1. South Asia: quality education = a human right
All countries perceive education as a basic human right and all are concerned about the lack of quality teaching and learning. Poor learning outcomes at the end of the primary cycle may increase functional illiteracy & poor learning at public schools also creates new disparities between the those who can pay for education and those who cannot : private schools / investment in private tuition (poor are left with poor education)

2. Implications of defining quality education as a right
Purpose of education & quality definition = translating the Convention on the rights of the Child (CRC) into quality education.
Free and compulsory (Art. 28)
There is no quality without equality and equality without quality is not worth having.
Inclusive (Art. 2), relevant (Art. 29), interactive (Art. 12), protective (Art. 19), etc.
Transformative: building a just & democratic society
Decentralized, disaggregated quality data analysis
Flexibility and standards
Quality often expressed in academic excellence. Rights-based quality maybe more elusive than what can be measured on tests and exams.
Defining education as a right includes values, attitudes (learning to know, to be, to do, to live together)
Art. 29 The purpose is to develop children’s personality and talents, to prepare them for active adult life, to foster respect for basic human rights and a respect for the child’s own culture and those of others, and life in a free, peaceful and tolerant society.
Focus must be on what happens in classrooms; how to operationalize the parameters of quality. Diversity enriches. Child not problem but rigid system is! How do teachers interact with different students? Is the content relevant? From whose perspective?
National PTR statistics not meaningful when focusing on quality and equality. Disparities within countries and groups of learners
Standard curriculum, textbooks, methods, assessment…..

3. EFA Goal 6
Improving all aspects of the quality of education, and ensuring excellence of all so that recognised and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.
Improve overall quality and targeted intervention for disadvantaged learners
Life skills: only secondary? Should primary school children not also need to learn how to respect diversity, cooperate, non-violent conflict resolution, gender, health, nutrition, respect/protection of the environment?

4. MDA reports - improve quality of education by:
Decreasing repetition, dropout, pupil-teacher ratio (PTR)
Increasing teacher student contact hours, completion- & survival rates
Decentralization
Developing new curricula; TL materials
Training more [female] teachers
Improving teacher training/education; supervision; professional support
Inclusive education; MLE
Improving infrastructure
Establishing competencies & standards
Increasing education budget
MLE in itself will not improve the quality of learning
Female teachers: lower entry qualifications; lower status/pay; lower primary grades
Decentralization: community-school partnership
Some countries no repetition rates – automatic promotion (which implies that there must be more formative assessment to monitor progress/respond to needs)
Are TL materials encouraging children to think critically / make learning transformative (learning about water & learning about (equality/fairness issues) access to water of different groups of children….

5. Remaining issues
Teacher selection: training - education; certification - aptitude; motivation & morale
Theoretical training - school realities: class size; multi-grade; overloaded curriculum; too much content; no time for participatory methods
Subject knowledge/pedagogical skills of teachers (including diversity responsive techniques)
Teacher conditions; salaries; temporary teachers/para teachers
Teacher standards; lack of reflective practitioners
Supervision - professional support
Female teacher quota / teachers from minority groups
Primary teaching undervalued
Training: not able to teach without textbooks or teacher manuals (recipe books)
Teachers teach the way they have been taught rather than the way they have been taught to teach….if teachers are to become reflective practitioners and users of active teaching-learning methods they must participate in professional development programs that advocate and use these same models.
Inclusion as an asset to education (beneficial to all) – multi ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, multi-ability
Lower grades highest repetition rates; poor quality teachers at lower levels (poor foundation)

6. Remaining issues (contd.)
Pedagogical processes unchanged: teaching curriculum needs to change to teaching children / more cooperative learning & less coercive discipline
Exam driven / competition
Content, methodology, assessment = not transformative
Language & multi-cultural relevance
Lack of problem solving and analytical skills
Little focus on social, emotional learning
Attitudes and values may be taught but are not practiced
Lack of data on quality education
Poor data collection, monitoring and reporting, to identify problems, monitor progress and find effects of initiatives. National figures mask regional/local disparities in all countries
What are reasons for dropouts? Have asked them?
Whether children stay in school and learn depends on what happens in classrooms. This where all inputs come together and interact. Understanding what is happening in schools and classrooms is a necessary precondition for addressing quality and developing effective quality improvement strategies.

7. Equal learning opportunities?
You are all equal
and to also
treat you equally
I have decided to
give you all the
same task ,

8. You have to climb the tree!
The role of education as a vehicle for overcoming marginalisation and social exclusion must be reinforced. Societies must change to bring about social justice and education plays a critical and enabling role in such a process. ,

9. Areas for policy action
Effective distribution of teaching-learning resources
Focus on processes of teaching and learning and how these impact on the outcomes for different groups of learners and can raise achievement of all.
Move from ‘one size fits all’ to inclusive, differentiated approaches & make inclusion an integral part of mainstream education policy & implementation.
Develop capacity to effectively monitor learner achievement and progress (e.g. formative assessment).
Need for joined up approach across sub-sectors (ECD/pre-primary – primary/basic education – secondary education) and sectors (e.g. health/education)
More difficult to change teachers and teaching, which will have more impact
Classroom practices: extra attention for disadvantaged groups (who may drop out if what is provided is of no relevance; discriminatory; etc. e.g. ethnic minorities; poor children; rural; etc. girls in such groups extra vulnerable.
Achievement oriented systems must still be flexible to difference and diversity of learners and learning achievement (can be different for different learners and still be meaningful)

10. Areas for policy action (Contd.)
Trainee selection (aptitude / motivation); recruitment & retention of qualified teachers (conditions; salaries; career options).
For teachers to become agents of change provide on-going professional support towards reflective practice.
Increase relevance of curricula and assessment frameworks (transformative content / methodology & formative assessment)
Develop effective practice in teaching in the learners’ first language at least at lower primary level.
Develop policies that protect children from harassment, abuse and other forms of violence, including gender based violence, bullying, physical / mental punishment.
Teachers need to have adequate content knowledge, however, having adequate content knowledge does not automatically make a good/effective teachers. Professional knowledge/skills (pedagogy; didactics) are as important, especially when focusing on equality in quality and supporting effective learning for all.
Teacher education needs to focus on how teachers can create learning environments where the participation and contribution of all students is sought and valued, where all girls and boys can feel secure, where stereotypical views are challenged and where children learn to appreciate diversity.
Or in other words… the human factor in educational change needs more policy attention….. THANK YOU