, who represented the GEEAP at a two-day research symposium at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM).

The former Chief Administrative Secretary, Ministry of Education, Kenya explained that African countries have been suffering from a lack of research evidence derived from local research by local experts, which has contributed to the existence of little research to inform policy changes or implementations.

She said there is an acute shortage of adequately trained research leaders in the continent who can empower, mentor and create more opportunities for young African researchers to flourish.

“Our local experts in universities must make our own research available that would be used globally. Currently there is a huge gulf in research capacity and infrastructure which impedes our ability to effectively deal with the root causes of our deplorable state of education, health, unemployment, poverty and other indices of development,” she noted.

The high rate of Learning Poverty, she said, was one indicator of the wide learning gaps that prevent education systems in these countries from providing the kinds of opportunities to their children that they should be able to.

“We need to understand not just what is effective at getting more children into school, but also how to improve learning outcomes (through research) once they are there. This is the kind of evidence needed to advise governments,” she said.

For instance, they noted, constructing new schools as a way to reduce travel times to schools was important but evidence shows it not being cost-effective.