BE² August News: September Social Gathering in Oxford

• The Africa Teachers Webinar Series session, “Accelerated Learning Programs for Children Out of School” will take place on 20 August 2026 at 3:00pm EAT (GMT+3). Organized by UNESCO IICBA, the webinar will explore approaches to expanding educational opportunities for out-of-school children as part of the series on improving educational opportunities for vulnerable groups. Register here.
• The Jacobs Foundation and CIFAR marked ten years of the Jacobs Research Fellowship with an all-cohorts meeting held from 23 – 25 June 2026 in Versailles, France. The gathering brought together researchers across child development and learning to exchange ideas on interdisciplinary collaboration, research careers, learning variability, and strengthening the links between evidence, policy, and practice. Read more here.
• The PISA 2025 results will be launched by OECD in a global webinar on 8 September 2026, presenting findings from more than 760,000 15-year-old students across 91 countries and economies. The report will cover science, mathematics and reading, alongside learner attitudes such as curiosity, perseverance and agency, and provide new evidence on how students use AI for schoolwork. The webinar will feature OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann and Director of Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher, followed by a Q&A. Details here.
• The 2026 GEM Report on access and equity will have its Eastern Africa regional launch on 27 August 2026 during the 2nd EAC Conference on Education in Nairobi, Kenya. The hybrid session will examine progress in expanding education access and reducing disparities across East Africa over the past 15-20 years, while highlighting persistent challenges such as out-of-school populations and unequal resource distribution. Drawing on data, country experiences and SDG 4 benchmarks, the session will explore evidence-informed policies, governance reforms and financing strategies and promote regional learning and cooperation. Details here.
• The What Works Hub for Global Education Biennial Conference will take place on 15 – 16 September 2026 at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford, UK. Bringing together over 200 decision-makers across government, donors, research, and civil society, the conference will provide a platform to exchange research, policy, and practice on improving foundational learning globally. Confirmed applicants have been notified.

Blogs:

• Behind the Advocacy: Seeing a Problem, Choosing to Act – This Global Partnership for Education blog shares the experiences of youth leaders Tường Minh Trần in Viet Nam and Lauritta Boniface in Nigeria, highlighting how lived experience can drive advocacy for more inclusive and resilient education. Their stories show how youth leadership, collaboration and persistence can help address barriers facing deaf students, advance climate education and turn local challenges into wider change.
• How Social and Emotional Learning Can Improve Resilience and Wellbeing for Students in the Middle East – This Porticus story highlights how social and emotional learning can support students and teachers in education systems affected by conflict, displacement and economic pressures. Focusing on Lebanon, it explores how locally led partnerships are working to integrate SEL into education systems to strengthen wellbeing, inclusion and resilience while moving from short-term responses towards sustainable, system-wide change.
• Impact First. Scale Second. – This Hempel Foundation blog explores how effective education solutions can achieve lasting impact at scale. It highlights the importance of generating evidence, translating insights into policy, building government commitment, and integrating proven approaches into public education systems to improve learning outcomes sustainably.
• Investing in Education Is Investing in Democracy and Peace – This Enabel article highlights the vital role of education in strengthening stability, resilience and peace amid growing conflict and instability worldwide. It emphasizes the need to protect learning during crises, sustain investment despite declining resources, strengthen international collaboration, and ensure young people have a meaningful voice in shaping education solutions.
• Teaching Kids in Their National Languages Is Transforming Classrooms in Senegal – This Gates Foundation story highlights how Senegal’s bilingual education model is improving foundational learning by teaching children in both national languages and French. It shows how evidence from early pilots helped shape national policy, with bilingual instruction strengthening literacy, classroom participation and confidence while demonstrating the potential for effective approaches to scale through government education systems.
• Three Numbers Every Education Leader Should Use – This Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) blog highlights three key measures for understanding education financing: spending as a share of GDP, education’s share of the public budget, and investment per child. It argues that considering all three together can help governments make smarter financing decisions, while emphasizing that improving education outcomes requires both greater investment and more efficient use of existing resources.
• Why Context Matters: Designing a Pedagogy of Care Professional Development Course for Afghan and Pakistani Refugee Educators – This INEE blog explores how teacher professional development can better support educators working in refugee settings. Drawing on research with Afghan and Pakistani teachers, it highlights how lived experiences, cultural context, teacher well-being and uncertainty shaped the design of a more locally relevant pedagogy of care course focused on inclusion, relationships and student well-being.

Other Resources:

• Developing Vocational Education and Training with Artificial Intelligence – This OECD report explores how AI can help vocational education and training systems respond more effectively to changing labour market and skills needs. Drawing on evidence from 25 countries, it highlights opportunities to use AI for skills analysis, curriculum and qualification development, while emphasizing human oversight, inclusive participation, transparency, data quality and strong governance.
• Education and Justice: Learning to Build Just Societies – This Global Education Monitoring report explores the links between education and justice, highlighting how education can strengthen peace, legal empowerment, civic participation and trust in institutions. It examines how curricula, teacher training, legal education and formal and non-formal learning can help people understand their rights, address injustice and contribute to more inclusive, peaceful and just societies.
• Hempel Foundation Annual Report 2025 – The Hempel Foundation’s 2025 Annual Report highlights progress across its philanthropic priorities, including efforts to improve foundational learning in low-income countries. In 2025, the Foundation helped more than 600,000 children access quality education, launched a new partnership to tackle learning poverty in Madagascar, and supported initiatives strengthening government action and evidence use to improve foundational learning at scale.
• The Measurement of Educational Inequality: Achievement and Opportunity – This World Bank working paper examines inequalities in educational achievement and opportunity across 57 countries using PISA data. It finds that circumstances beyond students’ control can account for up to 35% of differences in achievement and highlights links between educational inequality, public spending priorities and practices such as secondary school tracking.