Learning Partners
Education Out Loud engages regional and global learning partners to work on strategic themes and support capacity development across the civil society organisations. They facilitate training and learning collaboratives on various topics for learning from experience and peer learning among grantees.
Global Learning Partners
The Global Learning Partners support Education Out Loud by working on strategic research themes across the entire Education Out Loud portfolio, contributing to the generation of knowledge and evidence-based learnings emerging from the implementation of the Education Out Loud programme.
Global Learning Partners collaborate with a selection of Education Out Loud grantees and analyse and aggregate experiences and best practices, distilling knowledge to be used by the grantees and Education Out Loud to improve work and programme implementation. Global Learning Partner initiatives are also meant to benefit the wider community of education stakeholders with insights and knowledge on advocacy, policy influencing, and accountability, among other themes. You can find examples of Learning Activities, Products and Tools produced by the Global Learning Partners here.
The current Global Learning Partners are engaged with Education Out Loud from August 2024 until the middle of 2026.
University of Sussex, United Kingdom
IDS is a leading global institution for research, teaching and learning, impact and communications. IDS works with partners such as governments, foundations, NGOs, academics and civil society to transform approaches to progressive social, political and economic change in ways that ultimately make a difference to people’s lives. IDS’ mission is to deliver world-class research, learning and teaching that transform the knowledge, action and leadership needed for more equitable and sustainable development globally.
IDS was also part of the first group of Global Learning Partners 2022-2024. In this period, IDS focused on Education Out Loud’s learning approach, education advocacy in challenging contexts, and integration of gender equality and inclusion aspects. Examples of IDS’ learning outputs can be found here.
In the current phase, IDS is focusing on the strengthening of adaptive management in Education Out Loud, research on social inclusion; and youth and advocacy.
See more here about IDS’ work as a Global Learning Partner.
Slough, United Kingdom
NFER is a leading independent provider of education research and insights. NFER’s mission is to improve educational outcomes for future generations everywhere, by creating and sharing high-quality, independent evidence-based research to inform policymakers, practitioners, and other key decision-makers to support positive changes in education systems. NFER’s work includes conducting assessments, providing analysis, and producing publications that inform and influence educational practices and policies.
As a Global Learning Partner, NFER is examining how issues of gender equality and social inclusion are integrated into civil society advocacy for education, as well as facilitating action research and case study development into themes of inclusion and in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
United Kingdom & France
RTE is a global accountability initiative with a vision of ensuring that all people, regardless of their status and circumstances, enjoy their right to quality education. RTE empowers civil society actors and networks to carry out evidence-based research focusing on issues such as the right to free, quality education, education financing, and education for marginalized groups. The Right to Education Initiative monitors and reports on the progress towards fulfilling the right to education and provides tools and resources to support civil society advocacy efforts.
As a Global Learning Partner, RTE focuses on strengthening the understanding and use of human rights mechanisms and procedures in education advocacy and compiling and analyzing good practices in rights-based advocacy by civil society actors.
Twin Cities Campus, Minnesota, United States
UMN is one of the top public research universities in the United States, addressing some of the most complex challenges facing society today. UMN takes on high quality research across various fields aimed at addressing community problems and has a number of resources to support research activities and dissemination of knowledge, such as expertise from around the world, involving their vast network of graduate students. UMN is committed to a decolonial, relational and intersectional approach to gender equality and social inclusion in education, which are key thematics in the work of UMN.
As a Global Learning Partner, UMN is supporting selected Education Out Loud grantees to use a facilitated reflexive and multi-modal exchange (FRAME) approach to enhance evidence-based advocacy in various themes relating to gender equality and inclusion.
Accountability Research Center (ARC) American University, Washington DC, USA
ARC engages with a wide range of civil society thinkers, activists, practitioners, policy reformers, and academics working on accountability in many sectors and geographies, bridging research and frontline perspectives to learn from and inform strategies to improve public and corporate accountability. Through extensive dialogue with partners and collaborators, ARC co-designs exploratory research that is relevant for the strategies of partners and makes a contribution to international thinking about how change happens in the field of transparency, participation, and accountability.
As a Global Learning Partner, ARC carried out research into civil society’s influence on education policy, incl. the role of teachers’ unions and youth, and developed overview compilations of key research outputs on civil society’s role in education policy.
See more here about ARC’s work as a Global Learning Partner.
UNESCO-IIEP is the only United Nations entity dedicated to educational planning and management and supports countries in designing and implementing educational policies and plans to reach both national and international education goals efficiently and effectively. IIEP engages with civil society actors and empowers them with knowledge and tools to enable their advocacy for better funding and policies for quality education, and to hold governments accountable.
As a Global Learning Partner, IIEP engaged selected Education Out Loud grantees in online learning on topics of education policy development and planning, transparency and accountability in education, and the use of information technology to strengthen transparency and accountability in education.
See more here and here about IIEP’s work as a Global Learning Partner.
MDF Training and Consulting (MDF) & Australian Council for Education Research (ACER).
MDF & ACER, as a consortium, combines their complementary expertise in civil society capacity building and analysis and research to engage selected Education Out Loud grantees in a comprehensive learning process for organizational and network learning, with a focus on strengthening evidence-based advocacy and policy influencing.
As a Global Learning Partner, MDF & ACER worked with a selected number of Education Out Loud grantees and supported their skills building for conduction action research, reflection, and data development to support their advocacy efforts. Finding from the process have informed online courses available for civil society advocates.
See more here about MDF & ACER’s work as a Global Learning Partner, and the courses are available here.
Education Out Loud engages Regional Learning Partners with specific context-relevant knowledge and experience and language competences of grantees in each of the regions of Education Out Loud. Regional learning partners are identified and pre-qualified by the four respective Regional Management Units via a pre-qualification process in an open call for expression of interest (EOI).
Support from regional learning partners targets different types of needs or strategic priority areas as reflected in the Regional Learning Plans. Regional Learning Partners strengthen capacities of civil society actors/grantees by tailored support such as:
- Targeted capacity building
- Mentoring/coaching for grantees
- Facilitation of Learning Collaboratives
- Facilitation of experience exchange/peer learning
- Supporting learning in the organisations
- Supporting setting up adaptive management systems
- Distilling learning and documenting and sharing lessons learnt
Education Out Loud draws up a Term of Reference for the various learning efforts planned for and send out to two or three prequalified learning partners with the relevant expertise. If they are interested in the assignment, they will then submit a proposal with ideas, approach, methodologies, and budget. Education Out Loud intends to ensure relationship building and more profound knowledge of grantees’ capacities by using the same learning partner for the same group of grantees for a longer period. They can also be hired as mentors for a particular grantee after a joint training of a group of grantees.
Global Campaign for Education (GCE)
- Global Campaign for Education (GCE), as a movement for civil society engagement in the global education agenda, is in its own right a learning partner, with a strong mandate for supporting capacity and knowledge building of National Education Coalition, and conducting research and developing data to strengthen civil society advocacy and influencing.
- GCE’s E-learning Platform can be found here
- The facilitation of learning communities and provision of learning resources on the online Learning Hub are some examples of GCE’s learning initiatives. Education Out Loud and GCE work together to ensure that civil society organisations have access to skills and knowledge that will enable them to plan and execute advocacy efforts with maximum impact.