POLICY AND PRACTICE
Through our work and active engagement with partners, we aim to help build a community of practice that brings together various stakeholders in the education system and enables connections between researchers, policymakers, and private-sector practitioners. The aim is to develop the education research infrastructure in Pakistan and catalyze the research-to-policy process. We also engage actively with government, particularly within the provinces of Punjab, KP, and the Islamabad Capital Territory.
Read About Our On-the-Ground Policy Work
LUMS Graduate School of Education
Image: Lahore University of Management Sciences
We are actively supporting the establishment of the new graduate School of Education (SoE) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). LEAPS PI Dr. Tahir Andrabi was the Inaugural Dean of SoE and served at the school from 2017 to 2020. SoE aims to produce graduates who will be ready to become strategic leaders, policy researchers and reflective practitioners, helping to shape a reimagined and vibrant education ecosystem in Pakistan.
Policy Round Tables with Key Stakeholders
Image: Evidence for Policy Design
The LEAPS team has held a series of policy round tables with researchers, policymakers, educators, school owners, teachers, and parents, to understand the most pressing issues within the education system and discuss solutions. The majority of such dialogues over the last year have been about the response to COVID-19 related school closures and how to mitigate learning losses.
Post-COVID Government Engagement in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Image: U.S. Agency for International Development
Several years of active engagement by the LEAPS team on the ground in Pakistan has allowed us to become embedded within policy circles. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, we worked with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Government to shape their education response to the pandemic, including a large Targeted Instruction Program with a built-in RCT focused on foundational learning in 1200+ public primary schools.
Post-COVID Government Engagement in the Islamabad Capital Territory
Image: U.S. Agency for International Development
The LEAPS Team has been extensively engaging with the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training to deliberate upon strategies for addressing learning losses, exacerbated by school closures. With student mastery of foundational skills at the forefront of this policy issue, we collaborated with various stakeholders to design a teacher-led, technology-enabled Targeted Instruction Program that will soon be implemented in approximately 250 public primary schools of Islamabad Capital Territory, and another 250 non-formal public schools, as well as in areas of KP province (see engagement in KP above). Curricular, assessment and training tools for the program have been approved for use in public schools by concerned education authorities. This partnership at the federal level provided a compelling opportunity for making a high impact through research-driven programs across the country.