Gates Foundation launches a new global education strategy | Devex

Gates Foundation launches a new global education strategy | Devex:

Gates Foundation launches a new global education strategy

SAN FRANCISCO — On Friday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched its global education strategy, to provide education systems in India and sub-Saharan Africa with better resources to improve teaching and learning.

Building on its investments in global health and international development, and expanding its work on education beyond the United States, the new global effort has a $68 million budget for the next four years.

In a blog post announcing the strategy, Girindre Beeharry, director of global education at the Gates Foundation, notes the progress the world has made on education over the past 15 years, but explains that expanded access has not translated to better outcomes.

“What we’re trying to do here is stay with the problem a bit longer, as opposed to going to a solution mode,” he told Devex ahead of the announcement. “Instead of saying, ‘This is the answer,’ we are trying to say: ‘It is likely that every country will need to find its own path in solving the education problem.’”

 The strategy has four pillars: At the classroom level, the foundation will identify cost-effective approaches to supporting teaching and learning; it will work with partners to assess the causes of poor performance and identify solutions best suited to those needs; it will support efforts to make data on learning outcomes comparable across countries so progress can be tracked over time; and it will seek to understand barriers holding girls back.

Millions of children in school are learning very little, which emphasizes the point that attendance and learning are separate challenges, Beeharry wrote in the blog post.

“Leaving these students behind amplifies inequality, as the learning deficiency is largest among the poor,” he continued in the post. “The learning deficit is also at the root of what worries many governments: A poorly skilled youth population.”

Traditionally, the Gates Foundation’s work on education has been limited to the United States, though Bill Gates, billionaire co-chair of the Gates Foundation, has personally supported education beyond U.S. borders through some of his investments.

Gates, who along with his wife and fellow foundation co-chair Melinda Gates, Continue reading: Gates Foundation launches a new global education strategy | Devex: