Project Type

Facts & Figures

GOALS

  • Enhancement of the African Education Research Database
  • Development of knowledge of strengths and gaps in the database to foster collaborative research programs
  • Dissemination and consultation to increase the visibility of the database and consultations for future sustainability of the database

Partners

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About the project

In cooperation with Education Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA), this project aims to provide access to global public goods supporting African research on education.

Challenge

African education research remains widely overlooked as an important contributor to evidence for policy and practice. Research is dominated by the Global North.

Solution

ESSA’s broader mission is to unite, inform, inspire and increase the impact for everyone investing in education in Africa. It is gathering a growing number of philanthropies and other donors to create an investment mechanism for the Tertiary Education (TE) space in the following areas:

  • Understanding and knowledge to action to fulfil SDG4
  • More impactful scholarships for socio-economic development
  • Faculty and TE staff recruitment, development, and retention

Through this project with TRECC, ESSA is supporting African education researchers to gain more visibility and accessibility, to better connect other evidence with investment decisions, and to support south-south and south-north cooperation.

Results to date

With the support of TRECC, ESSA has created, in cooperation with the REAL Centre at University of Cambridge, the first open-access database for Africa-based research on education: African Education Research Database (AERD). This database contains over 3,300 research documents and offers thematic and other search criteria.

In collaboration with the Association ivoirienne de recherche en éducation, a recently formed gathering of educational researchers in the country, ESSA has established a repertoire of available research on education in Côte d’Ivoire. The results of this work have been published and showcased to both national and international stakeholders.

Next Activities

  • Uniting African educational researchers into a community, drawing upon the results of the ESSA/Cambridge database
  • Positioning the AERD to further highlight the role of Africa-based researchers in education
  • Dissemination and consultation to increase the visibility of the AERD and to consider the future sustainability and impact of the database
  • Developing research partnerships to fill priorities and gaps in evidence needed to achieve SDG4 in the region
  • Set up webinars
  • Stakeholder meeting with funders, practitioners, and/or policymakers

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