IEN’s annual roundup of year-end reviews of top education stories and issues includes discussions of “tectonic” shifts in education related to AI and the actions of the current administration in the US as well as continuing concerns like the use of cellphones in schools, chronic absenteeism, learning loss, and students’ mental health. Here at IEN, major changes also include our exploration of ways to use AI to help us find and share articles related to educational policy, practice, and improvement around the world. Some of those results are included below. Next week’s post will focus on news and media stories discussing predictions and anticipated issues and trends for 2026. To see how education in 2025 compared to previous years, see the end-of-the-year scans for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 part 1, and 2019 part 2.
“The year 2025 will be remembered as a defining period for Ghana’s education sector—a year marked by difficult choices, honest national reflection, and the beginning of a deliberate reset.”
“[I]t’s hard to see much overall change from 2024. As we wrote this summer, “everything has changed — except the funding priorities.” Most grantmakers have only modestly increased payout, despite record gains in the stock market, and few have upended long-standing priorities to free up more resources for the emergency at hand.“
“When it comes to education news, 2025 was unprecedented. Tectonic shifts to education policy and child welfare were set in motion — and at a dizzying pace. Plus, many other storylines were playing out, including literacy, the state of teacher pay and the challenges educators face as they grapple with the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence.”
As we look back on 2025, we’d like to celebrate some of the extraordinary work in education we learned about this year. In this case, we’re highlighting the work of the Aspire Leadership Fellows of the Africa Leadership Academy. The Aspire Fellowship Programme is a cohort-based program that brings together leaders from across Africa who have started or are leading innovative schools and educational organizations. The Fellows work with global education leaders to expand and sustain their organizations. For those interested in learning more about this work or making a donation, we’re providing the Aspire profiles and websites of several of the Fellows who shared their work with graduate students from Teachers College, Columbia University, in Thomas Hatch’s class on School Change this fall.
Highlight: Running a lean Cambridge model at a community-funded school catering to children from diverse families in rural Lesotho- some facing significant socio-economic challenges and other instabilities
Year Founded: 1990
Grade: Nursery/Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary, AS & A Level
School Vision: To deliver affordable, globally benchmarked education with a strong emphasis on equity, innovation, and holistic development.
Jayant Vijayakumar is Chief Academic Advisor at Soofia International School in Lesotho, where he leads strategic planning, academic innovation, and AI integration. Under his leadership, Soofia—serving over 1,300 students—has embraced flipped learning, launched coding and robotics programs, and pioneered student-led engagement models. Jayant’s approach blends academic rigour with emotional intelligence, technology, and values-based education, ensuring access and excellence for learners from all backgrounds. He trains educators, drives curriculum reform, and builds partnerships that extend Soofia’s impact across Lesotho and beyond. Passionate about transforming outdated education systems, Jayant’s work is driven by a belief that inclusive, holistic education can empower the next generation of thinkers, leaders, and changemakers in Africa and the world. Donation/Support link
Highlight: Refugee-founded and refugee-led education which started with 26 students in a boardroom, and has grown to serve more than 800 students
Year founded: 2007
Grade Focus: K-12
School vision: A healthy and self-reliant community with knowledge and skills.
Daniel, also known as Khalid, is a Congolese Refugee who has resided in Uganda for the past 26 years. Leveraging the DAFI scholarship, Khalid earned an MS in Environmental Health and a Bachelor of Statistics Degree. He leads this refugee-led youth initiative dedicated to empowering vulnerable refugees and Ugandans towards becoming healthy and self-reliant. P4T Schools delivers comprehensive educational services, including improved teaching methodologies, a school feeding program, engaging children in debate, games, and sports. The overarching goal of these schools is to evolve into centers of excellence, with a focus on nurturing Innovative Leaders and Changemakers.
Kevin is an Education Coordinator and Early Childhood Development project manager at P4T. She attained a BS in Education under MasterCard Foundation Scholarship. She did teaching practice at Mandela Secondary school, taught at the North Green School and had a one-year volunteer experience as a teaching assistant at Lancaster Mennonite School in Pennsylvania, USA. Kevin uses her positive attitude to encourage others to work hard and bring about a positive impact in their communities. She is very passionate about giving back “because in one way or the other it is what made her who she is, a transformative leader.” Donation/Support link
Highlight: Running a school system in Nigerian correctional centers to provide access to formal and informal education as a form of reformation and reintegration for inmates.
Year Founded: 2018
Grade: Nursery/Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary, National Open University
School Vision: To provide educational opportunities to inmates, empowering them to reintegrate into society and become productive citizens..
Mahfuz Alabidun is the Founder and Executive Director of Inmates Educational Foundation, a nonprofit delivering education in Nigerian correctional centers. With over 500 learners across six states, IEF offers academic, vocational, and reintegration programs that support inmates’ transformation and reintegration into society. Under his leadership, the foundation has received national recognition, including the Governor of Lagos State Social Impact Award. A TEDx speaker and education reform advocate, he is passionate about building inclusive systems that restore dignity and create second chances. Through education, Mahfuz is rewriting the narrative of incarceration in Nigeria—one learner, one center, one future at a time. Cohort 5 Year Founded: 2018 Grade: Nursery/Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary, National Open University School Vision: To to provide educational opportunities to inmates, empowering them to reintegrate into society and become productive citizens. Donation/Support link
Highlight: Running a school model that not only educates but also heals and empowers children, especially those affected by conflict, displacement, and poverty; with focus on Protection and Integrated Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services (MHPSS).
Year Founded: 2020
Grade: Nursery/Pre-Primary, Primary
School Vision: To create a new generation of African leaders and change-makers who are self-reliant and capable of lifting others.
Sumi Hamid is a refugee leader and the Founder and Executive Director of Humanitarian Services Action Organisation (HuSA) in Kikuube, Uganda. A survivor of displacement himself, he grew up in Kyangwali Refugee Settlement and now leads community-based initiatives that provide education, mental health support, and protection services to refugee children and families. After overcoming years of interrupted education, Sumi pursued a career in social work and made the bold decision in 2023 to leave formal employment and fully commit to building HuSA. His organization now serves over 130 children with early education and supports women and youth with microgrants, GBV response, and psychosocial care. Rooted in lived experience, his work champions dignity, empowerment, and community-led change—offering vulnerable children and families the opportunity to learn, heal, and thrive. Cohort 5 Year Founded: 2020 Grade: Nursery/Pre-Primary, Primary School Vision: To create a new generation of African leaders and change-makers who are self-reliant and capable of lifting others. Donation/Support link
Highlight: They produce their own play-learning resources which are used to combine play-based learning interventions with life skills development, ensuring that children not only succeed academically but also explore their innate talents and build strong social-emotional and entrepreneurial skills to reach their full potential
Year Founded: 2021
Grade: Nursery/Pre-Primary, Primary, Vocational Training for mothers
School Vision: To create a model Play-Based Learning school in Eastern Uganda where education is focused on academic excellence and skills development so that there’s a clear path for every child to succeed in life.
Timothy David Wambi is the Founder of Ajibu Community Organisation (Ajco) in rural Mayuge, Uganda. Timothy leads grassroots education reform through a dual-impact model: supporting public primary schools and running a vibrant community learning center. Ajco currently educates 77 children aged 3–7 and empowers young women—many of them survivors of early marriage—to become trained educators. Timothy’s model integrates play-based, life-skills learning and develops low-cost teaching materials to improve literacy, numeracy, and STEM outcomes in under-resourced schools. Timothy works to ensure that no child is denied the right to quality education and that local solutions are part of lasting transformation in Uganda’s rural education landscape. Donation/Support link
Highlight: The only inclusive secondary school in Northern Uganda catering to students with diverse abilities such as the blind, low vision, cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, and physical challenged, studying alongside their abled peers.
Year Founded: 2024
Grade: Secondary
School Vision: To empower students to thrive, regardless of ability, and promotes a culture of acceptance and inclusion
Acen Kevin (Daniela) is the Founder and Executive Director of the Itinga Charity Education Foundation (ICEF) and Director of St. Mary Goretti Secondary School Ngetta in Northern Uganda. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance, Kevin spearheads initiatives that deliver inclusive education to students with and without disabilities, including learners who are blind or physically challenged. Under her leadership, ICEF partnered to establish the region’s first inclusive secondary school, now serving 45 students from across Uganda. She drives accessibility through scholarships, assistive technologies, and inclusive teacher training. As Board Chair of the school’s academic committee, Kevin is dedicated to upholding quality and equity in education. In 2025, she was awarded the MTN Changemaker Grant for her groundbreaking work in assistive learning. Kevin is deeply passionate about creating a future where all learners— regardless of ability—have the opportunity to thrive. Donation/Support link
Highlight: Spearheading the “Recycles Pay” project at Isrina School which empowers parents to offset children’s fees by generating income from recyclable materials
Year founded: 2016
Grades served: K-6
School vision: A world where every child, regardless of their economic background has equal access to quality education
Grace is a fervent champion of inclusive education, dedicating herself to this cause since the age of 15. Fueled by her personal experiences, she remains resolute in her mission to guarantee equitable access to quality education for every child, irrespective of their background. Notably, she advocates for environmental sustainability and spearheads the innovative “Recycles Pay” project, empowering parents to offset their children’s fees through the use of recyclable materials. With her certification as a Microsoft Educator, Grace actively pursues the enhancement of learning experiences and seeks to broaden educational access, aiming to disrupt the cycle of poverty through the delivery of high-quality education. Donation/Support link
ADEOLA TOLULOPE ABAYOMI Tsion Academy Ile-Ife, Osun state, Nigeria
Highlight: Focused on providing free, quality education to out-of-school children in underserved communities using a personal and scalable funding model called the “Big Brother or Sister where each child is matched with a “Big Brother or Sister”—an individual donor who would commit to supporting the child’s education monthly or by term.
Year Founded: 2022
Grade: Nursery/Pre-Primary/Primary/Secondary
School Vision: To restore dignity, build character, and equip each child with the tools they need to thrive academically, emotionally, and socially.
Adeola Tolulope Abayomi is the Founder and Executive Director of Tsion Academy, a free school for out-of-school children in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A trained lawyer (LLB, BL) and the visionary force behind Evolufy Africa. Tsion Academy currently serves over 140 children aged 4 to 13, delivering quality, inclusive education to underserved communities. Through Evolufy Africa’s two branches—Tsion Academy and Maendeleo Africa— Adeola advances access, equity, and youth empowerment. She is passionate about building sustainable, replicable school models that drive genuine transformation. Her work bridges grassroots action and systemic change, offering hope and opportunity to the next generation of African leaders. Donation/Support link
Highlight: Creating equitable education access to students in second cities.
Year founded: 2022
Grades served: K-6
School vision: All children reach their full-potential and are agents of change in their schools, communities and the world.
With a remarkable 15-year background in supporting social innovations, Tchanlandjou has been instrumental in mapping key actors and organizations within ecosystems for collective systemic impact. Since joining Ashoka in 2013, he has held the pivotal role of Regional Director for the Sahel region, where his strategic vision and ability to inspire and mobilize diverse partners have yielded significant accomplishments. Notably, Tchanlandjou spearheaded the creation of the Education and Youth Clusters, pivotal initiatives that have greatly enhanced Ashoka’s impact in the Sahel. In 2016, he further demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit by founding ‘SeddoInvest,’ a start-up focused on identifying and preparing a pipeline of young social ventures and attracting investments to accelerate their development. He founded SBA after seeing first-hand the profound disparity between the quality of education available to students in Dakar, and in rural and per-urban areas in Senegal. Donation/Support link
In November’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview Edwin Nii Bonney emphasizes that educational research and practice must “look back” by acknowledging colonial legacies and marginalized histories while “looking forward” by centering Indigenous, vulnerable, and community voices. His work highlights deep listening, intergenerational collaboration, and community-designed solutions as essential to dismantling deficit narratives and creating equitable educational systems. The LtC series is produced by Elizabeth Zumpe and colleagues from the Educational Change Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. A PDF of the fully formatted interview will be available on the LtC website.
Lead the Change (LtC):The 2026 AERA Annual Meeting theme is “Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures: Constructing a New Vision for Educational Research.” This theme calls us to consider how to leverage our diverse knowledge and experiences to engage in futuring for education and education research, involving looking back to remember our histories so that we can look forward to imagine better futures. What steps are you taking, or do you plan to take, to heed this call?
Dr. Edwin Nii Bonney
Edwin Nii Bonney (ENB): As someone who grew up in Ghana and went through K–12 and college there, I have come to appreciate the wisdom of my elders. That wisdom, often carried in proverbs and the principle of Sankofa, reminds us to look back and learn from the past so that we do not repeat its mistakes. In my scholarship, I wrestle with the reality that educational systems remain deeply embedded in coloniality. We are still grappling with the legacies of colonialism especially in the global South, and those legacies have not disappeared (Bonney, 2022). They persist in the languages we speak and use to instruct students, the books we read, our perceptions of ourselves, our standards of beauty, and even our justice systems (Bonney, 2023; Bonney et al., 2025a). Colonialism continues to shape much of who we are and how our societies function. It is essential that we acknowledge that the legacies of colonialism are still with us. It was not that long ago, and its effects continue to reverberate in our educational systems and beyond.
Having lived and schooled in four different countries, I have come to realize that in every society there are marginalized and vulnerable groups. The dominant discourses in any context, whether social, cultural, or educational, are often so pervasive that marginalized voices, ideas, and ways of knowing are easily erased or silenced. Indigenous wisdom, local knowledge, and community customs are frequently pushed aside. This understanding shapes how I approach my scholarship. We must continually examine how educational leadership, policies, and practices have historically and presently marginalize the ways of being, speaking, and doing of those who are not part of dominant groups. Whether in the United States, Ghana, or elsewhere, there are always minoritized voices whose perspectives are excluded from how education is designed and enacted. Because of that, I believe it is vital to ask how we center the ways of speaking, knowing, and being of Indigenous, marginalized, and vulnerable communities in education. How do we ensure that their experiences and insights shape what we study, how we study it, and how we interpret what we learn?
“We must continually examine how educational leadership, policies, and practices have historically and presently marginalize the ways of being, speaking, and doing of those who are not part of dominant groups.”
In my own scholarship and service, I see my role as coming alongside communities and families, not as an expert above them but as a partner who recognizes them as experts of their own experiences. They understand the root causes of the challenges they face and often hold the wisdom to identify meaningful solutions. In Bonney et al. (2025a) in listening to students who had not been able to obtain passing grades in Math, many of them, after retaking the exam multiple times, I learned that they struggled to understand and make sense math concepts taught in English. They felt like failures until they went against the norm as experts of their own experiences to learn in their native languages. Learning in their own native language according to these students brought them success on the first try even though the system told them it was impossible. As we think about the future of education and research, we must keep asking: whose voices are missing from the table? Whose perspectives are absent from the design process? Which families are not engaged in our schools, and how do we empower them to participate fully? We must always ask who we are not serving well and how we can do better. When we look back at history, we see that we have not always served everyone equitably. Therefore, it must remain at the forefront of our work in education to ask, whose voices are we still not hearing?
“I see my role as coming alongside communities and families, not as an expert but as a partner who recognizes them as experts of their own experiences.”
LtC: What are some key lessons that practitioners and scholars might take from your work to foster better educational systems for all students?
ENB: Much of the work I do alongside educational leaders, students, and families begin with listening. It starts with listening deeply to the experiences of different groups and how they encounter systems of oppression. This kind of listening is to not to defend or to critique but to learn from their perspectives, their realities, and their ways of knowing and being. The next principle is building relationships across generations and forming coalitions among groups who are affected by similar problems of practice or systems of oppression. When these coalitions come together around community-informed problems and community-designed solutions, we are better able to address the issues that matter most to them. In Bonney et al. (2025b), I share about a community-based organization that brings together everyone in their village from as young as seven years to as old as 80 years. The organization gathers the elders to recount stories about the history of their community in their native language. The young people record and document the oral history and then create plays in their native language, where they dramatize the stories on digital media and on stage to be a resource for local schools because there were no resources to teach their native language other than English. This community led movement was in decreasing use of their native language. Communities understand their own challenges, and when they help design the solutions, those solutions are more authentic, effective, and sustainable (Costanza-Chock, 2020). Through these relationships and through genuine listening, we can begin to challenge deficit discourses and narratives that blame individuals instead of systems for the inequities we see in education. Deficit thinking overlooks structural causes and often misplaces responsibility. But lasting change requires us to shift our attention to the systems, policies, and practices that create and sustain inequity.
Change in education will come only through broad coalitions that include not only researchers and educational leaders but also students, teachers, families, community members, elders and even naysayers. Their knowledge, lived experiences, and cultural wisdom are essential for reimagining a more just and equitable educational future. As we engage in this work, it is important to keep asking which solutions are working, for whom, and under what conditions (Hinnant-Crawford, 2025). Sometimes a solution may appear successful in one area but create unintended problems in another. When that happens, we must be ready to respond quickly to stop any harm. Change is not static; it is a continuous and reflective process. At the heart of this work is a simple but powerful truth: we must be intentional about involving those most affected by the problems we aim to address. We must center community expertise, engage families and students as co-creators of change, and together expose even small variations in outcomes for students as opportunities to learn. Finally, we must continue to seek out and listen to the voices and stories of those still impacted by systems of oppression or persistent inequities. Because meaningful change in education begins with listening, building relationships and broad coalitions that endure when we work together to challenge inequitable systems and co-create a more just future. These are the foundational blocks to a justice-oriented improvement approach to undo oppressive systems in education.
“[M]eaningful change in education begins with listening, building relationships and broad coalitions that endure when we work together to challenge inequitable systems and co-create a more just future”
LtC: What do you see the field of Educational Change heading, and where do you find hope for this field for the future?
ENB: The nature of change is that it always comes with uncertainty. Sometimes that uncertainty can bring frustration on one hand or excitement on the other. We can never fully know what the future holds or what the field might look like. We cannot predict what new policies, reforms, or interventions will emerge, or what discourses will shape the field. What I do know is that we can always look back to learn. We can recognize that, as a society and as a field, there are things we’ve done well and others we have not. One of our core goals must be to serve all children well. That means preparing researchers, educational practitioners, students, and teachers so that we can meet the diverse needs of all types of learners. It also means continuing to prepare teachers for a field that is increasingly complex with diverse students who have diverse needs. It also means preparing educational leaders to create inclusive and collaborative environments that enable teachers and staff to do their best work to serve students equitably.
So, although there is uncertainty about the future, one thing we can hold on to is that we know what we value and how to prepare for that future, whatever it looks like. More than what gives me hope is what energizes me. In Bonney et al., (2024) we created an edited volume, to center and hear from educational practitioners on the front lines and how they work with students, teachers, parents, and community to tackle problems of practice in their local schools and districts. In times of uncertainty, the best people to hear from are those on the front lines. Working alongside with these scholars, educational leaders, and practitioners, in the trenches trying to figure out how to serve all students well makes me expectant that things will change continuously for the better. They’re asking critical questions: How do we better support our teachers? How do we solve problems of practice? How do we address discipline issues or chronic absenteeism? How do we engage families more effectively? How do we reduce the overrepresentation of Black and Brown students in special education? How do we increase their representation in gifted and Advanced Placement courses? These are the kinds of questions that inspire hope for the future. Even though the future may be uncertain, we can still prepare for said future. Personally, I am not as concerned about where the field of educational change is heading but rather about preparing my students and practitioners for today’s challenges. I believe that the same justice-oriented and community-centered approach to solving today’s problems will help us address the problems of tomorrow.
The school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic disconnected children around the world to critical sources of food, including school meals. Fortunately, educators, community members and others have developed a host of new mechanisms, resources, and partnerships to make sure children get access to healthy and healthier meals. These “micro-innovations” include new ways to work with community partners, including farmers, nonprofits, chefs, and local vendors and local ingredients to improve nutrition, strengthen regional economies, and increase student engagement. Other developments include using centralized kitchens and new policies and regulations to increase production and lower barriers to access. A few notable efforts also show how several countries have reworked funding structures to sustainably scale school meal programs. All these initiatives are helping to reduce costs, elevate meal quality, and ensure every child can eat with dignity and ease.
How to Use Community Partners and Local Ingredients
Zambia: Schools across Zambia are receiving funding from the One Hectare Program to support student run gardens and greenhouses. These gardens help supply school meals and make the community less vulnerable to drought and famine; it functions not only as extra food but also an opportunity to learn. The gardens are taken care of by the students who learn valuable skills such as “drip irrigation, organic sack gardening, and environmental protection.”
Kenya: In 2024, Kenya launched its national chapter of the school meals coalition and created a meals program that focuses on relying more on regional resources by employing local farmers growing region specific foods such as sorghum, cowpeas and potatoes. This not only increases the nutritional value of school meals but also supports local small business farmers. In collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the World Food Programme, the Ministry of Education is also developing a national menu guide in order to encourage the production of more sustainable and diverse meals.
France: Legislation has been passed to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and healthier diet. Regulations put in place since 2021 include requirements for certain percentages of ingredients to be purchased from local and sustainable sources and specify some meal content for school lunch programs. For example, “out of 20 meals, children must be offered no more than four starters with a fat content of 15% or more; at least four fish-based meals (or a dish containing 70% fish or more), and at least 8 whole-fruit desserts.”
Hawai’i: The State Department of Education created a pilot meals program, the ’Aina Pono Farm to School initiative. Through the pilot program, students at schools such as Mililani High School in Oahu were able to sample various healthy, less processed dishes and give their personal feedback on menu choices. As a result, students ate far more of the meals on offer, reducing food overproduction at the school by 20%.
Tasmania: Schools in Tasmania are outsourcing at least one day of food preparation to local charity. Loaves and Fishes get produce from local vendors and cook the food either on or off site. These schools are selected through a competitive application process.
Haiti: Local farmers in Haiti’s Northeast strengthen nutrition and economy by supplying food to school canteens. The World Food Program purchases up to 9,990 tons of local produce to support struggling farmers and supply school meals to approximately 15,000 students across 200 schools with local nutritious food.
New York City: The “Chefs in the Schools” initiative brings in local professional chefs to create nutritious cost effective menus for schools. The chefs also provide training for staff.
Canada: Canada’s first national school food program, funded by 1 Billion dollars in federal funds, is rolling out amid rising need, with provinces and local providers striving to expand hot meal offerings despite funding gaps, aging infrastructure and growing demand from families struggling with food costs.
Using Centralized Kitchens:
France: Centralized kitchens in France prepare 6,000 to 10,000 servings a day of high-quality food following strict food safety protocols. This cuts down on cost and increases quality.
Hawai’i: The Hawaiʻi’s Farm to School Action Plan connects schools with local farms to provide fresh, nutritious meals, support farmers, and promote sustainable food systems through a regional kitchen model and community collaboration.
Sweden: A pilot program transforming school canteens with student-designed spaces, surplus-produce energy bars, and sustainability initiatives has boosted engagement and healthy eating while highlighting the need for long-term investment and multi-agency collaboration to sustain its success.
Lowering barriers to food
Africa: Food4Education (F4E) is transforming school feeding in Africa through a sustainable, locally sourced model that provides nutritious, affordable meals while supporting local farmers and communities. By 2030, they aim to feed 1 million Kenyan children daily and help other African governments feed 2 million more, creating a scalable blueprint to end classroom hunger across the continent.
New York City: In response to rising concerns about federal budget cuts to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a school in Brooklyn has partnered closely with the community organization El Puente and other stakeholders to support their students.
Colorado: All Colorado public school students will continue to have access to free school meals after voters approved two state referendums on November 5th, 2025, one of which — Proposition MM — will raise state income taxes for those earning an annual income of $300,000 or more.
United States: A streamlined certification structure has been implemented for a summer food assistance program launched last year. In the first year, some families missed out on Summer food benefits because of confusing enrollment, limited outreach, and short deadlines, despite the program proving highly effective for those who received it. To address the problem, more families will be enrolled automatically, if they are on certain public benefit programs, including free and reduced price school lunch.
Ghana: The Ghana School Feeding Programme has found most Ghanaian caregivers prefer on-site school meals over cash or take-home rations, with their choices shaped by program satisfaction, time constraints, and local food prices, suggesting school feeding programs could be more effective by tailoring modalities to regional and household needs.
United States: Starting in the 2027–28 school year, the USDA will ban online processing “junk fees” for students eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, aiming to expand the policy in the future to ensure all children can access healthy school meals without extra charges.
California: Schools are offering food trucks to boost lunch participation. Called the Cruisin’ Cafe, the food truck gets more seventh- and eighth-grade students to eat lunch during school. Students won’t have to pay anything for their meals or walk across campus to get lunch at the cafeteria.
New York City: New York City is investing $150 million to expand modern, café-style cafeteria upgrades to more schools after seeing that redesigned dining spaces boosted student participation in school meals and helped reduce stigma amid rising child food insecurity.
United States: Districts are using the federal Community Eligibility Provision to offer free school meals by strategically clustering schools to maximize reimbursement, clearly communicating and reassessing eligibility data each year, and boosting revenue through expanded breakfast programs like breakfast-in-the-classroom or breakfast-after-the-bell.
Changing Financing Systems
Bolivia: Since 2000, the government in Bolivia has supported what has come to be called the Complementary School Meals Program. By 2019, with investments of more than 100 million US dollars, the program provides school meals to more than 2.2 million students – almost 80% of all school-age children and youth. To fund the program, the government has turned to taxing natural resources, specifically hydro carbons, program.
Mozambique: In Mozambique, $40 million in debt service payments were channeled to school meals by using debt swaps and broader debt relief strategies to redirect repayments toward national education and nutrition priorities.
One of the many repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic was a world-wide hit to students’ health and wellbeing. In particular, proper nutrition and food insecurity was greatly affected by the pandemic and the lockdowns as many students around the world could not get food and food related support at their schools. In Part 1 of this two part series, Sierra Bickford takes stock of the impact school nutrition programs have globally and highlights the effects of these high-impact interventions. Part 2 will scan recent news and research to find some of the many micro-innovations – new developments in practices, structures, and resources in different contexts – that have been implemented to combat this rise in student food insecurity. These posts are part of IEN’s ongoing coverage of what is and is not changing in schools and education following the pandemic school closures. For more on the series, see “What can change in schools after the pandemic?” For related examples of micro-innovations in other areas, see IEN’s coverage micro-innovations to strengthen student relationships, to increase access to college and careers and to improve tutoring: Building Student Relationships Post-Pandemic in School and Beyond; Still Worth It? (Part 1); New Pathways into Higher Education and the Working World? (Part 2); Tutoring takes off and Predictable challenges and possibilities for effective tutoring at scale.
Food insecurity, particularly among children, was one of the critical problems exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the related societal shutdowns. Estimates suggest that, during the pandemic, the number of people experiencing food insecurity doubled from about 135 million to more than 270 million. In India alone, household food insecurity skyrocketed from 21% in December 2019 to 80% in August 2020, at the same time that diet quality decreased. By the end of 2021, the UN warned that over 43 million people in 38 countries, including Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Yemen, were at risk of experiencing famine or famine-like conditions.
“Estimates suggest that, during the pandemic, the number of people experiencing food insecurity doubled from about 135 million to more than 270 million.”
Even in wealthier countries household food insecurity increased substantially. In the United States, that meant a rise in households experiencing food insecurity from 11% in 2018 to 38% in March 2020. In a report from 2020, the US Census’s Household Pulse Survey estimated the rates of food insecurity had doubled overall, and tripled among households with children. In the wake of the pandemic, school systems, despite vastly different conditions and challenges in different contexts, are working to reestablish nutrition programs and create new strategies to get children access to nutritious balanced meals.
The impact of school based nutrition worldwide
Across the world, school meals have been shown to be a worthwhile intervention with high positive impact on health and learning outcomes. In high income countries, such as those in the United Kingdom, access to nutritious school meals are associated with lower obesity rates. In Sweden, school meals with regulated nutrition requirements have been shown to increase educational attainment, health outcomes, and income across lifetime. One study found that low income families with children in Sweden who received free school meals increased their lifetime income by 6%. The effects that these interventions have on European health care costs estimate “that the return from investment in school meal programs is at least sevenfold, up to a possible €34 for every €1 spent.”
“The effects that these interventions have on European health care costs estimate “that the return from investment in school meal programs is at least sevenfold, up to a possible €34 for every €1 spent.”’
Data from low and middle income countries also support the implementation of free school meals, particularly for increasing attendance and retention. In Burkina Faso female students who were given take-home food attended school at least 90% of the time. Similarly in Bangladesh, the introduction of free fortified biscuits “increased enrollment by 14% and reduced school dropout by 7%.” Nutrition programs in low and middle income countries have been shown to positively affect learning outcomes as well. In India, access to free school meals is associated with higher cognitive outcomes and an 18% increase in literacy test scores. As in the United Kingdom, in Brazil students who were being supplied meals at school were more likely to reduce their intake of unhealthy foods and increase the presence of nutritious food in their diet, which leads to better health outcomes.
The impact of school based nutrition in the United States
In the US, the National School Lunch Program has long been the primary vehicle for supporting students’ nutritional needs. Around 95% of US elementary, middle, and high schools take part in the program and about 75% of the meals provided through it go to children from low-income families who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Students who consistently consumed these meals were more often from low-income households and more likely to be non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic compared to those who didn’t participate. As a consequence, the program is one key means of addressing nutritional and health inequalities in the US, where non-Hispanic black and Hispanic children aremore likely to be overweight or obese and have lower quality diets than white children.
Despite this evidence, the budget bill promoted by the US administration and passed by Congress this past summer reduces funding for federal health and food programs. Estimates from the School Nutrition Association suggest that the bill could create a ripple effect of food insecurity for American children. This ripple effect will include fewer children automatically being eligible for SNAP and school lunch programs as well as fewer schools being able to enroll in Community Eligibility Provision. Nonetheless, even as these cuts are being made, schools and communities across the US and around the world are continuing to develop new ways of reaching more and more children and families and increasing access to higher quality and healthier food.
In the third part of this three-part interview (see Part 1 and Part 2), Joe Wolf and Kira Keane discuss the role of teachers in a table-based supplemental learning model and the efforts to adapt the model to three different contexts in Africa. Part one described the evolution of Imagine Worldwide’s approach and part two discusses Imagine Worldwide’s approach to make the work sustainable by building partnerships with government officials and local community members. 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): What can you tell us about the work that has to be done with teachers to scale and sustain the tablet-based model?
Joe Wolf(JW): The role of facilitator in the model is relatively straightforward. You don’t need a highly trained adult, and they don’t have to be a teacher. It can be a community volunteer or someone else, and that’s made it a very scalable model in terms of human capital. That’s important, because there just aren’t enough humans in these educational contexts. What makes this so scalable, in my opinion, is that when you have a single child and you have a single tablet, there’s an interaction between the child and the content that creates learning gains. When you move to one hundred kids, that linkage doesn’t change. When you move to a million kids, that linkage doesn’t change, you still have the relationship between the child and the content. Things do get more complex in that you have more equipment, and you have more schools, and you need to make sure that the equipment doesn’t get stolen. But when you have a model that depends on human capital, you need more and more and more teachers; and those teachers need to stay trained; and they need to show up every day; and they need to be able to engage one hundred children at the same time. It’s ten out of ten in terms of complexity when you have an inadequate number of teachers and you have to train those teachers to somehow be effective for those one hundred learners.
[W]hen you have a single child and you have a single tablet, there’s an interaction between the child and the content that creates learning gains. When you move to one hundred kids, that linkage doesn’t change. When you move to a million kids, that linkage doesn’t change, you still have the relationship between the child and the content.
TH: This is definitely a critical problem – how can programs be effective if they depend on more qualified teachers than can ever be supported? But then there are legitimate concerns that programs that don’t rely on teachers are sending the message that teachers aren’t important and that we don’t need those adults. How do you address those concerns that you’re trying to replace teachers with technology?
KK: That issue has really been top of mind for us, particularly as we think about our communications around the program. One very conscious decision we’ve made is to go back into the community to report on our research results. This means going back to teachers and saying, “Look, this is how your students are doing. This is what we’re learning. This is how this work can support you. This is how it reinforces your instruction.” From the beginning, we’ve really tried to include teachers as well as parents and community leaders in saying that “what you’re part of has implications not only for your own children and your students, but for the country.” We’ve had to be very mindful of that and of making sure that we build in feedback opportunities for teachers. Now in our implementation research, we have researchers going out into the community, conducting workshops and creating opportunities to hear from teachers so that we can continue to improve that process. But so far, our early implementation results and qualitative information coming from teachers is that it’s highly, highly popular.
Photo: IRC
JW: I also think that we just have to be realistic and fact-based with the current situation. In Malawi, there are one hundred kids per classroom and the average age in Malawi is 16 or 17 years old. It’s one of the youngest countries in the world. That means the number of kids is going to go up dramatically, but the level of resources is not going to go up dramatically. So you already have a problem, and the problem is going to get worse. You cannot build enough schools or hire enough teachers quickly enough or at low enough cost to solve this problem. That’s just the reality, and, in that context, many of these countries are eager to pursue innovative approaches. They’re not building bank branches. They’re going to mobile banking and now their mobile banking is so much better than ours. It had to be. It’s classic Clayton Christensen and his theories of disruptive innovation: where does innovation take root? It takes root in areas of non-consumption, where the status quo is not entrenched. The government of Malawi is really open about this and there is a real thirst for innovation. This is being well received by the government, by the communities, because what’s currently happening is not producing learning gains.
In addition, we have purposely situated ourselves in a supplemental, complimentary part of the government school’s timetable. There is already literacy and numeracy on the timetable, teacher led instruction, and that stays the same. Then we have a complementary supplemental period where every student is learning adaptively, and what we’re finding is that some of the biggest fans of that model are the teachers, because they’re saying, I have a little bit of a break during the tablet program, because the kids are super immersed in their own learning. The kids are showing up more often. Attendance is going up. They’re learning more; their attitude toward learning is improving. The teachers and the parents are seeing a higher return on investment of keeping the kids in school. There are just a lot of positive things that are happening for that teacher so that it isn’t in any way positioned as a replacement, as much as an aid that just makes their jobs easier and more sustainable.
“[W]e have purposely situated ourselves in a supplemental, complementary part of the government school’s timetable. There is already literacy and numeracy on the timetable, teacher led instruction, and that stays the same. Then we have a complementary supplemental period where every student is learning adaptively.”
TH: I think that’s so crucial. What a difference it might make for a teacher to have a period like that where they can see every student engaged. That’s just such a classic win-win. As we wrap-up, I’d love to hear more about scale-up. What have you learned from scaling across different contexts?
JW: We’ve come up with what we think are the preconditions for success in partnership with governments. We want to find governments that are already committed to:
Bringing technology into the classroom for teachers and students;
Boosting foundational learning; and
Providing solar electrification for their schools.
We want governments to be already moving on this journey. Then we’re helping them get there, as opposed to trying to convince them to do things. We are out of the convincing game. It doesn’t serve anybody. But we know we need strong government buy in, so we need strong leaders within the government that are committed. We also need a strong local ecosystem of partners that can execute. To help with that, we fill the position we call the “ecosystem coordinator.” That helps us act as a group that is solely dedicated to bringing together the disparate pieces and stakeholders and having them all march forward together to do this work. If you don’t have somebody who has this as their only job, the work will not happen because there’s too much else going on. The jobs are too overwhelming.
“We want governments to be already moving on this journey. Then we’re helping them get there, as opposed to trying to convince them to do things. We are out of the convincing game.”
We also need a funding community that is interested in the places that we’re working. We need bold philanthropic capital that’s willing to go first and willing to do the things that need to be done to get the full government buy in. We need support to get to a critical mass of schools. We need evidence that’s generated specific to that context. We need the ecosystem to be organized in a way that you can create an executable plan. Nobody can make decisions on whether this should go to scale, whether that’s the government or whether that’s funders, without having that done first. And it’s the perfect role of philanthropy to be that risk capital early within a country. What we’re in the process of proving, is that if we do that well, the program is in a position to go to scale with government support and they government is also in a position to mobilize more international and multi-lateral funding.
Organizationally, we’ve seen that the demand is everywhere. Every week, there are countries asking us work with them, but we’ve decided to focus on four countries of different sizes, with four different languages. We want to work in partnership with these government and prove that the model can, in fact, scale. Then at the end of that phase, we’ll just open source everything and try to bring in a lot more players beyond us. We’ve decide to hone in on what we’re calling our “scale portfolio” with Malawi, Sierra Leone and Tanzania being the first three countries that we’re prioritizing. Then we’ll also have a Francophone country in that portfolio. If we do this well, I think that will provide the evidence that’s needed to figure out how to scale this. At this point, adding a fifth or sixth or seventh country, that’s not what the world needs. We know the demand is there. It’s more important that we show how we can build a system, in partnership with a national government in different contexts.
TH: Have you had to make adjustments or adaptations so that the model you developed in Malawi can work in these different contexts?
JW: Absolutely. I think continuous improvement is the DNA of our organization. How do we make the procurement better? How do we make the training better? How do we make those community sensitizations better? How do we better collect data in super low-connectivity areas? How do we take that data so we can improve the software and the implementation model? Innovation is a messy game, and it’s filled with fits and starts, so every day there’s a whole bunch of challenges that come up and a whole bunch of solutions that make the model even better. We have to acknowledge that as much as we want to create standardization in systems, every place is different. Our model in Tanzania will look slightly different than our model in Malawi, and we have to allow for those bottom-up adjustments. It’s back to that relationship between the child and the content. That relationship probably doesn’t change all that much. There are slight adaptations as you go from language to language or from national curriculum to national curriculum, but those are pretty minor. There’s a lot of overlap in the instruction. It’s really the behavior of the adults surrounding the program that may look different in Tanzania. Just as an example, one of the districts that we’re launching in Tanzania is bigger than the entire country of Malawi, so the logistics of working in smaller and larger countries have to be considered. In terms of other differences, in Sierra Leone, we’re working in standards one through six and in a context that is post- civil war and Ebola and everything else. That means there are a lot of overage kids that are way behind in foundational skills. In Tanzania, we’re only working in standards one through three, because that’s been a more stable place. Malawi is in between, as we’re working in standards one through four. That comes from very different realities in terms of number of kids that have to be served with that same tablet and that same content.
TH: Is there anything you’d like to add that you haven’t already mentioned?
JW: I just want to hammer home the importance of philanthropic capital. The governments do not have the early-stage capital. The Big Aid organizations are not going to be early – that’s not their job. Nearly half of the world’s youth will be African by 2030 – half! Yet there’s not a single foundation that any of us can name that writes million dollar checks for primary schools in Africa. The disconnect between the size of the challenge and the amount of institutional capital focused on it is stunning. So I do think that when people say, “What can we do about this?” Providing capital has to be part of it. A big reason why the work in Malawi has advanced is because some of our supporters decided to make a big philanthropic bet. It wasn’t just, ”Let’s fund 10 schools and see what happens.” This was, “Let’s fund five hundred schools in a year and see what happens.” That made it a really different conversation, and we’re having success in finding other bold philanthropists that think about things the same way. But it’s not easy. There’s not a lot of institutions that focus on this. Under these conditions, I think part of the work is saying, “Hey, whatever you care about world, if it’s environment, if it’s economy, or if it’s global peace, foundational learning is directly tied to all of that, and we have to pay attention to the region that will have half of the world’s youth in a few years.”
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.”
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.”
“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:
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 assessinguniversities’ 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 HopeHouseproject 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.
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.
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.
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)
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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