active· Education

Data Must Speak to strengthen education capacity and advance local evidence use (DMS SCALE)

Inadequate use of education data in policymaking hampers progress in improving learning outcomes and promoting equity. More research is necessary to understand data use and how to bridge the data-implementation gap, especially at the local level. This project adapts and further scales a successful initiative, Data Must Speak (DMS), that integrates data sets to identify districts and schools that outperform others and then investigates how to scale the factors that led to those successes. This project seeks to strengthen the capacities of central policymakers and local officials in understanding the value of their data for designing, implementing and monitoring policies. It aims to increase the sustainability of the approach by developing practical tools to also address future policy questions. DMS SCALE incorporates impact evaluations to further understand and generate evidence on the benefits of knowledge co-production and dissemination at both central and local levels. By documenting critical success factors in its four partner countries — Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Nepal— the project promotes and facilitates future scaling in different contexts. This project is funded under the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX), a joint endeavour between the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and IDRC to connect expertise, innovation and knowledge to help low- and middle-income countries build stronger and more inclusive education systems and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goal of education for all.