Education policies and strategies
Education is a complex system with many interconnected subsystems and stakeholders. Any decision taken on one component at one level of education brings change to other components and subsystems. This interconnectedness requires policy and decision-makers to ensure that coherent and consistent education policy and strategic frameworks are in place from a sector and system perspective. Emerging challenges such as rapid digitalization, increasing inequality and disruptions caused by climate change, pandemics and conflicts, demand that countries develop resilient and sustainable policies and strategies on which to build efficient, relevant and transformative education systems.
What you need to know about education policies and strategies
Education is one of the largest public sectors often taking up 15-20% of a government's total budget and employing many teachers as civil servants. All education sub-sectors (from early childhood to higher education and beyond) as well as different elements of education (e.g. teachers, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment) must work in sync to support a learner’s lifelong and life-wide learning, as well as their successful social and economic integration. Therefore, education ministries need to define coherently and systemically what the system should achieve, the policy priorities and strategies to deploy to implement that vision and development options and actions that are executable, measurable and accountable. In countries with several ministries in charge of the education and training sector, developing sector-wide education policies and programmes can help overcome incoherence and the development of different plans in isolation that can often contradict one another.
Supporting countries to build and improve their education systems to meet the needs of a changing world is at the core of UNESCO’s work. At the global level, UNESCO develops and advocates for public goods to enable strategic policy-making. These include SimuED, an education sector simulation model that can help countries to develop forward-looking yet feasible education policies and strategies.
UNESCO helps governments to strengthen legal and policy frameworks in relation to education systems as well as improving management efficiency and accountability, financing, data collection and analysis and learning assessment, all with the targets of the 2030 Agenda in view. This is part of UNESCO's rights-based approach to education with States having the main responsibility to respect, protect and fulfil the right to quality education for all throughout life and is carried out through education policy reviews and other technical and capacity development support.
UNESCO also emphasizes the importance of happiness in education as the foundation for better learning. Its Happy Schools Project aims to improve learning experiences by focusing on well-being, engagement, a sense of belonging at school, and helps foster a lifelong love of learning. The project targets the happiness of the school rather than individual students because schools are sites of holistic, sustainable community development that include teachers, parents, staff and school leaders. Faced with many crises and challenges, schools around the world are struggling to determine how to support teachers, learners, and communities while also prioritizing supplemental learning. The project emphasizes that schools can be powerful places to combat the negativity that stunts learning, both cognitive and non-cognitive.
Upon request from countries, UNESCO undertakes activities according to the country’s needs which may start with an education policy review or supporting the development of education sector policies and plans. It also promotes policy dialogue and debate based on evidence and insights drawn from analytical work and research. Working mainly through its institutes such as its International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) , UNESCO helps to build national capacities on developing and implementing education policies to realize the country’s education and national development visions.
Strengthening the resilience, quality and equity of education systems
A framework to support governments to position school happiness as a key target
through UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning
was allocated to education and training during the pandemic
spend below international benchmarks for public education spending
achieved international target of allocating 0.7% of GNI to official development assistance
highlighted the need to support psycho-social and mental well-being of students and teachers
Education policy working papers
This series documents experiences of countries in the area of education policy development and system strengthening.
Planipolis, by UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning
Planipolis is a portal of national education plans and policies, key education frameworks and monitoring report. It provides a single entry to official education resources for national policy makers, donors and partners.
Have you met Malia? She explains why educational planning is the backbone of stronger, more resilient, and quality-focused education systems. Educational planning is also a key to her attaining all of her dreams and aspirations.
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Monitoring SDG 4: education finance
Resources from UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report.
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Supporting Educational Planning
Education and training planning is at the heart of IIEP-UNESCO's mandate. Within this framework, IIEP-UNESCO Dakar supports the countries of the continent to prepare and update education sector plans.
- A strategic and participatory approach to planning.
- Statistical and financial projection tools to help decision making.
- Technical cooperation conducted with a focus on strengthening the capabilities of ministries of education and their staff.
Education sector plan
As a key national policy instrument in the African context, the sector plan reflects the development perspectives of a country's education and training system, in the medium to long term. It sets out strategies that aim to meet political objectives, international commitments and challenges identified in the sector analysis . It is accompanied by a financial framework note and a medium-term operational plan.
Our approach
Defining a shared vision for education in the long term and transforming it into an operational plan.
In collaboration with experts from our main office in Paris, IIEP-UNESCO Dakar supports African countries at all stages of the planning process to:
- Define and prioritise educational strategies and policies, usually within a five- or ten-year time frame
- Translates policies into programmes, taking into account the human, financial and technical capacities of the country
- Estimate and quantify the resources required, according to different scenarios and hypotheses
- Establish a budgeted action plan, backed by a monitoring and evaluation system
The preparation of the operational action plan and the education policy budget options focus either on a priority education sub-sector (pre-school, primary, secondary, TVET, higher education, etc.) or on a specific issue in the education system (access, quality, governance, etc).
Find our latest education sector plans by country on the Planipolis platform
What sets us apart?
Guided by the values and goals of the United Nations, IIEP-UNESCO takes a collaborative approach to planning to construct a shared vision for education within the country. Our technical support approach is based on the organisation of workshops and consultations, both at the central level and in the territories. The active participation of a national, multidisciplinary, and multi-sectoral team is therefore required at all stages of the preparation or revision of the plan.
Our objective: to strengthen the capabilities and autonomy of ministries of education and their staff to reduce their dependence on external service providers.
“IIEP-UNESCO experts accompanied the national technical team in the development of Guinea's ten-year education programme, but they never imposed their choices on us. This is the originality of the approach. The strategic choices were always proposed to the decision-makers by the national technical team."
The financial simulation model
A key tool for formulating educational strategies.
Our economists and educational planning specialists use a range of tools and methods to help governments develop credible and robust plans.
Among them, the financial simulation model is essential to evaluate the cost of the strategies laid out in the sector plan and to anticipate the future. This projection tool makes it possible to translate the objectives into quantifiable medium and long-term scenarios. Such a simulation makes it possible, for example, to estimate the number of teachers to be recruited over the next ten years, or the number of classrooms to be built in relation to the evolution of the school-aged population by region. Different hypotheses can then be established to decide on the best policy options, i.e., those that are financially, socially, and materially sustainable. The trade-offs resulting from this simulation phase are consolidated in a framework note submitted to the beneficiary country.
See our guides for strategic planning in education
- Guidelines for education sector plan preparation
- Guidelines for transitional education plan preparation
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COMMENTS
A strategic plan in the education sector is the physical product of the strategic planning process and embodies the guiding orientations on how to run an education system within a larger national development perspective, which is evolving by nature and often involves constraints.4 II. The Strategic Management Cycle II.1.
And what importance do educational planning and management have in today's world? This broader vision of Education 2030 looks at the education system as a whole, covering all levels of education, as well as formal and non-formal delivery mechanisms. ... it also serves UNESCO-wide strategic alignment and inter-agency complementarity within the ...
Strategic planning guides educational development by giving a common vision and shared priorities. Educational planning is both visionary and pragmatic, engaging a wide range of actors in defining education's future and mobilizing resources to reach its goals. For policy-makers, planning offers the path to: provide quality education for all.
To make progress in education, countries must have a clear vision of their priorities and how to achieve them. Many ministries therefore prepare strategic plans, which reflect this vision and help mobilize people and resources. Planning in most countries is influenced by local history, organization of the state, and available resources, as well as specific challenges such as natural disasters ...
two-month residential training, the Education Sector Planning course provides participants with the fundamentals of educational planning: from education sector diagnosis to the preparation and monitoring of plan implementation. Course work includes educa-tion statistics for planning and management, and positions sector
UNESCO's mission statement for the period 2022-2029 is designed to facilitate international cooperation and collaboration, harnessing the Organization's unique comparative advantage to address the challenges and seize the opportunities facing the world today. 9. UNESCO's functions for the period covered by the Medium-Term Strategy (2022 ...
The objective of Working Paper 3, Strategic Planning: Techniques and methods, is to provide practical guidance about the methodological and technical aspects related to the formulation of education sector strategic plans. With concrete examples from existing sector plans, and numerous references and links to further reading, it highlights the ...
It uses regular monitoring and evaluation to improve strategic plans: The strength of an education sector analysis, and of the resulting strategic plan, is highly dependent on the quality of the data used. Thus, one key element of strategic planning is improving the monitoring and evaluation system that collects fundamental educational data, as ...
Education policies and strategies. Towards future-ready education systems. Education is a complex system with many interconnected subsystems and stakeholders. Any decision taken on one component at one level of education brings change to other components and subsystems. This interconnectedness requires policy and decision-makers to ensure that ...
specific plan of action to overc ome organizational issues. Thus, this systematic re view explored the. various literature on s trategic planning in education through th e PRISMA framework ...
An effective strategic plan is guided by an overall vision, which may be reflected in a mission statement. It identifies the strategies that have to be implemented to achieve the vision, and when doing so, it takes into account human, technical and financial capacities. The plan sets priorities, realizing that all goals cannot be reached at once.
The new agenda, with ten targets, is bold and ambitious. It calls for all countries to guarantee inclusive, quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all children and youth by 2030. As a capacity development institute specializing in educational planning, IIEP is preparing itself to ensure it provides Member States the kinds of ...
The national education system in Myanmar requires a major transformation in the coming years to meet the growing expectations and aspirations of our students, youth, parents and citizens. To this end, the Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar has developed and launched the National Education Strategic Plan
4.2 Purpose of the Education Strategic Plan, 2021-2025.....53 4.3 Strategic Priorities of the Education Strategic Plan, 2021-2025 .....55 4.3.1 Strategic Priority 1. Improved Schools [ Infrastructure to ontribute to Improved Access ... the Global Partnership for Education, UNESCO and UNICEF. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary
Volume 2 contains outcomes and activities for each of the six ESP focal areas and the broad policy goals outlined in Volume 1: Basic Education. Full inclusion of kindergarten schools within BE; BE available to all regardless of sex and disadvantage; Pupil welfare, Value for money within the subsector.
In this context, this UNESCO Strategy for Youth and Adult Literacy (2020-2025) was developed to guide UNESCO action in support of national efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 4.6 on all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, achieving literacy and numeracy by 2030, as well as other SDG targets.
Education Strategic Plan, Volume 1 4 Foreword The Education Strategic Plan (ESP) is an important component in the preferred approach of the Ministry of Education to development - a whole sector, or sector wide approach with responsibility for sector planning resting with government, supported by partnerships with the home, schools and local and
The 'Education Sector Planning Working Papers' series is based on nearly five decades of experience, gathered from numerous country partnerships. Working Paper 2, Strategic Planning: Organizational arrangements, provides guidelines for the preparation process of an education sector strategic plan. It outlines the need for such plans, and the ...
Defining a shared vision for education in the long term and transforming it into an operational plan. In collaboration with experts from our main office in Paris, IIEP-UNESCO Dakar supports African countries at all stages of the planning process to: Define and prioritise educational strategies and policies, usually within a five- or ten-year ...
A strategic plan in the education sector is the physical product of the strategic planning process and embodies the guiding orientations on how to manage an education system within a larger national development perspective, which is evolving by nature and often involves constraints. 3. Three Stages of Strategic Planning.