A Global Compact on Learning - Brookings Institution

head teachers and teacher training institutions to
support progressive approaches to teaching and
other quality improvements. A study looking at the
effectiveness of teacher education in Pakistan highlighted
the importance of head teacher support in
sustaining improvements in the quality of classroom
teaching and learning. 239 School leaders should
work closely with teachers to establish learning objectives,
implement appropriate assessment systems
to monitor progress, and hold teachers accountable
to these standards. Changing gender norms should
be reflected in school leadership and management,
where inequalities often remain. School systems
that have been effective in improving learning for
their students have actively cultivated the next generation
of education leaders and ensured a smooth
transition of leadership and continuity in sustaining
long-term reforms. 240 This requires providing new
principals with ongoing support, such as by pairing
them with more experienced principals in mentoring
programs.
Common Strategy 2: Build Effective
Assessment Systems Linked to Teaching
and Learning
We cannot improve what we do not know. Simple
low-cost assessment systems are needed that provide
regular information at individual, school, and
system levels. 241 Empirical research shows the benefits
of assessments, when used correctly, on student
learning. 242 Assessment systems are made up of different
types of activities that serve multiple purposes:
classroom assessments (primarily continuous or
formative in nature) that provide real-time information
to support teaching and learning in classrooms;
examinations (primarily summative and high-stakes
in nature) to make decisions about a student’s progress
through the education system at distinct decision
points; and large-scale, system-level assessments
for providing policy and programmatic information
on overall performance levels in the system. 243 Assessment
exercises should include a gender analysis
and require sex-disaggregated data in order to adequately
track the impact of teaching and learning
on boys and girls, respectively. Measuring learning
should be done in a smart way that generates timely,
useful information for policy, planning and classroom
purposes but does not structure education
around testing. 244 It is important that learning not
be reduced to that which can easily be measured.
To build effective assessment systems linked to
teaching and learning, four actions need to be taken:
• Set clear learning targets.
• Monitor teaching and learning processes
early and regularly.
• Ensure that examinations promote national
education excellence and equity goals.
• Involve teachers, parents, local communities,
and schools to understand and use information.
The first needed action is to set clear learning targets.
An important component of an effective assessment
system is to work with key stakeholders up
front—including teachers, parents, and communities—to
develop clearly articulated learning targets,
preferably for each grade level. It is important to
ensure that these targets are widely known by all
key stakeholders. Just articulating these goals can
provide policymakers with grounds for prioritizing
what needs to be done. In resource-constrained
environments, targets preferably should be localized
to inform teaching and learning practices at
the school level rather than relying on international
benchmarks for learning. 245 The curriculum should
be closely aligned to the desired learning outcomes,
and teachers should be involved as much as possible
in designing any standardized assessment exercises
that will be used to measure progress toward these
outcomes. The current status of learning (if data exist)
should be compared with expected levels, and
should be analyzed to ensure that expected levels
of learning, as exemplified by textbook content and
the national curriculum, realistically reflect what a
country is able to achieve in the short run. Unreasonable
expectations often drive processes in education
systems rather than the needs of children, the
capabilities of teachers, and the aspirations of parents.
246 To reduce variability in school performance,
countries should adopt time-bound, equity-based
targets for achieving national education goals, such
as halving education disparities based on wealth,
A <strong>Global</strong> Compa c t on Learning: Taking Action on Educat i o n in Developing Countries
C e n t e r for Universal Educat i o n at Brookings
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