Education: Opportunity through Learning. USAID Education Strategy, 2011-2015
Author: United States Agency for International Development
Date: 2011-02-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Educational Principles,Educational Strategies,Public Agencies,Technical Assistance,Foreign Policy,Federal Programs,Change Strategies,Educational Change,Access to Education,Program Evaluation,Cost Effectiveness,Reading Improvement,Labor Force Development,Disadvantaged Environment,International Programs

In late 2010, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah commissioned a new Agency-wide Education Strategy to ensure that USAID's global education investments would be informed by recent Presidential policy guidance; grounded in the most current evidence-based analysis of educational effectiveness; and aimed at maximizing the impact and sustainability of development results. This 2011-2015 Education Strategy was created to reflect these core principles. This Education Strategy is premised on the development hypothesis that education is both foundational to human development and critically linked to broad-based economic growth and democratic governance. Research has demonstrated that education raises individual incomes and, in an enabling environment, can contribute significantly to economic growth. Embracing the President's 2010 U.S. Global Development Policy principles, USAID will invest education resources strategically to achieve measurable and sustainable educational outcomes through enhanced selectivity, focus, country-led programming, division of labor and innovation. Additionally, critical priorities such as improved evaluation practices, gender integration and sustainability will undergird all of USAID's investments. As a result, USAID's future global education footprint is expected to evolve in shape and size, and to be more closely coordinated with partner governments, civil society, other donors and the private sector. Based on projected resource availability, and on the policy principles above, USAID will pursue three global education goals: (1) Improved "reading skills" for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015; (2) Improved ability of "tertiary and workforce development" programs to generate workforce skills relevant to a country's development goals; and (3) Increased equitable "access to education in crisis and conflict" environments for 15 million learners by 2015. This Education Strategy explains the rationale for selecting these goals; provides illustrative results, activities and measures of success; and links all of these in an illustrative results framework. Important crosscutting issues of concern are discussed, including youth programming, gender equality, marginalized populations and disabled learners, and integrating education with other development priorities. Finally, the strategy promises a "roadmap for implementation" that will provide more detailed guidance to field missions on how USAID will institutionalize its new policies, build a 21st century research agenda, explicitly seek more robust partnerships, and establish new norms and incentives for educational strategic planning and knowledge sharing. (Contains 31 endnotes.)