completed· Education

School leaders as agents of change towards equity and inclusion

Equity and inclusion in education are policy priorities, yet many girls and children with disabilities experience multiple barriers that exclude them from quality education. These barriers also hold countries back from reaching their human, economic, and political development goals. Barriers include family/community issues, concerns over safety of girls on their journey to school, and inadequate pedagogical practices to adapt teaching to the learning needs of different children. Strong leadership at school levels, supported by peers, has proven to be a promising response to address those challenges and barriers from the ground up in a sustainable and socially accepted manner. The project aims to develop, test, and scale a capacity-strengthening methodology known as Networked Improved Community (NIC) for school principals to become agents of change in their schools and school districts in Pakistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan. The project focuses on empowering and preparing school principals to identify barriers to equity and inclusion, enact data-driven solutions, and involve teachers and school communities to adapt pedagogy and improve access and learning of girls, children with disabilities, and other marginalized learners. The project will use mixed methods to co-create an open course, generate and collect data, produce evidence, and refine the approach to inform policy and practice in the three countries and the region at large. This project was selected through the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange’s call for proposals in Europe, Asia and the Pacific: Generating and mobilizing innovative knowledge for regional education challenges.