This document discusses lessons for improving systems performance from BRIDGE, a knowledge management agency in South Africa. It provides recommendations in four areas: 1) Planning around key factors like ensuring teacher buy-in and understanding the current performance stage of the system. 2) Achieving scale and systems impact by using a staged iterative approach, carefully selecting projects to scale, and managing change. 3) Committing to knowledge management by sharing knowledge from practice and providing knowledge products. 4) Ensuring proper evaluation by defining impact, conducting long-term impact evaluations, and applying evaluation standards. The document concludes with recommendations for the education sector to commit to collaboration, knowledge management, and rigorous evaluation.
2. 1. The work of BRIDGE
2. Approaches to
improving maths
education
3. Recommendations
Focus
3. • Knowledge management
agency
• Rooted in practice
• “Research” in BRIDGE’s context
requires sense-making through
engagement with practice,
evaluations and literature
• Knowledge products: tools and
guidance segmented for end-
users
BRIDGE
4. 1. Planning around key factors
2. Being deliberate about scale
& systems impact
3. Committing to knowledge
management
4. Ensuring proper evaluation
4 ways of improving maths education
5. • Identify the processes that occur between inputs and outputs
• Capacitate and support school principals
• Don’t forget the role of language in mathematics (for teachers and learners)
• Choose intervention level (e.g. Foundation phase)
and intervention type (e.g. teacher development)
1. Planning
• Ensure teacher buy-in
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
• Identify ‘performance stage’ of the system
6. 1. Understand the
systemic context
2. Use a staged and
iterative approach to
scale.
3. Carefully select
projects/approaches to
scale.
5. There is more than one
way of achieving scale.
4. Scale requires
change management,
planning and effort.
6. Sustainability requires deep shift in
attitude, buy-in, ownership, perceived
value, motivation.
2. Scale & Systems Impact
7. 3. Managing knowledge
• Commit to sharing knowledge
• Learn from practice – what worked and what did
not work
• Sector needs knowledge products other than
research and reports, such as:
– Guidelines
– Databases:
• Map of funders
• Map of service providers (NGOs and commercial)
• A ‘project register’
– Tools
8. 4. The role of evaluation
• “Monitoring” and “evaluation” are different.
• Define impact.
• Need for evidence-based, long-term, impact
evaluation data in sector.
• Need for post-project evaluation to track
sustainability.
• Role of ‘meta-evaluations’.
• Stop the culture of secrecy!
9. What can the education sector do?
1. Commit to collaboration
• Partnerships and
collaboration can
increase the scope
and reach of an
intervention.
• Collaboration and
resource sharing can
minimise costs.
• Different types of
collaboration have
different levels of
intensity.
• Build the ability to work
collaboratively and work in
partnership.
• Build a shared understanding
of the problem.
• Mobilise resources that
match the scale of the
challenges.
• Work together to test a range
of possible solutions.
• Create feedback loops and
systems for sharing.
• Commit to learning from
experience.
10. 2. Commit to knowledge management
3. Commit to rigorous evaluation
• Invest in knowledge management
• Share learnings of what has worked and what has not
• Publicise specific learnings
• Standardise evaluation processes
and tools across different projects.
• Ensure M&E information has quick
turnaround time, so interventions
and adaptations can be made if
required.
• Apply standards for appointing
external evaluation agencies and for
assessing evaluations.
• Allocate sufficient budget for
M&E processes and expertise,
including pre-, during and post-
project phases.
• Include a theory of change
linked to impact indicators in
project design, preferably
bringing in evaluation expertise
in the design phase.
