Education Quality and Learning for All (EQUAL)

The EQUAL Global Network was initiated in 2016, with funding support from the Ford Foundation, the Catalyst Foundation, NYU Steinhardt, and NYU Abu Dhabi. EQUAL’s objectives included 1) empowering governments and civil society organizations to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 - Quality Education (SDG 4) by using research to inform evidence-based practice and policy and 2) to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in research through the capacity building of early career researchers in LMICs. This focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion recognized that research has traditionally been concentrated in Western, industrialized nations and had been done by researchers from these contexts providing an often biased evidence base with little nuance of LMIC cultures, languages, and populations and their specific needs and challenges. Therefore, EQUAL aimed to increase the amount of evidence coming out of LMICs by researchers from these contexts – with an initial focus on MENA and SSA.

The EQUAL Global Network and its regional sections commissioned research on measurement and innovative solutions to advance:

• Education access

• Education quality

As well as advancing learning and development across:

• Early childhood

• Young adulthood

• Youth transitions

Activities pertained broadly to two general foci:

• Measuring learning, development, and quality in education programs at national scale.

• Identifying the most powerful program and policy solutions that leveraged research, particularly measurement of quality in education, to improve education systems and reduce inequality in learning.

The EQUAL model consisted of:

1. The provision of 18-month research seed grants following an RFP and review process where grantees were provided support in grant writing and research design.

2. A mentorship program for early career researchers (each grantee was considered as both mentee and mentor).

3. The development of multi-site research-practice partnership networks.

4. Continued engagement within regional networks. This engagement included in-person convenings as well as regular online meetings where grantees presented their research projects and findings, received feedback and support from Advisory Board Members*, mentors, the EQUAL Secretariat and other grantees.

5. Dissemination support – in 2021 and 2022 grantees were provided with the opportunity to produce policy and practice briefs to disseminate their findings. Grantees were provided with support including graphic design, copyediting, as well as feedback from members of both regional networks.