The Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) takes a collaborative, action-oriented approach to building and mobilizing robust evidence to help strengthen education systems in GPE partner countries. Research is valuable for both policymakers and academic audiences at the community, national, regional, and global levels. Bringing Southern-led evidence to key global discussions is a core part of KIX' success. That’s why KIX was excited to participate in the Comparative and International Education Society’s conference, CIES 2023. KIX was represented by thirteen applied research projects and all four regional hubs presenting on diverse topics.
KIX-supported evidence shaped discussions on key themes across the KIX applied research portfolio, including improving educational equity and inclusion, strengthening data systems and data use, enhancing teacher professional development, and increasing the quality of early childhood education. KIX partners also drew on their experiences to present on core elements of KIX’ approach to strengthening education systems, including by exchanging lessons on how to effectively scale education innovations and by sharing knowledge on how to support the uptake and use of evidence in education policy and practice.
Below are just a few highlights of KIX in action at CIES 2023:
The KIX Africa 19 Hub had a booth that served as a gathering place for KIX grantees, partners, and the wider conference participants to come and learn about the work of KIX and strengthen connections.
Collaboration between researchers and decision makers is at the heart of KIX. KIX grantee the Taalim-Forum and its partners, including the Minister of Education in Kyrgyzstan, present insights into EdTech and distance education in Central Asia.
KIX partners from Burkina Faso, Senegal and Togo shared their experiences of how researchers and Ministry of Education Directors are working together to identify national education innovations worth recognizing, scaling and sharing.
KIX grantee UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti shares lessons on how co-creating education research with stakeholders strengthens capacity and promotes evidence use.
KIX grantee APHRC presents findings about longer term impacts of COVID-19 on learners and education systems in sub-Saharan Africa, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing vulnerable groups in emergency and recovery responses.
KIX partners SUMMA and World Readers shared their experiences of costing the TPD@Scale model in Honduras and Ghana. Costing supports efficient use of education budgets and helps Ministries of Education make evidence-informed decisions.
The KIX EAP Hub presented ‘The Uptake of Research Evidence in Kyrgyzstan and Moldova Policy and Planning Decisions’ as a part of NORRAG’s two-part panel ‘The rise of knowledge brokers: The translation of research evidence into policy and planning.’ This presentation demonstrated that regional hubs can be effective knowledge brokers by building relationships and networks that link decision-makers and researchers, by allowing the knowledge users to take the lead, and by working to better match the global supply with regional and national demand. A crucially important function of knowledge brokering is to promote knowledge equity, challenging the hierarchies of knowledge and knowers that exist within and around education.
