Author Archives: T Hatch

Building the Capacity to Improve and Sustain Foundational Learning Through Government and Local Partnerships in Malawi: Joe Wolf and Kira Keane on the Evolution of Imagine Worldwide (Part 2)

Posted on August 27, 2025 | Leave a comment

In the second part of this three-part interview, Joe Wolf and Kira Keane describe Imagine Worldwide’s efforts to develop a sustainable model for supporting foundational learning by building partnerships with government officials and local community members. Part one described the evolution of Imagine Worldwide’s approach and part three will discuss the role of teachers in the model and the efforts to adapt the model to three different contexts in Africa. The tablet-based program at the center of Imagine Worldwide’s work, developed by software partner onebillion, serves as a supplement for regular instruction, with each child in a school spending a targeted 150 minutes per week working independently on problems related to reading and mathematics. Imagine Worldwide partnered with the Government of Malawi to rollout the program in 500 schools in Malawi in 2023-24, with the ultimate goal of expanding to all 6000 primary schools, serving 3.8 million learners in standards [grades] 1-4 annually. Joe Wolf is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Imagine Worldwide, and Kira Keane is the Director of Communications. (Photos/graphics are from Imagine Worldwide unless otherwise noted.)

Thomas Hatch (TH): In the first part of our interview, when you talked about having the tablets delivered by the government trucks, that seems to me to reflect the idea that you’re trying to build capacity; you’re not just trying to get the equipment to the school. You’re trying to build a local infrastructure that makes it possible to sustain the supply and transportation of the necessary equipment. Is there anything you can add about that coordination and that effort to build capacity? Is it just that you have to be patient and maybe sometimes accept that things will go more slowly and it may take longer to build that kind of relationship with the government? 

Joe Wolf (JW): I think that’s a good question. There’s sort of a simple and beautiful framework that Malawi talks about where there’s an “I do,” and then “we do,” and then a “you do“ phase. The “I do” starts with Imagine and our local partners showing that this can be done. Showing that a certain number of schools have launched the program.  Showing how efficiently the school can be equipped for solar; that the tablets can get delivered; and that kids can get learning. In the “we do” period, where we’re working hand in glove with the government and establishing the different functions within the government. But we’re still providing a lot of support, acknowledging that some of these functions are new and that this is the phase that we’re in right now. Then there’s eventually the “you do” where the government is fully doing this on their own, because the functions have been fully built out. So yes, I think you have to be patient. I think you have to acknowledge that certain things take longer than if we could do them completely on our own all the time. You also have to be transparent in terms of the inevitable challenges that have to be faced. You have to talk about things like the recurring cost for governments. This is technology. It will eventually break, and we have to be in a position to fix it and get it returned into the schools, or else the learning will stop. These are crucial functions that have to be fulfilled for these solutions to be sustained over the long term. 

It’s not easy to get there, but I remember a moment when I was in Malawi and we were doing a co-creation workshop at the Ministry, and many people were saying, “Well, what about this, and what about this, and what about this?” At some point, the head of the program at the Ministry stopped the meeting and said, “Hey, everybody, you’re thinking about this the wrong way. This is not their program. It’s not their job to answer these questions. This is our program, and it is our job to answer these questions.” All of a sudden, the tone really shifted.  The head of ICT said “Oh, okay, let me brainstorm how this is going to work in Malawi.” The head of quality assurance said, “let me talk about how it’s going to work in our context.” So you have to find a way to really bring them in as co-creation partners. It’s saying, “Hey, we’ve got some knowledge. We have some experience here, and we’ll bring what we know to the table, but this is your program, and you have to want it.” In Malawi, it took us about seven years to have the right conversation with the right people about the right topics. But as we’re launching in Tanzania and other places the seven years of learning has been compressed a bit. Now, it’s a little bit easier because the starting point in Tanzania has included all the different departments within the Ministry of Education. It’s included the Ministry of Finance. It’s included the Ministry of Regional Administration and Local Government. 

Kira Keane (KK): In terms of sustainability, there was another lesson learned that I think was particularly important. At first, we were thinking that there would be ripple effects, like the creation of jobs for local fabrication or the development of training for local technicians to make repairs. But we quickly realized that these were far more than just ripple effects. We recognized that our government partners foresaw the impact of job creation, ICT training, digital skill training, bringing solar power into communities that hadn’t had it. So now we are trying to be more explicit about building the support for these into the communities and government systems. Now, countries like Sierra Leone and Tanzania are very interested in these additional benefits of the program. 

A close-up of a graph AI-generated content may be incorrect.

“At first, we were thinking that there would be ripple effects, like the creation of jobs for local fabrication or the development of training for local technicians to make repairs. But we quickly realized that these were far more than ripple effects. We recognized that our government partners foresaw the impacts of job creation, ICT training, digital skill training, bringing solar power into communities that hadn’t had it.“

TH: Those are great examples of some of the infrastructure and capacity that needs to be built to get the tablets into the school, what were some of sort of the key implementation challenges that you had to address at the school level to get the tablets into students’ hands for the right amount of time?

JW: First of all, data systems in many of the countries we are working in are really, really inadequate, so we first needed to answer a basic question: “How many kids are in this school?” Our model is predicated upon every child having a tablet every single day for up to an hour, and then that tablet rotates to many children. Just establishing how many kids are there drives the number of tablets, which drives the number of solar panels and lithium batteries needed. We’ve found that when the equipment goes into the school and the children start learning, enrollment spikes because kids that were out of school come to school. Then kids start moving to schools that have the tablets. Even low-fee private school kids are transferring back into the public systems. We have to anticipate that and have to make sure there are extra tablets available. We also have to have a buffer in terms of the solar capabilities: because sometimes the sun might not be shining. We have to do all these calculations to determine how much equipment each school needs. 

We also have to make sure the school is ready. It needs to have a watertight, secure, room to house all of this equipment, so sometimes we’ve had to do roof reinforcements and replace or repair windows and doors. It’s not a huge operational challenge in the grand scheme of things, and it’s not particularly expensive. But you do need to make sure that when the equipment shows up, you actually have a place where it can be securely and safely stored. That’s a process that has to be completed well before the equipment gets there. Then you have a logistical puzzle that stems from the fact that the solar energy and the tablets and the cabinets for charging and securely storing the tablets all handled by different entities. Someone has to coordinate everything to make sure the charging security cabinet is already there before the tablets arrive. Compared to the challenges of building a school, getting all the teachers to show up, keeping the teachers trained, and enabling them to teach effectively, these logistical things are fairly low on the complexity scale. But they have to get done on time and under budget. 

A table of information with text AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Imagine Worldwide Theory of Change

We also have to take into account what we call community sensitization. Very often, this is the first technology that has gone into a community, and there can be a lot of skepticism and concerns about the content on the tablets – “What is this?” “What’s this going to do to my child?” We’ve found that a really important first step is to enable the community leaders, religious leaders, the tribal leaders, the PTA leaders to experience what their children will experience. That helps them to feel comfortable with what’s happening and to take ownership. We use language like “this is your equipment;” and emphasize that they are the ones that will benefit and it’s their responsibility to help us make sure that it’s taken care of. We’ve seen surprisingly low theft rates, given the value of the equipment in some of these contexts, and a big part of that is that communities are owning it as their work for their children. These aren’t third party assets that are controlled by some distant NGO. 

TH: Has that community sensitization become a standard part of the model now?

JW: Yes, it’s a workshop we’ve developed, and it brings together the power centers within a community. That happens before a child gets anywhere near the equipment. We also do trainings for all of the teachers and administrators within a school. We do that so that if a teacher isn’t there one day, or a teacher leaves, there are others that can step in to be facilitators. The facilitator role is relatively straightforward. The children are autonomously using the content, but people need to be trained in order to be able to take care of technical issues and things like that, and having the entire school get trained has proven to be very beneficial. It’s also technology-oriented training that’s valuable to the teachers. A lot of them haven’t had a lot of exposure to technology, so it’s a positive professional development opportunity for the teachers themselves.

A group of people sitting on the ground with headphones on AI-generated content may be incorrect.
A community sensitization session in Malawi (CRECCOM)

KK: It’s also important to note that the people that are conducting these community sensitization workshops are usually from the community themselves. They’re trusted messengers. It’s either our implementation partners who are local and are known within the community, or teachers showing other teachers. 

TH: You’ve already talked about many of the key steps for implementation, is there anything else you want to highlight? 

JW: I think what we have on our side is that engagement is incredibly strong. When you walk into a classroom with 100 standard one learners, six-year-old and seven-year-old learners, it’s completely silent. Every student has the headphones on; they’re looking at the tablets; they’re completely immersed. 100% of the time when people come and see this work they tell me they’ve never seen a room with one hundred six- and seven-year-olds that’s completely silent with every kid totally on task. But the teachers have been very positive as well. Nearly 98% of teachers have said that the program has made them more effective; made their jobs more enjoyable and made their jobs more sustainable. Kids are coming to school more often. They’re paying more attention while they’re there. 

“Nearly 98% of teachers have said that the program has made them more effective; made their jobs more enjoyable and made their jobs more sustainable. Kids are coming to school more often. They’re paying more attention while they’re there.“

The tablets are also really good at helping with remediation, so kids are catching up faster, but it’s also good with acceleration for kids that are ready for harder content. That means you have stakeholders responding uniformly positively. We always ask, “what can we be doing better?” but it’s always “can you bring more?” “Can we do the older grades?” “Can you expand to the school next to us?” Once you make sure that you have enough equipment for all the kids, and once you do a good job of getting the adults to do what they need to do to get the equipment in the room and safe and secure, the rest of it kind of takes care of itself. 

Next Week: Scaling and Adapting Tablet-Based Supplemental Learning in Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania Joe Wolf and Kira Keane on the Evolution of Imagine Worldwide (Part 3)

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Bringing a Tablet-Based Foundational Learning Program to all the Primary Schools in Malawi: Joe Wolf and Kira Keane on the Evolution of Imagine Worldwide (Part 1)

Posted on August 20, 2025 | Leave a comment

What does it take to scale a tablet-based foundational learning program to all the primary  schools in Malawi? In this 3-part interview, Joe Wolf and Kira Keane describe how Imagine Worldwide has approached that challenge and share some of what they have learned in the process.  The tablet-based program at the center of Imagine Worldwide’s work, developed by software partner onebillion, serves as a supplement for regular instruction, with each child in a school spending a targeted 150 minutes per week working independently on problems related to reading and mathematics. Imagine Worldwide partnered with the Government of Malawi to rollout the program in 500 primary schools in 2023-24, with the ultimate goal of expanding to all 6000 primary schools in Malawi, serving 3.8 million learners in standards [grades] 1-4 annually. Joe Wolf is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Imagine Worldwide and Kira Keane is the Director of Communications. (Photos/graphics are from Imagine Worldwide unless otherwise noted.)

TH: Can you describe for us some of the key steps or phases you went through as you developed your work to test and then to scale-up this tablet-based program in Malawi? 

Joe Wolf: The first phase of our work was all research oriented. We wanted to see if these learner-centric tablet models could work – were they really effective for children? – before asking under-resourced systems to spend time, energy, and capital on them. That meant we had a prolonged research phase that included nine randomized controlled trials. That was across different contexts, different languages, different implementation models, different countries – really exhaustively trying to prove that these solutions can, in fact, add significant value. 

The second phase was what we call “learning to scale:” What are the processes that need to be done repeatedly well to scale within these contexts? We purposely spread our work out across seven countries, with different implementation models, different implementation partners, different types of structures to really test what needs to be done repeatedly well so that these systems can adopt the work at scale. Then, only in the last three years, we’ve put the pedal down and said, “Okay, I think we’re ready to really think about scaling.” And we were only able to act on scaling thanks to the leadership of the government of Malawi, who saw the learning gains of our pilot programs and saw how this edtech intervention could support their national goals of improving foundational skills.  At that point in 2022, we served around 6000 children, but we increased it to about 700,000 children by the beginning of 2025. That’s a 100x increase in the last two years, which I think is a testament to the scalability of the model, the execution of the team, and the leadership of our government partners. 

A map of africa with a yellow circle AI-generated content may be incorrect.

TH: What’s the third phase? Implementation? 

JW: I would say it’s scale plus continuous improvement. Now, our research is less efficacy oriented and more implementation oriented. How do we make it better and better and better? To address that, we have four levers we focus on: 

  • Access: How do we serve more and more children and make the solutions easier and easier to implement? 
  • Cost-effectiveness: How do we bring down the recurring costs to be as low as possible? We’ve brought costs down around 75% in the last five years, and we think there’s still room to go. Our key inputs are all highly deflationary, so we’re getting better economies of scale as we grow. Right now, we’re at about seven dollars (USD) per child per year. We think we can get that under five dollars (USD) as we get better economies of scale. 
  • Advocacy: How do we use data to improve the implementation model in the software so that the efficacy of the program continues to go up and up and up? It’s one of the beauties of technology that it can iterate and improve. You’re not building a building and putting in books and then five years later it’s deteriorated. We actually have the ability to use data to continuously improve through this flywheel of innovation.

“It’s one of the beauties of technology that it can iterate and improve. You’re not building a building and putting in books and then five years later it’s deteriorated. We actually have the ability to use data to continuously improve through this flywheel of innovation.“

  • Sustainability. How do we work with our government partners to build operational and financial sustainability?  And how do we do it starting day one, where we’re building the “muscles” within the existing education system, as opposed to the classic approach of starting off outside the system and then trying to hand it off to the system. Too often, if you haven’t done a good job of building that internal muscle, and then things fall apart. So we’ve really taken the system strengthening approach, acknowledging that there are capacity and infrastructure gaps within the countries where we work and that there are key functions that need to be built that don’t currently exist within some of these systems. We’ve tried to give it time so that, by the end of the implementation phase, the system has already been doing the work for an extended period of time. That way, you don’t have this fall off as you try to hand-off everything to the system itself.

Kira Keane: I just want to underscore a couple of points that Joe made. For Imagine, this notion of the continuous improvement loop, it’s not like we did things, something went wrong and we’re like, “Oh, we have to fix this.” This was an intentional design element from the very beginning: How do we get continuous feedback to improve both the software itself and the implementation model? And the other point is that our key question is “How do we serve as many children as possible?” The need is so immense and the population growth will be so intense over the next 10-15 years so we really need to be focused on scale. That means working with our government partners to aim for generational impact, really looking at country-wide scale, and focusing on how we design for that.

“The need is so immense and the population growth will be so intense over the next 10-15, years so we really need to be focused on scale.  That means working with our government partners to aim for generational impact, really looking at country-wide scale, and focusing on how we design for that.”

JW: I’ll add two more things to what Kira said. The ecosystem is exhausted by pilots – by small things that don’t scale, that don’t have evidence, that take a lot of time and resources. Scale from day one very much aligns with where the governments are. They have a big problem with the lack of foundational learning among their students, and they need big solutions. Little, tiny things are just distracting and take too much time and energy. The second thing is that we have positioned our organization to be temporary in nature, so our job is to put ourselves out of business as quickly as we possibly can. We don’t see these as “Imagine Worldwide” programs in Malawi or “Imagine Worldwide” in Sierra Leone. These are programs of the government in Malawi and of the government in Sierra Leone that we are helping to support. We’re helping to build capacity and infrastructure to build muscle within the systems. But as soon as the government is ready to maintain this on its own, we are more than pleased to step out of the way and to move on to the next challenge. I think that positioning is really important for the governments. It’s really important for the funders. It’s really important for us and our team. Too many times, an NGO establishes itself and 50 years later, the NGO is still there, doing the work. We need this work to be sustainable within existing systems. Part of that is a commitment for us to get out of the way. We have to believe in sovereignty and the power of governments to run themselves, while also acknowledging that the use of technology in a place like Malawi is new, and so there is going to be a period of time where we have to build some functions that do not currently exist.

TH: That certainly resonates with my experiences in the US where we’ve seen multiple improvement efforts collide in schools in ways that can actually undermine their capacity for improvement. What made Malawi a good context for you to work on scale-up?  

JW: The work in Malawi actually predates the partnership with Imagine. There was a program called “Unlocking Talent,” with the software developer onebillion that became our partner. The onebillion CEO went to Malawi, I think, 15 years ago, fell in love with the country, and developed the product. The first product they developed was in Chichewa, in Malawi. In other words, this was not developed in the West and then adapted to the context. This actually was developed within the Malawian context. We became a research partner to look at impact and to help do the RCT work. That has now evolved into a much more scalable model that we call the BeFIT Program. It’s serving standards [grades] one through four, whereas the first program was only standard two. 

A person holding a tablet AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Key elements of the BeFIT program in Malawi

There have been a whole bunch of iterations along the way to develop our general approach, but it basically evolved by thinking about what it would take to actually scale the program much more cost effectively to many more students in more systems. If you look at the other places that we worked, you’ll see that we started with finding local partners, mostly local NGOs, some local social-oriented businesses, and then turned over a lot of the functions to those local partners to see what worked in different contexts. From that, we have built a series of centralized functions that we’re now drawing on in our country partnerships, as opposed to having it be completely decentralized. We learned a lot from the initial more decentralized exploration, but we’re now in the process of creating more standardization. Part of scaling depends on acknowledging that you can’t have fifty different bespoke operations. You need to have systems and standards and data systems. When you have 6000 children in Malawi, using a total of 1000 devices, you can do some things by hand; but now we’re trying to serve millions of children in Malawi, with hundreds of thousands of tablets. We now need data driven systems in order to be able to manage that equipment in the field. 

TH: Let’s follow the arc of that evolution in Malawi. What are some of the steps that were crucial to your learning and to the development of the model?

JW: In Malawi, we took seven or eight years to do the research and to get the right level of government buy-in to understand what was working. That included learning things like what’s the infrastructure for the typical school in Malawi? Just to give you the context, that means more than 100 children per teacher and inadequate levels of teacher training. There’s very rarely basic infrastructure in place, so no electricity and certainly no internet connectivity. That’s the reality of the average class in Malawi. So as you think about the components of our model that have emerged the first was what you would call the infrastructure component. We put solar power into all of our schools, addressing questions like: 

  • Where do solar panels go? 
  • How does the solar electricity feed a bank of lithium batteries? 
  • How do the tablets get stored and secured overnight so that they’re charged and they’re safe? 
  • How does all that equipment get distributed to children in a really efficient manner, so that you’re getting as much asset utilization as possible and as much learning time as possible? 

In the end, our research consistently shows that the number of minutes each student uses the content is directly correlated to the level of learning. So we’re addressing these 101 things that need to be done in terms of the infrastructure and operations to maximize that time on task. And that has to take into account that the school day and the school periods are very short in Malawi and you have a lot of children in the classroom. So even just getting kids in and out of a classroom is a lot harder than in many other contexts.

A group of children raising their hands AI-generated content may be incorrect.
A classroom in Malawi

TH: You just described those complexities really effectively, but for those of us who aren’t familiar with the context, can you go into it even more deeply? What does it really take to get a program like this up and running at scale? 

JW: I think that in addition to a foundational learning organization, we are, in a lot of ways, also a supply chain logistics company. Learning gains are still our north star, but the reality is you’re talking about a phase one of BeFIT that involved launching the program in five hundred schools in five months across half of the country of Malawi, including very rural districts. So we have to deal with the logistics of getting five hundred secure storage cabinets into those schools. We have to deal with the logistics of getting 100,000 tablets distributed across those 500 schools and of getting the solar equipment put into 500 schools. That’s a significant operational lift, and you have to approach that with a level of rigor in terms of those key functions, if you’re going to be able to scale, and you’re going to be able to do that on time. And we had to do that on budget in the middle of a huge macro-economic meltdown in terms of currency and raw materials. In the grand scheme of things, once the equipment is in place, kids can get learning very, very quickly. There’s not a huge lift in terms of adult training. There’s not a huge lift in terms of the role of the adult in the model itself; the content has been built to be autonomous, meaning the child can be self-directed. The tablets themselves have been built to be very robust. A lot of enhancements have been made to make the tablet durable. There’s a long battery life so it can be used throughout the day. Every part of the tablet has been built with screws so that a component can be swapped out if something breaks. So every part of the context has been taken into account in order to get that equipment into the field and utilized. This is one of the big learnings: you have to start with the context in mind, and you have to start with the learning objectives in mind. You then make a series of software decisions, and then you make a series of hardware decisions. Too often in education, it goes the other direction, where people buy stuff, but then they haven’t really thought about what’s going to go on the stuff? What’s the training required? What are the charging and security components of it? What is our learning objective at the end of the day? You have to start with learning, move into the context, and think about all the infrastructure decisions that need to be made in order to make that learning possible in that context. 

“You have to start with learning, move into the context, and think about all the infrastructure decisions that need to be made in order to make that learning possible in that context.”

KK: I think it’s also important to flag that in working on the logistics we included the government from day one. That means things like using the delivery trucks the government already had. Trying to manage that coordination may have been a little slower or less efficient in some ways, but too often people design an implementation model, put a bow on it, and then hand it to the government without including them from inception. 

Next Week: Building the Capacity to Improve and Sustain Foundational Learning Through Government and Local Partnerships in Malawi: Joe Wolf and Kira Keane on the Evolution of Imagine Worldwide (Part 2)

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Posted in early childhood education, education reform, Educational change, educational technology, Interviews, Malawi

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Back with Back to School Posts soon…

Posted on August 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

IEN will be taking a break for a bit, but we will be back August 20th with posts on efforts to support the development of student relationships post-pandemic; a large-scale initiative to implement a tablet based learning program in Africa; and our annual scan of news stories related to the start of the new school year in many parts of the world.

In the meantime, please check out some of our stories from this summer:

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Mel Ainscow on reforming education systems for inclusion and equity

Posted on July 30, 2025 | Leave a comment

This week, Mel Ainscow discusses some of the key insights from his new book Reforming Education Systems for Inclusion and Equity. Ainscow is Emeritus Professor, University of Manchester, Professor of Education, University of Glasgow, and Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology.

What’s the greatest challenge facing education systems around the world? Finding ways of including and ensuring the progress of all children in schools. In economically poorer countries this is mainly about the millions of children who are not able to attend formal education. Meanwhile, in wealthier countries many young people leave school with no worthwhile qualifications, whilst others are placed in special provision away from mainstream education and some choose to drop out since the lessons seem irrelevant. Faced with these challenges, there is evidence of an increased interest internationally in the idea of making education more inclusive and equitable. However, the field remains confused as to the actions needed in order to move policy and practice forward. 

What’s the greatest challenge facing education systems around the world? Finding ways of including and ensuring the progress of all children in schools.

Reforming Education Systems for Inclusion and Equity book cover

Reforming education systems

Over the last thirty years or so I have had the privilege of working on projects aimed at the promotion of inclusion and equity within education systems, in my own country and internationally. This leads me to propose a radical way of addressing this important policy challenge. This thinking calls for coordinated and sustained efforts within schools and across education systems, recognising that improving outcomes for vulnerable learners is unlikely to be achieved unless there are changes in the attitudes, beliefs and actions of adults. All of this echoes the views of Michael Fullan, an internationally recognised expert on educational change, who argues: “If you want system change you have to change the system!”

“If you want system change you have to change the system!”

In Reforming Education Systems for Inclusion and Equity, I suggest six key ideas that can be used to guide reform efforts:

  1. Inclusion and equity should be seen as principles that inform educational policies. These principles should influence all educational policies, particularly those that are concerned with the curriculum, assessment processes, teacher education, accountability and funding.
  2. Barriers to the presence, participation and achievement of learners should be identified and addressed. Progress in relation to inclusion and equity requires a move away from explanations of educational failure that focus on the characteristics of individual children and their families, towards an analysis of contextual barriers to participation and learning experienced by learners within schools. In this way, those students who do not respond to existing arrangements come to be regarded as ‘hidden voices’ who can encourage the improvement of schools. 
  3. Schools should become learning communities where the development of all members is encouraged and supported. Reforming education systems in relation to inclusion and equity requires coordinated and sustained efforts within schools. Therefore, the starting point must be with practitioners: enlarging their capacity to imagine what might be achieved and increasing their sense of accountability for bringing this about. The role of school leaders is to create the organisational conditions where all of this can happen.
  4. Partnerships between schools should be developed in order to provide mutual challenge and support. School-to-school collaboration can strengthen improvement processes by adding to the range of expertise made available. In particular, partnerships between schools have an enormous potential for fostering the capacity of education systems to respond to learner diversity. More specifically, they can help to reduce the polarisation of schools, to the particular benefit of those students who are marginalised at the edges of the system, and whose progress and attitudes are a cause for concern. 
  5. Families and other community partners should be encouraged to support the work of schools. The development of education systems that are effective for all children will only happen when what happens outside as well as inside a school changes. Area-based partnerships are a means of facilitating these forms of cooperation. School leaders have a crucial role in coordinating such arrangements, although other agencies can have important leadership roles. 
  6. Locally coordinated support and challenge should be provided based on the principles of inclusion and equity. The presence of experienced advisers who can support and challenge school-led improvement is crucial. There is an important role for governments in creating the conditions for making such locally led improvements happen and providing the political mandate for ensuring their implementation. This also means that those who administer local education systems have to adjust their priorities and ways of working in response to improvement efforts that are led from within schools.
Mel Ainscow, Source: Alchetron

Using evidence

Evidence is the life-blood of inclusive educational development. Therefore, deciding what kinds of evidence to collect and how to use it requires considerable care, since, within education systems, what gets measured gets done. This trend is widely recognised as a double-edged sword precisely because it is such a potent lever for change. On the one hand, data are required in order to monitor the progress of children, evaluate the impact of interventions, review the effectiveness of policies, plan new initiatives, and so on. On the other hand, if effectiveness is evaluated on the basis of narrow, even inappropriate, performance indicators, then the impact can be deeply damaging. 

The challenge, therefore, is to harness the potential of evidence as a lever for change, whilst avoiding these potential problems. This means that the starting point for making decisions about the evidence to collect should be with agreed definitions of inclusion and equity. In other words, we must measure what we value, rather than valuing what can more easily be measured. Therefore, evidence collected within the education system needs to relate to the presence, participation and achievement of all students.

“[I]nclusion and equity should not be seen as a separate policy. Rather, they should be viewed as principles that inform all national policies”

Implications

These ideas are guided by a belief that inclusion and equity should not be seen as a separate policy. Rather, they should be viewed as principles that inform all national policies, particularly those that deal with the curriculum, assessment, school evaluation, teacher education and budgets. They must also inform all stages of education, from early years through to higher education. In this way inclusion and equity must not be seen as somebody’s job. Rather, it is reform agenda that must be the responsibility of everyone involved in providing education.

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New Pathways into Higher Education and the Working World? Scanning the Post-COVID Challenges and Possibilities for Access to Colleges and Careers in the US (Part 2) 

Posted on July 23, 2025 | Leave a comment

What can be done to reduce some of the barriers that limit students’ post-high school opportunities? In the second part of this two-part series, RJ Wicks scans recent news and research from the US to survey some of the “micro-innovations” that may help to expand the pathways into college and productive careers. The first part of this scan reviewed the current conditions for students in the US as they try to find their way into college and the workforce. 

COVID-19 accelerated longstanding challenges: college enrollment dropped especially at community colleges; financial insecurity forced some students to pause or leave school; equity gaps widened; and reports continue to suggest that many students are unprepared for life after high school. Yet educators are also developing a host of innovative practices and programs that are helping to address these and other issues. Initiatives such as guaranteed admissions, promise programs, career and technical education (CTE), dual enrollment offerings, early college high schools, and work-based learning are demonstrating the potential to create new and smoother pathways into post-secondary academic and professional environments 

Guaranteed Admissions Programs 

Guaranteed admissions programs seek to make college admissions more automatic and less selective by reaching out to students who meet admissions criteria and offering them a place. For example, a number of higher education institutions in Michigan formed the Michigan Assured Admission Pact (MAAP), which provides guaranteed admission to students graduating from a Michigan high school if they have earned a cumulative high school grade point average of 3.0 or above. Related state programs include Admit Utah,  Washington State’s Guaranteed Admissions Program, University of Texas Top 10% Rule, Direct Admission Minnesota, and SUNY’s Top 10% Promise. 

Michigan Assured Admission Pact (MAAP) website

Promise Programs

Promise programs are tuition-assistance initiatives designed to increase access to higher education, particularly for low-income and underrepresented students. These programs often eliminate financial barriers by covering remaining tuition costs after other financial aid has been applied, effectively making college more accessible and affordable. As of 2023, there are over 400 promise programs across the United States with research-to- date suggesting that the most effective offer free or reduced-cost college tuition along with structured advising, explicit communication and messaging, and outreach. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, all 50 states have at least one local or statewide program. Exhibiting a variety of different approaches, promise programs include “last-dollar” programs that fill in tuition gaps left after other aid has been used, as well as “first-dollar” programs that provide tuition support upfront. In some cases, in addition to covering tuition costs, some programs provide additional support for the many other expenses that can make completing college difficult. 

A study of 33 public community college promise programs across the U.S. found that these initiatives significantly increased enrollment among first-time, full-time students, with the largest gains seen among Black, Hispanic, and female students. According to that same study, initial first-time enrollment rose by 47% for Black men and 51% for Black women, while enrollment for Hispanic men and women increased by 40% and 52%, respectively.

  • Kalamazoo Promise is a first-dollar, place-based scholarship that covers up to 100% of tuition at any public—and select private—college or university in Michigan for students who graduate from Kalamazoo Public Schools. The program requires continuous enrollment in the district since at least ninth grade. Since its launch, it has led to a 14-percentage point increase in college enrollment overall and a 34-point increase for four-year college enrollment. Students in the program attempt more college credits—15% more in the first two years—and are more likely to complete a degree: six years after high school, credential attainment rose from 36% to 48%, driven largely by bachelor’s degrees. The program’s positive impacts were especially significant for low-income, nonwhite students, and women. Economically, the Promise has yielded an estimated 11% internal rate of return in lifetime earnings.
  • Tennessee Promise offers last-dollar scholarships for community and technical colleges that covers remaining tuition costs after federal and state financial aid is applied. In addition, the program requires students to participate in mentoring initiatives to 1) help them with completion of financial aid forms (FAFSA); 2) guide them through the college application process; and 3) provide ongoing support once enrolled. To foster a culture of accountability and civic engagement, students must complete eight hours of community service each semester and maintain a minimum GPA of 2.0.  The program contributed to a 11.4% increase in first-time freshmen enrollment at community colleges in Tennessee in its inaugural year. The program also helped increase retention rates and improve college completion.  Over 125,000 students benefited from the program in its first decade.

Early College and Dual Enrollment Pathways

Dual enrollment and early college high school programs offer high school students unique opportunities to earn college credits, reducing the time and cost required to attain a degree. While both initiatives aim to improve access to higher education, they differ in structure and outcomes. Dual enrollment allows students to take college-level courses alongside their high school curriculum. In contrast, early college high schools are structured programs where students can earn both a high school diploma and up to two years of college credit, often on a college campus and with integrated support systems. A study by the American Institutes for Research found that 84% of early college students enrolled in college after high school graduation, compared to 77% of their peers. Additionally, 45% of early college students earned a college degree within six years, compared to 34% of the control group. 

By getting students into college-level coursework before graduation, these programs aim to help students build momentum and save money. They also provide what can be called “stacked supports” across sectors. In the process, they intend to break down silos and align expectations across K-12, higher ed, and workforce systems. Some studies point to specific benefits for students in these programs, including increased college enrollment and completion rates, particularly among underrepresented groups. 

  • P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) provides a six-year program where students earn both a high school diploma and a no-cost associate degree, all while working in “real world” placements in partnerships with companies like IBM. Launched in 2011 in Brooklyn, New York, through a collaboration between IBM, the New York City Department of Education, and the City University of New York, P-TECH provides a single high school program where students can take college-level coursework and build technical skills and receive industry mentorship in industries such as health IT and energy technology at the same time. In 2023, one evaluation of the model found that, seven years after entering high school, students in New York City’s P-TECH 9-14 program were 5 percentage points more likely to earn an associate’s degree — results driven particularly by young men, 13% of whom completed a degree compared to just 3% of their peers in other NYC high schools. After a 2014 visit by the Australian Prime Minister, Australia opened two P-TECH schools and since then the P-TECH network has grown to include 300 schools in 26 countries. 
  • Boston Public Schools’ $38M Healthcare Career Training Expansion strives to build career pipelines in critical fields by embedding healthcare education directly into the high school experience. Students can begin focusing on a healthcare specialty as early as 10th grade and participate in hands-on training, job shadowing, and simulation labs. The initiative includes: 
    • Specialized vocational academies tailored to healthcare careers; 
    • Dual enrollment opportunities that allow students to earn college credit;
    • Paid summer internships at leading hospital systems like Mass General Brigham. 
    • Boston’s program is part of a broader $250 million Bloomberg initiative across ten major U.S. cities. 

Key Micro-innovations helping get students into and through college/career pathways 

Although the promise programs and dual enrollment and early college programs often strive to provide comprehensive support, they also encompass some seemingly small but strategic design choices that can be implemented on their own or in concert with other innovations.  

  • Mandatory mentorship and coaching. A number of Promise Programs assign trained mentors or success coaches to ensure students receive personal guidance—not just information. For example, Detroit Promise pairs each student with a full-time Campus Success Coach who provides personalized support, connects them to campus resources, and helps them overcome common barriers to persistence. This human connection helps demystify systems and boosts retention.
  • Just-in-time financial support. For many students, non-tuition costs – even a few hundred dollars – can serve as major barriers to completing courses and degrees. In anticipation of these financial burdens and to remove barriers before students hit a crisis point some promise programs, like CUNY ASAP, provide textbook and transport subsidies. Georgia State University’s Panther Retention Grants provides small amounts of financial support (“micro-grants”) to students with outstanding balances that would otherwise prevent them from registering for classes. 
  • Proactive communication and “nudges.” MATC’s FAFSA workshops and Admit Utah’s centralized digital tools make complex processes easier to understand, especially for first-gen or low-income students who may lack application support at home or school.
  • Using technology to support the college application process. Admit Utah uses technology to close “guidance gaps,” recognizing many high school students may not have access to counselors or college guidance. To do so, Admit Utah provides a centralized online platform where students can explore college options, learn about scholarships and financial aid, and use AI-powered tools to navigate the application process. 
  • Contextualized career learning. Boston’s healthcare pathways and P-TECH embed industry-aligned experiences – job shadowing, internships, and certifications – within the high school curriculum, helping students see the relevance of their education and build employable skills early.
  • Clear, student-friendly messaging. MATC’s “Free Tuition” campaign doesn’t just market affordability – it shapes perceptions and expectations about who belongs in college, often reaching students who wouldn’t have otherwise applied.

Acknowledging the challenges and continuing to expand the options 

As momentum builds around some of these new pathways into post-secondary success, challenges remain. Despite its growing popularity, access to dual enrollment remains uneven. Black and Hispanic students, English learners, and students with disabilities are consistently underrepresented. Key barriers include lack of funding, which shifts costs like tuition and textbooks onto students; limited access in schools serving low-income communities; inadequate advising; and a shortage of qualified instructors—often due to strict credential requirements for teaching college-level courses in high schools. These gaps limit who benefits from dual enrollment and highlight the need for targeted support and structural investment. 

The popularity of free college programs can also quickly overwhelm campuses if they can’t keep up with the demands for more faculty, advisors, facilities, and other resources. MassEducate, for example, covers the full cost of tuition for eligible students at any of the state’s 15 community colleges and even provides allowances for some students who need help paying for books, supplies and other costs. Launched in the fall of 2024, the program already contributed to a 14% rise in community college enrollment, with some campuses reporting enrollment increases of almost a third in one year. Under these conditions, even program advocates are worried that students, particularly first generation college students, will drop out if hiring and support for faculty does not keep pace. 

Furthermore, scaling does not always lead to success. For instance, Washington State’s efforts to replace high school exit exams with multiple graduation pathways encountered a number of implementation challenges. In 2023, after the changes were made, one in five seniors had no graduation pathway at all, and students in smaller or rural schools often lacked access to robust options. Some were funneled into lower-wage career tracks or military pathways by default, raising concerns about limited opportunity, inadequate guidance, and uneven access across schools and student populations.  At the same time, despite the challenges, states are continuing to try to increase the options and scale them to as many students as possible. For instance, Colorado, Delaware, and Indiana are expanding career-focused high school experiences. Colorado’s 2021 Successful High School Transitions bill allows students in internships to count as full-time learners; Delaware’s Colonial School District fosters interdisciplinary collaboration through interconnected career pathways; and Indiana is redesigning its diploma to combine core academics with two years of pathway-specific learning and work-based experience. In North Carolina, Guilford County Schools’ Signature Career Academies are preparing students for rapidly growing fields like AI and biotechnology. 

As these and other efforts to create new college and career pathways continue to grow, real progress will hinge on learning from what works, addressing persistent gaps, and ensuring every student has a structured path to postsecondary success.

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Still Worth It? Scanning the Post-COVID Challenges and Possibilities for Access to Colleges and Careers in the US (Part 1)

Posted on July 16, 2025 | Leave a comment

How have the pathways into higher education and the workforce changed in the US since the school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic? In the first part of this two-part post, RJ Wicks scans recent news and research to summarize some of the current conditions students in the US face as they try to find their way into adulthood. The second post explores some of the “micro-innovations” that educators are developing to help eliminate some of the barriers that limit access to learning opportunities and good jobs after high school. These posts are part of IEN’s ongoing coverage of what is and is not changing in schools and education following the school closures of the pandemic. For more on the series, see “What can change in schools after the pandemic?”  For examples of micro-innovations in other areas see IEN’s coverage of the emergence of tutoring programs after the school closures: Tutoring takes off and Predictable challenges and possibilities for effective tutoring at scale.

“A college degree is the surest ticket to the middle class.”
 —President Barack Obama, 2015

Despite the continuing hope that college can be a gateway to economic mobility, the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the already considerable challenges that many students face in getting into college and finding their way into the workforce. Illustrating the depths of the problem around the world, OECD’s analysis of survey responses from 690,000 15- and 16-year-old students from more than 80 countries concluded that “students are now expressing very high levels of career uncertainty and confusion. Job expectations have changed little since 2000 and bear little relationship to actual patterns of labour market demand.”

“[S]tudents are now expressing very high levels of career uncertainty and confusion. Job expectations have changed little since 2000 and bear little relationship to actual patterns of labour market demand.”

The report, comparing survey results from each of the PISA assessments shows that almost 40% of the students participating in the survey in 2022 are “career uncertain,” up from about 12% in 2000. In addition, almost 50% of all participates agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “school has done little to prepare me for adult life” and almost 25% agreeing that “school has been a waste of time.” 

Concerns reported by 15-16 year-old students on the 2022 PISA assessment
The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation, OECD

In the US, concerns about getting in to the workforce combine with challenges that can limit access to college and other post-secondary options. Although recent enrollments in college in the US have begun to increase again, students’ opportunities remain restricted by growing financial barriers, expanding inequities, and a lack of alignment between what students learn in school and what the workforce demands. Additionally, a lack of career pathways for students who may not pursue traditional four-year degrees, limited information about the existing possibilities, and lack of personalized support make it particularly difficult for first-generation college students and other historically disadvantaged groups to navigate both conventional and new post-secondary opportunities. Addressing any of these challenges is likely to get even more difficult in a context where some now question the value of a college education and where the current US administration has attacked many institutions of higher education and the funding streams that support them.

Enrollment dropped—especially at community colleges—though enrollment rates appear to be rising again
Between 2019 and 2021, undergraduate enrollment in the US fell by nearly 1 million students, the largest two-year decrease in more than 50 years. As Doug Shapiro, from National Student Clearinghouse explained in 2022, “enrollment in undergraduate and graduate programs has been trending downward since around 2012, but the pandemic turbocharged the declines at the undergrad level.”

In community colleges, in particular, 90% of those responding to a national survey reported enrollment declines in the first year of the pandemic, with 50% reporting declines of more than 10%. Those declines at community colleges continued, amounting to about a 13% enrollment drop over the course of the pandemic.  By 2022, entry into two-year colleges was more than 20% lower than it was before the pandemic, with larger drops in Black- and Hispanic-majority colleges. In contrast, entry into four-year colleges declined by about 6%. 

Sparking some hope that the enrollment declines are only temporary, more recent figures show that enrollments have begun to rise again. Fall enrollments in 2024 grew by almost 5% in comparison to fall 2023 and slightly exceeded fall enrollments in 2019 before the pandemic began.  Enrollment gains were particularly strong in associate programs (up 6.3 percent), bachelor’s programs (up 2.9 percent), master’s programs (up 3.3 percent), and doctoral programs (up 2.0 percent).

College is unaffordable for most low-income students

The recent rise in college enrollments provides some hope that more students will take advantage of post-secondary education, but access to college remains limited by substantial financial barriers, particularly for students from historically disadvantaged communities. The average federal student loan debt in the U.S. is approximately $37,850, contributing to a national student loan debt total exceeding $1.6 trillion. This substantial debt burden influences life choices, with one-third of borrowers indicating it has impacted their ability to continue education, and 14% reporting it has affected decisions such as starting a family. Such financial constraints force many students to forgo higher education or work excessive hours, diminishing their focus on academic and career readiness.

Beyond tuition, textbooks, transportation, housing, and emergency expenses often make higher education inaccessible, even with financial aid. The National College Attainment Network (NCAN) defines an institution as affordable if its total cost —including tuition, fees, and $300 for emergency expenses — can be covered by the sum of grants, loans, Federal Work Study, a proxy for expected family contribution (EFC), and estimated summer wages. When the cost exceeds these combined resources, there is an “affordability gap.” 

According to the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) Affordability Report:

  • Only 12 states had affordable public four-year institutions in 2024.
  • In only 10 states were more than 50% of public BA programs affordable (AK, AR, FL, IL, ME, NM, OK, WA, WV, and WY)
  • On average, community colleges were unaffordable in 28 states, and four states had no affordable community colleges (HI, NH, RI, and UT)
  • All community colleges were affordable in only three states (IN, ME, VT) and at least 75% of community colleges were affordable in only ten states.

Equity gaps continue to shape enrollment and completion of higher education

Students from higher-income families remain significantly more likely to attend college. Reflecting the challenges for those from lower-income backgrounds, as the Institute for Higher Education Policy puts it:  “Students with unmet need take out more loans, work more hours, face higher degrees of food and housing insecurity, and are at greater risk of forgoing higher education or leaving school without a credential.” 

“Students with unmet need take out more loans, work more hours, face higher degrees of food and housing insecurity, and are at greater risk of forgoing higher education or leaving school without a credential.”

Furthermore, students from the lowest-income backgrounds would need to contribute almost 150% of their household income to cover the full-time cost of a four-year college, even after accounting for grant and scholarship aid.  As one illustration of the disproportionate financial burden on low-income families, the share of household income required to pay for college increases dramatically from the highest- to the lowest-income households.

Illustrating the depth of the equity issues, first-generation college students, English learners, and students with disabilities face barriers that make it much more likely that they will drop out before getting a degree. Nationally, 89 percent of low-income first-generation students leave college within six years without a degree. More than a quarter leave after their first year — four times the dropout rate of higher-income second-generation students. Furthermore, the six-year graduation rate of students with disabilities at four-year colleges is 49.5%, compared to roughly 68% for students without disabilities. 

Students are unprepared for college and careers

Contributing to the enrollment challenges, high school curricula often fail to align with postsecondary expectations, resulting in high rates of remedial courses particularly for students of color:

  •  According to New America and the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) 2020 Undergraduate data (NPSAS:20), 40% of students attending a public 2-year college and one-quarter of students from public 4-year colleges took a remedial course at some point.
  • Students of color and low-income students continue to be placed into remedial courses at higher rates than their more advantaged peers, and almost half of Black and Latinx students attending public 2-year colleges, and 30% at 4-year institutions have enrolled in at least one remedial course.

The focus on four-year college degrees also overlooks the value of Career and Technical Education (CTE) and other pathways that align with workforce needs.

Black and Hispanic learners also tend to be overrepresented in service-oriented professions such as health sciences or education and training; these professions tend to have lower wages, in contrast to higher wage STEM fields where they are underrepresented.

Next Week: New Pathways into Higher Education and the Working World? Scanning the Post-COVID Challenges and Possibilities for Access to Colleges and Careers in the US (Part 2)

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New Frontiers for Educational Improvements in India? Critical educational issues in India post-pandemic (Part 2)

Posted on July 9, 2025 | Leave a comment

What are the critical education issues facing India following the school closures of the pandemic? What are some of the practices and initiatives that could serve as building blocks for improving one of the largest educational systems in the world? Haakon Huynh explores these questions in the second part of a two-part series on K-12 education improvement efforts in India. The first part looked at some of the long-standing barriers hindering the development of India’s educational system. For previous posts related to education in India see: From a “wide portfolio” to systemic support for foundational learning: The evolution of the Central Square Foundation’s work on education in India (Part 1 and Part 2); and Sameer Sampat on the context of leadership & the evolution of the India School Leadership Institute.

Beyond the largely school-based, academic concerns of foundational learning and increasing access to colleges and careers, four other interwoven issues – including chronic absence, mental health, nutrition and sustainability – have been receiving increasing attention in the aftermath of COVID-19 related pandemic in India. The discussion of these issues illustrate both the critical challenges as well as the kinds of initiatives and innovations that are already being pursued that can give hope for the future in India and beyond. 

Chronic absenteeism: When enrollment isn’t enough

For some time, the Indian government has focused on increasing enrollment, but in recent years, chronic absenteeism may have taken over as a critical issue. In fact, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 shows that enrollment now exceeds 98% among 6–14-year-olds. Encouragingly, early childhood enrollment has also risen significantly, and digital access among adolescents has become nearly universal. At the same time, data from ASER 2021 showed that over 20% of rural primary school children were not attending school at all even after reopening, and school-level data reported that 21% of schools had fewer than half their students attending regularly, though the extent of absences varied extensively by region. In some states, absence rates were slightly more than 10%, but in places like Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh they ranged from 40% to 50%. In rural Telangana 75% of students missed 10 % or more of all school days and more than 50% missed 15% or more.

As in the United States and other countries, poor attendance and chronic absenteeism in India are connected to negative learning outcomes and increased chances of dropping out, particularly for already disadvantaged populations (National Collaborative on Education and Health, 2015; Uppal et al., 2010). Although research in India has been limited, common factors contributing to absences include disinterest in school, illness, weather, transportation, work demands, family obligations, (Malik, 2013) poor peer relations and being overage  (Shah, 2021). Girls also have a  lower attendance rate than boys, reflecting cultural and gender-related issues such as menstruation, child marriage, household responsibilities, and societal expectations (Raj et al., 2019). Although programs like mid-day meal offerings can increase attendance for part of the day, students may still leave after lunch, so that even students who are counted in a morning roll-call may still miss a substantial part of the school day. Complicating matters, most schools in India still rely on a manual system for tracking attendance which makes it difficult to collect, review, and act on the data in a timely way at the school level, and a lack of digitization means it’s difficult to aggregate and analyze the data across schools. All of which means reporting of attendance is subject to fraud and manipulation.

Responding to some of these specific issues, one pilot effort in ten schools – the Chronic Absenteeism Assessment Project (CAAP) – in the state of Telangana developed a way to measure student attendance using a fingerprint scanner connected to a tablet which allowed data to be analyzed relatively quickly. Beyond the technology, this approach included the development of “Education Extension Workers” (EEWs) who could follow-up with absent students and their families, investigate the reasons for absences, and respond appropriately. 

Mental health: Entering the mainstream?

Although attendance and chronic absence began receiving attention before the pandemic, mental health has been a neglected and often taboo topic. None of India’s 22 languages have words for “mental health,” “depression,” or many other mental illnesses, yet a national survey in 2016 documented 50 derogatory terms used for people suffering mental illnesses. At the same time, even before the pandemic, India had one of the highest suicide rates in Asia. Furthermore, according to the same national survey, over 80% of those who did report mental health problem could not access adequate treatment – not surprising given that India only had three psychiatrists for every million people and even fewer psychologists (in contrast, the US has almost 400 psychiatrists and psychologists for every million people). 

The pandemic and associated lockdowns only made the situation worse. Even by the middle of 2020, surveys were suggesting that as many as 40% of participants reported suffering mental health problems and more than 65% of mental health professionals surveyed reported in increase in self-harm behaviors among their patients. By 2021, the mental health of Indian university students had worsened significantly, with over 75% experiencing moderate to severe depression and nearly 60% experiencing moderate to severe anxiety. School counselors have also noted rising mental health concerns, with one study reporting that counselors are dealing with challenges ranging from heightened anxiety and social isolation to increased aggression and cyberbullying.

Source: Status of mental health among college and university students during first and second wave of COVID-19 outbreak in India: A cross-sectional study

 These increases, however, also may reflect a growing willingness to recognize, report and seek treatment for mental health issues. Furthermore, as early as 2020, the Indian government launched the Manodarpan initiative to provide psychosocial support for students, families, and educators. Among other things, the initiative provides counseling resources, a national helpline, and school-based mental health programs.   

Source: The Manodarpan Website

Attention to socio-emotional learning is also growing in some schools in India as approaches like “feelings check-ins” are supported by programs like the Simple Education Foundation and Apni Shala. This practice invites students to begin the school day by identifying and sharing how they feel, often using a simple visual chart or prompt. Other initiatives include POD Adventures, a smartphone-based mental health intervention co-developed with Indian adolescents. Among other components, the app prompts youth to identify their feelings, name the source of their stress, and plan responses. 

A group of children looking at a book AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Source: HundrED

Nutrition: India’s triple burden

Nutrition is another concern receiving more attention post pandemic. India faces a so-called “triple burden” of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity. About 6% of children are overweight or obese and over 65% are anemic. 

A graph of a number of people with different colored squares AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, UNICEF and Population Council. 2019. Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) National Report. New Delhi.

Although some progress had been made on these health issues, the pandemic set that work back.  Disruptions to India’s food systems included interruptions of food programs, reduced access to healthy foods, and increased costs. Illustrating the challenges, the COVID-19 lockdown in the state of Karnataka led to the suspension of the Mid-Day Meal (MDM), iron–folic acid (IFA) supplements, and deworming programs. In turns, those disruptions likely contributed to increases in the rates of children who were underweight from about 30% in 2017 to 45% in 2021 while anemia rates nearly doubled from 21% to 40% during the pandemic. 

These disruptions, however, along with government and civil society awareness campaigns may also have brought greater attention to these issues in recent years. Even before the pandemic, the Ministry of Education sought to support children’s nutrition and healthy eating by implementing School Nutrition (Kitchen) Gardens. That national program, launched in 2019, recommends that every class spend one to two hours per week in the school’s garden and encourage the integration of garden activities into the school curriculum. The produce from these gardens is intended to supplement school meals, supporting both nutrition and experiential learning. 

A group of people holding bottles with plants from them AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Source: School Nutrition (Kitchen) Garden’s Guidelines

Although India has issued national guidelines mandating school nutrition gardens in all schools, progress has been uneven. Some states have taken it further by encouraging families to develop their own gardens. The Nutrition Garden program, implemented in rural areas of the states of Tamil Nadu and Odisha, trained families to cultivate diverse vegetables and offered structured nutrition education. In a similar program in rural schools in in the state of Andhra Pradesh, a 2025 study found that after receiving gardening kits and nutrition education through their government schools, students established kitchen gardens at home and increased their vegetable consumption by 90%. 

Sustainability: Preparing for a warmer planet

Climate change has also emerged as both a critical challenge but also a potential driver of innovation in education in India. In 2019, India was ranked number seven among a list of the countries affected by the changing environment, but 65% of the Indian population had not heard of climate change. As one step in raising awareness about the issue, India’s 2020 National Education Policy (NEP), emphasized the need for environmental education in schools and suggested a shift from content-based learning to skill-based learning in climate education. At the same time, some Indian universities have emerged as global leaders in sustainability with India being the best-represented nation in the 2024 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings assessing universities’ contributions to each of the 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs). Institutions such as Saveetha Institute, Shoolini University, and JSS Academy are ranked among the world’s top performers, contributing to clean energy (SDG7), health (SDG3), and sanitation (SDG6). 

Although the costs can be prohibitive, architects in India have also been exploring sustainable schools designed explicitly to respond to and take advantage of the environmental conditions in their local contexts. One of those schools serves a desert township in Ras that houses families of those working in a cement plant. To minimize the impact of the harsh sun and make the structure as energy-efficient as possible, the architects created a fragmented layout of sheltered and semi-enclosed spaces to maximize shade and ventilation. A Central Board of Secondary Education school run by the Rane Foundation in a rural village of Tamil Nadu relied on local and recycled materials to create a design that eliminates the need for air-conditioning. Another private, international school in Bengaluru sought to take advantage of its setting near a national park to cultivate respect and curiosity in the natural environment. To do so, the design creates both inside and outside learning spaces and allows students to get perspectives on the trees and plantings from multiple perspectives. 

A collage of different buildings AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Sustainable schools (top left to bottom right) designed for a desert climate in Ras, Rajasthan; for rural Tamil Nadu, and for a natural setting in Bengalaru

The green economy’s rapid expansion and the promise of high-paying jobs in fields like renewable energy and environmental policy have also contributed to a surge in the numbers of students interested in sustainability education.  Supporting those interests, several initiatives seek to engage students in learning about and promoting sustainable practices. For example, the Green School Initiative involves over 35,000 students, more than a 1000 teachers across 110 schools in supporting student-led efforts to promote sustainability in their local communities. In addition to providing environmentally-based curricula, the Initiative sponsors action projects and capacity-building activities related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in areas of Energy, Water, Forests & Biodiversity, and Waste. 

The Green Schools Programme and other efforts support student engagement in issues of sustainability by giving them the opportunity to both study and grade their schools on their environmental performance. For example, Birla Vidya Niketan a school of 4,000 students in New Delhi has become known for its attention to sustainability and its student-led electricity audits. By appointing student monitors to ensure fans and lights are switched off when classrooms are empty, the school promotes peer-led accountability in daily energy use. The chosen students complete simple forms to track behavior and encourage energy-saving habits among classmates. To assess impact, the school analyzes changes in its electricity bills. Principal Minakshi Kushwaha emphasized the role of peer education, noting that students are more receptive to feedback from fellow students than from teachers alone. Another public school in Delhi, RK Puram, involves students in energy audits and also involves them in projects related to renewable energy and waste management that build on the school’s commitment to developing sustainable facilities. Demonstrating the international power of these efforts, student audits and related projects can also be found in the  PowerSave Schools Program in Southern California in the Let’s Go Zero campaign in the UK. 

Common denominators and synergies?

The challenges of mental health, chronic absence, nutrition, and sustainability are deeply rooted and disproportionately impact the most marginalized; but these are not isolated challenges. The challenges interconnect and build on each other creating a set of barriers that can undermine learning and development. Although the complexity and scale of the education system in India compounds the challenges, coordinated efforts to address these critical challenges could also provide cascading benefits in the largest education system in the world. 

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From foundational learning to colleges and careers: Critical educational issues in India post-pandemic (Part 1)

Posted on July 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

The pandemic disrupted educational services and exacerbated inequalities in India, but did it also create opportunities to improve education more broadly? In this 2-part series, Haakon Huynh explores some of the initiatives that aim to deliver more inclusive, high-quality education for the next generation in the world’s most populous nation. This week, part 1 outlines some of the enduring issues in education in India and shares a few examples of the programs and practices trying to address them. A second post will focus on some of the efforts to address concerns that are taking on increasing importance in India post-pandemic including chronic absence, mental health, nutrition, and sustainability.  For previous posts related to education in India see: From a “wide portfolio” to systemic support for foundational learning: The evolution of the Central Square Foundation’s work on education in India (Part 1 and Part 2); and Sameer Sampat on the context of leadership & the evolution of the India School Leadership Institute. 

Foundational learning and academics

With 248 million people enrolled in the education system, no single description can capture all the educational issues being pursued in India. But by almost any measure, foundational learning has been one of India’s major concerns for the government and funders for some time. According to India’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in 2018, approximately 80% of grade 3 students in rural areas could not read a grade 2 text or solve basic subtraction problems. 

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On top of long-standing concerns about improving foundational learning, the school closures also heightened concerns about academic learning overall. The National Achievement Survey, for example, showed a significant decline in test scores, particularly in high school, as class 10 scores fell by about 13% in Mathematics, 18% in Science, and 9% in Social Science. A survey of students in 200 schools in Assam between 2018 – 2022 showed that, during the pandemic, students had lost the equivalent of nine months of learning in math and eleven months in language. A study in Tamil Nadu, in 2021 also found significant learning deficits (or about .7 standard deviations in math and almost .4 standard deviations in language) compared to similar students tested in 2019; however, in contrast to other countries like the US, some recovery took place relatively rapidly, as two-thirds of the deficit was made up within six months after school reopening.

To address these long-standing academic concerns, the Indian government has launched education policies such as the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat). Major efforts to develop and scale-up effective approaches for foundational learning are also supported by groups based in India like the Central Square Foundation and international donors like the Gates Foundation. 

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NIPUN Bharat, Department of School Education & Literacy

Within this context, states and schools in India are pursuing a host of specific innovations aiming to support students’ ability to read, write and count. These include tech-enabled approaches supported by the Central Square Foundation like digital microlearning video modules delivered weekly to teachers and school leaders in Bihar and a Mentor mobile app used for real-time classroom observations. The HundrED collection of global innovations also features a number of resources and practices that have demonstrated some effectiveness in supporting foundational learning in India. Among them, Building Blocks, a maths app, provides over four hundred interactive games that children from grades 1 – 8 can explore at their own pace to supplement their instruction in school. 

At the same time, limited access to computers and the internet in India – where just 4% of rural households own a computer – continue to constrain the reach of tech-dependent efforts to support foundational learning. As a result, other initiatives recognized as part of HundrED’s collection of global innovations are trying to develop approaches that do not rely on the internet. Building on the fact that a billion Indians watch nearly four hours of TV every day, BIRD (the Billion Reader’s Initiative) adds Same Language Subtitling (SLS) on mainstream entertainment on television & streaming platforms.  TicTacLearn (TTL) endeavors to increase access to educational content through a free digital education platform that provides over 14,000 curriculum-aligned videos and assessments in seven Indian languages. While the videos are available on YouTube, TTL also distributes them via pen drives, making it possible to load the content onto school computers in remote areas with limited internet. 

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HundrED’s Global Collection this year also features the Raster Master Three-Generational (3G) Learning Model which shows what’s possible without reliance on the internet, television or other technologies. This initiative transforms unused walls in streets and courtyards into learning spaces for the “Teachers of the Street.” Painted with chalkboard paint, these walls provide a cost-effective, visible, and accessible platform for teaching letters, numbers, and basic lessons, which are often led by children themselves. Like the Hope House project in Rwanda where secondary school students paint educational murals featuring world maps, alphabets, numbers in English and Kinyarwanda, these low-tech approaches are particularly well-suited to lowering the barrier to participation for first-generation learners and out-of-school children. 

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Increasing access to college and careers 

Although India has rapidly expanded access to higher education, the pandemic has also intensified concerns about future readiness in India and helped to drive efforts to create new pathways into college and careers. In terms of access, a recent government press release highlights that between 2011–12 and 2021–22, enrollment in state public universities rose from 23.4 million to 32.4 million students, while private universities experienced a staggering 497% increase in enrollment.  

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These increases included significant gains in access to higher education among marginalized groups. According to the Ministry of Education, enrollment among indigenous communities rose by over 100%, among protected castes by more than 75%, and among Muslim minorities by 60%. The Gender Parity Index also improved from 0.87 in 2011–12 to 1.01 in 2021–22, meaning 1.01 women were enrolled for every man. At the same time, concerns about equity remain, particularly in private institutions that now account for over a quarter of all higher education enrollment. Private universities are not legally required to follow affirmative action mandates even though they often benefit from public support like land grants and tax exemptions. Under these conditions, the share of historically marginalized students in private higher education has increased moderately, but hasn’t kept pace with the increased access in public institutions. Furthermore, although increasing the diversity of the faculty might help to build the enrollment of students from historically marginalized backgrounds, only 4.1% of faculty in top-ranked private universities belong to protected caste communities; and faculty positions reserved for such communities in public institutions like Indian Institutes of Managements remain largely vacant with over 83% of these posts unfilled.  

In addition to issues surrounding equity, as in other countries, there is a disconnect between the skills taught in academia and what’s in demand in industry. This has contributed to high levels of youth unemployment and estimates that only about half (51%) of Indian graduates are considered employable. This underemployment crisis is especially acute among highly educated youth. Two-thirds of India’s unemployed are young people with secondary or higher education, many of whom delay entering the job market while holding out for “white-collar” roles. Correspondingly, in sectors like healthcare and engineering a lack of alignment between curricula and labor market needs contributes to a situation where millions of trained graduates are unable to find meaningful employment. The current education system, critics argue, emphasizes degrees over real-world skills, leading to large pools of underutilized talent at a time when India is on the cusp of its so-called demographic dividend – the time where the largest part of its population is in working age.

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The paradox of educated unemployment has become one of India’s most pressing post-pandemic challenges. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (2023–24), the unemployment rate among those with secondary education or higher stands at 6.5%, significantly higher than among those with less education, which is just about 1% for middle school graduates and just 0.2% for those with no formal education. The situation is especially dire for educated urban women, who face an unemployment rate of about 13%, more than double that of their male counterparts at 6%. Despite small year-on-year improvements, these figures show that more education no longer translates to better economic outcomes, and in fact, often exacerbates social inequality. 

In one effort to address these challenges following the disruptions of the pandemic, The 2020 National Education Policy (NEP) introduced several innovations including academic credit banks, digital systems that allow students to accumulate and transfer credits earned across different institutions. By enabling learners to pause, resume, and combine coursework flexibly, these kinds of innovations could support more personalized pathways to completing degrees. The policy also places greater emphasis on vocational education aiming to expose at least 50% of learners to vocational education by 2025. Of course, putting these elements into policies is only one step, and it remains to be seen to what extent these policies will be implemented and exactly who might benefit. 

Next week:  New Frontiers for Educational Improvements in India? Critical educational issues in India post-pandemic (Part 2)

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Opportunities and Challenges in the Establishment of the Children and Families Agency and Other New Government Institutions: Hiro Yokota on the Development of a “Child-Centered Society” in Japan (Part 3)

Posted on June 25, 2025 | Leave a comment

In part 3 of this 3-part interview, Hirokazu Yokota shares his personal reflections on his experiences helping to establish the new Children and Families Agency (CFA) and, previously, the new Digital Agency. In Part 1, Yokota described the development of the CFA and the efforts to promote digital transformation in childcare, and in Part 2, he discusses some of CFA’s current initiative.   Yokota has followed a rare career path as a bureaucrat who belongs to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), but who has repeatedly stepped out of the “education circle” to work in other agencies, including the Children and Families Agency, which was established in April 2023. In September 2021, Yokota was one of the charter members who helped launch Japan’s Digital Agency , and he went on to work as a Deputy Superintendent in Today City. Yokota has previously written about his experiences as a parent and educator during the pandemic as well as his work in the Digital Agency and in Toda City:  A view from Japan: Hirokazu Yokota on school closures and the pandemic;  Hiro Yokota on parenting, education and the new Digital Agency in Japan; and Hirokazu Yokota on aggressive education reforms to change the “grammar of schooling” in Toda City (part 1) and (part 2). Please note that Yokota is sharing his personal view on CFA and its policies, and his views do not represent the official views of the government. For further information contact him via Linkedin.

IEN: Can you share your personal take on the initiatives by CFA – how is it working? What have you found most exciting, most challenging? What’s next for the agency/society?

HY: It is precisely because these are newly established organizations that they are able to advance policies that would be difficult under the framework of existing institutions. For example, the number of staff at the Digital Agency increased from 571 at the time of its establishment in September 2021 to 1,013 as of July 2023. The government has set a goal of further expanding this to approximately 1,500 personnel. Similarly, the Children and Families Agency’s budget has grown significantly: from approximately JPY 4.8 trillion in FY2023, to approximately JPY 5.3 trillion in FY2024, and to approximately JPY 7.3 trillion in FY2025 with the launch of the “Children’s Future Strategy” (Kodomo Mirai Senryaku) and its “Acceleration Plan” (Kasokuka Plan). Thus, it now far exceeds the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) budget (approximately JPY 5.3 trillion in FY2024 and JPY 5.5 trillion in FY2025). Such dramatic increases in staffing and budgets were made possible precisely because these were newly created agencies. 

Also, last December we published “New Direction of Childcare Policy,” which details specific policy measures that should be taken in the next five years. There are so many workloads ahead, but I am very excited to take on these new tasks to fully realize the “child-centered society.”

Personally, during my time at the Digital Agency, I worked alongside many private-sector professionals, from developing priority plans for the realization of a digital society to promoting digital transformation in the fields of education and child-rearing. From them, I learned a great deal about flat information sharing and interactive meeting styles, which are common in the private sector. Later, when I was seconded to the Toda City Board of Education as Deputy Superintendent and Director of the Education Policy Office, I was able to take on many “zero-to-one” challenges — such as implementing the use of educational data in schools and piloting one-on-one meetings and reflection workshops to foster a flat organizational culture — things I might not have been able to do if I had remained in MEXT.

Now, as I lead digital transformation (DX) initiatives in the field of childcare at the Children and Families Agency, I feel that the “practical knowledge” I gained from my experiences at the Digital Agency and in Toda City is proving immensely valuable. As with the Digital Agency, we are advancing childcare DX projects with a mixed team of public- and private-sector personnel using a project-based approach. In this work, I constantly strive to serve as a bridge connecting “policy (systems)” and “technology (systems).” These two are two sides of the same coin: without a deep understanding of both, it is impossible to build effective structures. Given my background traversing the traditional bureaucratic divides between policy and systems, I believe that my ability to connect civil servants knowledgeable about policy and politics with private-sector experts skilled in technology is a unique value I bring. While minimizing risks, I find great purpose in leading the highly challenging task of building two entirely new national information systems in the childcare sector.

However, there is something I personally feel about the challenges faced by new organizations like the Digital Agency and the Children and Families Agency. In these organizations, the individuals who often receive public attention are those recruited from the private sector (e.g., the Digital Agency note and an article of CFA staff). Of course, I fully understand that highlighting these individuals is a necessary strategy to attract talented people from the private sector to public service. Still, it must not be forgotten that there are also many government officials—those who may not be in the spotlight—working diligently and persistently to realize a digital society and a child-centered society. During the foundational periods of these agencies, I witnessed firsthand many civil servants who unfortunately had to take leave due to overwork or mental stress. There were times when I blamed myself, wondering if I could have done more to support them. It is easy to criticize bureaucrats. That is precisely why I strongly hope that the media will shine more light on those government employees who, despite struggling to adapt to cultures different from their home ministries, are working earnestly for the public good in these new organizations. In the United States, there have been mass layoffs of federal employees. Precisely because of that, I believe that Japan should reaffirm its respect for civil servants who serve behind the scenes as the “unsung heroes” supporting public service.

“I believe that Japan should reaffirm its respect for civil servants who serve behind the scenes as the “unsung heroes” supporting public service.“

Looking toward the future, at the Children and Families Agency, we are now challenging ourselves to directly listen to the voices of children and young people through various channels and reflect their opinions in policy. In doing so, I believe it is necessary to proactively reach out to “those whose voices are not being heard” — the children and young people who have not yet had the chance to sit at the policymaking table. Constantly being aware of who is not at the table and delivering support in a proactive (“push”) manner, combined with respect for civil servants working behind the scenes, will surely help make this country better.

Furthermore, it is extremely important to make the policy methods developed by the Digital Agency and the Children and Families Agency the new norm across all of Kasumigaseki (the Japanese government). When I shared new policy challenges that I was working on, I occasionally heard comments, even from those inside the government, such as, “You could only do that because you’re in a new agency like the Digital Agency or the Children and Families Agency.” I believe that kind of thinking is truly unfortunate. One day, when I return to MEXT, I want to prove that it is not because of the agency’s novelty, but because each and every civil servant, with a sense of purpose and a little courage, can make change happen.

“[I]t is not because of the agency’s novelty, but because each and every civil servant, with a sense of purpose and a little courage, can make change happen.”

Next Week: From foundational learning to colleges and careers: Critical educational issues in India post-pandemic (Part 1)

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Centering Children and Youth in Policymaking: Hiro Yokota on the Development of a “Child-Centered Society” in Japan (Part 2)

Posted on June 18, 2025 | Leave a comment

Hirokazu Yokota discusses some of the current initiatives of the Children and Families Agency (CFA) as key steps in the efforts to create a “child-centered” society in Japan. In Part 1 of this 3-part interview, Yokota described the establishment of the CFA and the efforts to promote digital transformation in childcare. In Part 3, Yokota will reflect on what it takes to launch new government institutions like the Child and Families Agency. Yokota has followed a rare career path as a bureaucrat who belongs to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), but who has repeatedly stepped out of the “education circle” to work in other agencies, including the Children and Families Agency,  which was established in April 2023. In September 2021, Yokota was one of the charter members helping to establish Japan’s Digital Agency , and he went on to work as a Deputy Superintendent in Today City. Yokota has previously written about his experiences as a parent and educator during the pandemic as well as his work in the Digital Agency and in Toda City:  A view from Japan: Hirokazu Yokota on school closures and the pandemic;  Hiro Yokota on parenting, education and the new Digital Agency in Japan; and Hirokazu Yokota on aggressive education reforms to change the “grammar of schooling” in Toda City (part 1) and (part 2). Please note that Yokota is sharing his personal view on CFA and its policies, and his views do not represent the official views of the government. For further information contact him via Linkedin.

IEN: In the first part of our interview, you described some of the main responsibilities of the Child and Families Agency (CFA), what are some of the other new policy initiatives of the CFA?

HY: In addition to the childcare policies I mentioned, the CFA is also tackling a number of other new initiatives related to increasing the income of the next generation; listening to the voices of children and youth; and preventing violence against children. (For links related to these initiatives see General Principles for Child-Related Measures Explanatory Material and the White Paper on Children’s Policy 2024.

Raising the Income of the Young Generation

According to the “Acceleration Plan” (Kasokuka Plan) of the Children’s Future Strategy, CFA takes a basic stance of respecting diverse values and perspectives on marriage, childbearing, and childrearing, while enabling the young generation to get married as they wish, and to have and raise children as anyone wishes, that is, to support the pursuit of individual happiness, thereby reversing the trend of declining birthrate. Additionally, reversing the trend of declining birthrate and a shrinking population will contribute to Japan’s society as a whole, by stimulating economic activities, stabilizing social security functions, and increasing the labor supply and bearers of community and society. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen child-rearing policies as an “investment in the future” and to foster an awareness that society as a whole supports children and child-rearing. To that end, initiatives like substantially expanding the child allowance were implemented to reduce the financial burden of child rearing.

“[R]eversing the trend of declining birthrate and population will contribute to Japan’s society as a whole, by stimulating economic activities, stabilizing social security functions, and increasing the labor supply and bearers of community and society.”

The “Acceleration Plan” stated two other principles: Change the structure and attitudes of society as a whole and provide all children and child-rearing households with seamless support according to their life stages. The projected budget for the “Acceleration Plan” is approximately JPY 3.6 trillion at this time. With the implementation of the Acceleration Plan, Japan’s child and family-related expenditures per child will reach a level comparable to Sweden, which currently ranks highest among OECD countries. Furthermore, the Children and Families Agency’s budget is expected to increase by approximately 50% as a result of the plan. The government aims to double the budget of the Children and Families Agency by the early 2030s. 

With the implementation of the Acceleration Plan, Japan’s child and family-related expenditures per child will reach a level comparable to Sweden, which currently ranks highest among OECD countries.

Hearing the Views of Children and Young People

In working toward the realization of a child-centered society, the most important element is to hear the views of children and young people. One of the core principles of child policy is  “respecting the views of children, young people, and people raising children, hearing their opinions, and having dialogues.” Based on this principle, the Children and Families Agency is promoting the initiative “Children and Young People ★ Opinion Plus” (Kodomo Wakamono ★ Iken Plus), which gathers input from children and young people ranging from elementary school age to those in their 20s, and reflects their views in policymaking. Approximately 4,000 children and youth are currently registered in the initiative. They provide input not only on themes set by government ministries and agencies, but also on topics of their own choosing. A variety of methods are employed to gather input, including in-person sessions, online meetings, surveys, and outreach-style formats.

The Prevention of Sexual Violence against Children Act

Following the development of a comprehensive policy package in April 2024,  the Prevention of Sexual Violence against Children Act was enacted in June of the same year. That Act requires schools and childcare providers to ensure daily safety measures in place to prevent sexual violence against children, including verifying certain sexual criminal records of their employees. With regard to covered entities, the obligation is imposed on “school operators and similar entities” that have a clearly defined scope of operation and are subject to supervisory and disciplinary mechanisms should issues arise. For other organizations, such as various types of schools, services filed under the Child Welfare Act, and sectors that currently lack regulatory oversight — where administrative authorities cannot fully identify the scope of activities in advance — a certification system has been introduced. Under this system, private education and childcare service providers that maintain structures equivalent to those required under the Act can be officially recognized and brought under the regulatory framework.

Until now, the regulation of sexual violence against children had been fragmented across ministries: nurseries fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), schools under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and private tutoring services under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). These jurisdictional divides had made it difficult to establish cross-sectoral regulations. However, with the establishment of the Children and Families Agency as the central coordinating body for child-related policies, it has become possible to enact comprehensive legislation of this kind.

IEN: How do you compare CFA to Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Digital Agency, both of which you once belonged to?

HY: In terms of demarcation of the authority between the MEXT and CFA, MEXT’s primary responsibility is the promotion of education. As the aforementioned Basic Policy states: 

“Accordingly, matters related to education will continue to be handled under the leadership of MEXT to ensure further enhancement. At the same time, the Children and Families Agency (Kodomo Katei-chō) will be appropriately involved from the standpoint of ensuring the healthy development of all children. Through close collaboration between the two ministries, the aim is to guarantee the well-being and sound growth of every child.”

For example, with regard to bullying and school non-attendance, MEXT provides necessary guidance, advice, and conducts investigations in support of initiatives undertaken by local governments and school operators, including boards of education; but the Children and Families Agency is responsible for the prevention of bullying among children, including cases occurring outside of school settings. 

In terms of organizational comparison, speaking from a personal impression, the Children and Families Agency appears to have a high degree of diversity. This is because its staff come from various ministries — including the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), the Cabinet Office, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) — as well as from local governments and the private sector. Moreover, as a newly established organization, there is an atmosphere that welcomes taking on new challenges. On the other hand, there are still areas where the organizational culture and methods of work are not yet fully established, which I recognize as a challenge. In April of this year, the first cohort of newly recruited staff specifically for the Children and Families Agency joined. I have high hopes that they will help to build an organizational culture where diversity is not seen as a hindrance but rather as a strength.

Regarding the comparison between the Digital Agency and the Children and Families Agency, having been part of both organizations during their formative periods, I observed firsthand that when a new organization is established, many systems and processes are not yet fully in place. In the case of the Digital Agency, the adoption of a project-based structure sometimes led to considerable confusion. I recall that a minister I served under at the time described the vision for the Digital Agency as aiming to become the “Istanbul of Kasumigaseki” — meaning a place where diverse people from both the public and private sectors could gather and interact. I feel that the agency has indeed become such a place.I hope that it can continue to serve as an organization that opens the so-called “revolving door” — a mechanism that facilitates greater mobility between the public and private sectors, which has traditionally been difficult to achieve in the field of public policy.

“I hope that [the Digital Agency] can continue to serve as an organization that opens the so-called “revolving door”—a mechanism that facilitates greater mobility between the public and private sectors, which has traditionally been difficult to achieve in the field of public policy.“

Although this may not be immediately apparent from a citizen’s perspective, one insight I gained from observing these two agencies is the critical importance of the Cabinet Secretariat or Director-General’s Secretariat, the bodies responsible for coordinating the organization as a whole. In this regard, I found that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) functions very effectively, presenting overall policy directions and coordinating among departments in ways that facilitate the work of individual policy divisions. Similarly, although the Digital Agency initially had a weak secretariat function at the time of its establishment, efforts were quickly made to strengthen its organizational culture and human resources systems, and I have heard that it has since become a more comfortable and supportive workplace.

From a policy perspective, I believe that both the Children and Families Agency and the Digital Agency are organizations that seek to shift perspectives. The goal is to move from a provider-centered view to a user-centered one, and from an adult-centered view to a child-centered one. When I was at the Digital Agency, we collected feedback from approximately 260,000 children, teachers, and parents regarding the usability of tablet devices, and used that feedback to improve the systems. I hope that this kind of practice—incorporating user feedback as a matter of course—becomes even more standard in the daily operations of public administration.

“The goal is to move from a provider-centered view to a user-centered one, and from an adult-centered view to a child-centered one.“

Next week: Opportunities and Challenges in the Establishment of the Children and Families Agency and Other New Government Institutions: Hiro Yokota on the Development of a “Child-Centered Society” in Japan (Part 3)

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