NEWS
11 September 2026
SHIFTING GLOBAL EDUCATION RESEARCH TO WORK AT SCALE AND IMPROVE LEARNING FOR ALL CHILDREN
We have learned a great deal about how to improve learning. The next frontier is understanding how those approaches can be implemented effectively in real-world education systems and sustained at scale.
CSAE researchers Noam Angrist, Stefan Dercon, Sharnik Djaker, and Clare Leaver, together with co-authors from the What Works Hub for Global Education, set out a new research agenda and conceptual framework for implementation science in global education in a new article published in Science.
The world has made substantial progress in getting children into school, but in many countries this has not actually translated into improvements in literacy, numeracy and other learning outcomes. Although there is strong evidence that some interventions can improve learning outcomes, much less is known about how to put them into practice within real world education systems and at scale.
This creates a persistent gap between evidence and practice. Approaches that produce strong results in small pilot studies can have much smaller effects when they are expanded and delivered through government systems. Yet studies often do not measure whether programmes were implemented as intended, how widely they were adopted or what they actually cost.
The new framework aims to help address these gaps by organising and prioritising research questions around what it takes to achieve sustained and cost-effective improvements in learning at scale. It provides a shared language for researchers as well as policy makers and practitioners while recognising the different priorities and constraints of politicians, educators, and researchers.
An important message of the article is the importance of understanding and addressing service-delivery gaps. This includes examining the bureaucratic mechanisms, regulations and incentives that shape how education programmes are delivered, as well as the factors that influence their adoption and effectiveness.
Researchers also emphasise that programmes and policies need to be continually tested and adapted across different settings and delivery models. Iterative approaches for evidence generation can support the adaptation process, allowing researchers and policymakers to test alternative ways of delivering interventions and identifying approaches that are both effective and cost-effective.
The authors close by arguing that the frontier of education research and practice is to improve implementation and make implementation science a mainstream part of in global education research. The What Works Hub for Global Education at the Blavatnik School of Government supports is supporting research that follows this agenda, helping to building the evidence needed to improve learning outcomes at scale.