From quick wins to lasting change: Lessons on engaging with authorisers from CCLE 2025

In recent decades, Education Evidence Labs (or Ed Labs) have emerged as promising mechanisms to support governments with research, data use and evidence-informed policy design and implementation. But what does it take, in practice, to embed innovation and sustain the use of data and evidence in government systems? At the 5th Cross-Country Learning Exchange (CCLE) in Nairobi, we convened a panel discussion with government education leaders from Botswana, Tanzania, Pakistan and India to reflect on this question.

The panel, Engaging with Authorisers, Peers, and Key Stakeholders, was an open conversation with government officials on how they motivate teams, secure buy-in from senior leadership, and embed learning into institutional processes.

Panellists included:

• Bapoga Reetsang (Department of Basic Education, Botswana)
• Joel Mhoja (President’s Office for Regional Administration and Local Government, Tanzania)
• Fiaz Alam (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan)
• Akash Shankar (Chitradurga Zilla Panchayat, Government of Karnataka, India).

The panel was chaired by Swathi Attavar (What Works Hub for Global Education). Highlighting a common theme at CCLE on the non-linear path to scale and impact, Swathi invited panellists to reflect on their own experiences driving data and evidence use in government systems, as well as to share strategies that can sustain momentum for such work.

Building ownership through collaboration

The scaling journey of Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) from an innovative programme to a national priority in Botswana is anchored in close collaboration between the Department of Basic Education, regions, and partners like Youth Impact. In Bapoga Reetsang’s region, traction is being built through shared ownership and shared routines. To seed that ownership, the regional government set up a joint technical group bringing together government officers and partner organisations.

As Bapoga Reetsang (Principal Education Officer, Department of Basic Education) reflected: ‘Our goal was to sensitise everyone – school leaders, teachers, and parents – so that they all felt the programme belonged to them.” A shared slogan – ‘Together we can, every learner must succeed’ – helped reinforce this collective responsibility across schools, the regional education office, and Ministry headquarters.

Implementation was reinforced through practical coordination mechanisms. Rather than training every teacher at once, the region began by identifying ‘school teacher champions’ – competent teachers who could model the approach and motivate peers. Training was accompanied with structured follow-up: the technical team stayed in the field to support teachers on gaps they identified, and WhatsApp groups created during training enabled fast troubleshooting and escalation of red flags.

Crucially, TaRL was embedded into the regional strategic plan, and accountability was structured to start where implementation happens. Each school was encouraged to review its own results using the IIAA framework (Issues, Implications, Actions and Accountability) before findings were aggregated to the regional level. ‘Accountability starts first at the school and then moves upward,’ Bapoga noted. Teachers demonstrating strong implementation received appreciation letters and certificates, and high-performing schools were recognised publicly.

This region-level traction then became the foundation for broader scale-up. As learning outcomes improved and implementation routines stabilised, TaRL began to spread through peer-to-peer influence across government: regional leaders shared results with other regional directors, and expansion was guided by demand – focusing on regions that actively wanted to implement the approach.

‘When results improve,’ Bapoga recalled, ‘other regions start asking to implement the programme themselves.’ What began as a regionally embedded effort has now expanded across all ten regions of the country.

Aligning priorities and motivation

In Tanzania, aligning programmes with national priorities is at the heart of education policymaking. Joel Mhoja (National Coordinator, MEWAKA – Teacher Continuous Professional Development) reflected on the practical challenge of working across two ministries with distinct mandates: the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), which sets policy and standards, and the President’s Office for Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), which oversees implementation from pre-primary through secondary education.

‘For any project to succeed,’ Joel emphasised, ‘it must align with national priorities.’ For MEWAKA, that meant anchoring the programme in Tanzania’s Education Sector Development Plan and working through the full system, from national leadership to regional and district authorities, down to school heads and school committees, to validate needs, identify practical barriers, and ensure the programme fits existing procedures and routines.

But alignment alone doesn’t guarantee uptake. Joel noted that early implementation faced a familiar pattern: scepticism at the top, reluctance in the middle tier, and teachers taking cues from the system – especially when programmes are launched with no incentives for uptake. MEWAKA’s response has been to treat motivation as a design issue, not an afterthought: co-creating with leaders at each level so they become champions, adopt new practice and make the benefits of participation explicit.

One shift has been especially important. The government is increasingly linking participation in MEWAKA’s Communities of Learning to professional development and teacher appraisal, signalling that engagement is not ‘extra work for a project,’ but part of career progression. ‘We want teachers to start looking for MEWAKA,’ Joel explained, ‘instead of MEWAKA looking for them.’ Non-financial incentives such as recognition letters, opportunities to share results at regional reviews, and visibility through national celebrations reinforce the same message.

Underlying this, Joel pointed to a deeper institutionalisation challenge: governments are often cautious when external partners introduce new initiatives, because many programmes are perceived as temporary: ‘a donor project that will end.’ In this context, credibility comes from demonstrating that the programme is embedded in national priorities, works through government systems, and builds professional value that can last beyond external support.

Entry points for embedding evidence

Scaling evidence-based programmes involves a balance between generating evidence and embedding in government processes, to achieve impact. Reflecting on reforms in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Fiaz Alam (Additional Secretary for Reforms, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) shared how the Targeted Instruction Programme (TIP) moved from an externally led initiative to a government-owned reform.

Implemented with the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP), TIP reached around 2.5 million children and 7,000 teachers through an eight-week programme combining teacher training and classroom observation. The programme demonstrated substantial gains in foundational literacy and numeracy, around 30–40% improvement within 40 days, at a time when learning poverty remained high in the province.

‘This was the turning point,’ Fiaz reflected. ‘The evidence was credible; the outcomes were clear – and that made it possible to convince senior officials.’ Evidence was used to engage both administrative leadership and political authorisers, with findings presented through a steering committee to secure approval.

Embedding TIP required close engagement with government directorates, particularly teacher education and professional development, which reviewed and approved programme content. TIP has since been integrated into the province’s continuous professional development system, with scale-up underway from the initial districts to most of the province.

‘When evidence speaks for itself,’ Fiaz concluded, ‘it becomes the bridge between external innovation and internal reform.’

Patience and purpose to sustain change

Orienting government systems and officials to use data and evidence to shift their practice may take time, but this period can also be strategically used.  Akash Shankar (Chief Executive Officer, Chitradurga Zilla Panchayat, Karnataka), shared insights from this work of strengthening data and evidence use for implementation, feeding into plans to set up a district level Ed Lab.

‘In a country with so much data,’ he said, ‘the real question is: how are we using it?’ Over three months, Akash’s district administration, supported by teams from Youth Impact, J-PAL South Asia and the What Works Hub for Global Education, have initiated relevant data use projects such as a time-use survey with over 8,000 teachers. The results reveal that teachers spend nearly five hours a week on administrative work, the equivalent of 300 lost teaching periods per year.

The time-use survey is helping align district and mid-tier officials around a shared understanding of the challenges teachers face, particularly the heavy administrative load that reduce instructional time. This exercise is also building momentum for evidence-based problem-solving within the district.

In parallel, Akash’s team is working with technical partners to coordinate and strengthen implementation of the state’s evidence-based programmes, including Ganitha Ganaka, in Chitradurga district.  Over several months, his team is building regular habits of reviewing data, improving monitoring, and meeting to discuss progress in the district. Reflecting on this gradual approach prioritising function over form, Akash noted, ‘If you set up an institution without a clear role, it will not sustain. So, we started by using evidence and will later give it a name and structure of an Ed Lab.’ With clear timelines for a physical institutional set up, Akash articulated a clear vision to make the Ed Lab a self-sustained hub for research, technical coordination and evidence uptake at the district level.

Shared lessons

Rounding off the discussion with audience questions, the panel distilled further lessons on prioritising data and evidence use projects to build momentum within government teams; aligning data flows across various levels of government; and strategies for motivation and recognition. There were several cross-cutting insights and nuanced considerations that this discussion brought out. The two major themes underpinning panellists’ reflections on engagement strategies in government relate to purpose that is cultivated and shared among government officials, agencies and knowledge partners; and persistence to innovate, adapt and shift practices in government systems. These reflections offer important takeaways for Ed Labs, technical collaborators and stakeholders working to embed and institutionalise the use of data and evidence in governments.