Real world, country/context-relevant, systems-focused�Monitoring, Measuring, Assessing & Improving (MMAI) �to Incrementally Transform �by achieving the SDGs, rebuilding after Covid, re-focusing on the social & custodial purposes/roles of schooling�and ensuring that several ministries work together within school systems in comprehensive, coordinated & sustained approaches, policies and programs

The deadly and confusing gaps about education promoting �health & well-being

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Doug McCall

International School Health Network�UNESCO Forum on Transformative Education

01 December 2021

With Daniel Laitsch, Simon Fraser University, Deepika Sharma, Nutrition Program UNICEF

Transform, Re-Imagine What? �� OR��Rebuild, Refocus School Systems

Monitor, Report, Evaluate/Assess, Improve (MREI) Practices, Principles & Pitfalls

MREI systems and activities should support self-directed, coherent, continuous improvement at all levels across several systems rather than impose external, arbitrary accountability on front-line professionals or schools on narrowly selected topics. MREI systems should gather, analyze and act on timely data/information in several formats (satisfaction surveys, focus groups, key informants, external & internal reports etc.) from a variety of sources and sectors on valid indicators describing/measuring/monitoring/assessing the context, processes/actions, outputs and their potential impact on long-term outcomes in the target populations, organizations or conditions.

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There are several MREI strategies that can lead to systemic improvements, including:

• commissioned reports in different formats and regular and annual updates,
• school award/accreditation programs
• periodic policy/program/practices surveys.
• In-depth analysis of policy, guidance, curriculum documents and secondary sources as well as ministry structures, coordination, funding streams/projects, budgets, informal processes & formal procedures and partnerships, can create and maintain portraits or profiles of ministries and agencies to reveal problems, successes and challenges/opportunities
• Self-assessment tools and school recognition/incentive programs may motivate small innovations but sustained improvements will come from data-driven, collaborative decision-making embedded within the established improvement planning procedures of ministries, agencies and schools such as school improvement planning and joint sector reviews.
• Administrative and survey data on the health status, personal and social development of children and adolescents such as behaviour surveys, incident/accident and other reports on the conditions in families, communities and schools

A better understanding of how MREI processes support systems change strategies is needed. A key question, largely left unanswered in the current research, is whether or which of these MREI strategies truly has an impact on policy, programs or organizational capacities/practices.

Measure What Matters, not what is easy to measure or measuring to make our program/research matter

Our work seeks to monitor, report, evaluate and improve three things that matter. The “why it matters” is widely accepted on inclusion & nutrition and deliberately ignored, poorly described and badly understood on health & well-being

1. inclusion & equity
2. school food & nutrition,
3. health & well-being (Health & Life Skills education)

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Health & Life Skills education, mandated by most countries in different formats, is the best vehicle to teach vaccine literacy, personal hygiene skills, how to find, verify reliable health information - especially online, how to use protective equipment or safety precautions, how to seek help when distressed, reducing stigma about seeking help and being fundamentally concerned about the health of others rather than viewing health only as a personal possession or responsibility.

Covid 19, likely the biggest disruption ever to schooling world-wide, has revealed the deadly gap in the education delivered to thousands of students . Tragically, thousands of additional lives have been lost during the Covid because of our failure to monitor, report, assess and improve this core part of a whole child approach to education that requires a wide breadth of learning opportunities for all students.

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The gaps within the gap

Health & Life Skills education has been poorly researched, practiced, assessed & monitored as well as deliberately ignored by SDG monitoring of Target 4.7 (p.13) and badly misunderstood by the Futures of Education Commission (p.68). Ironically, we have to raise this urgent concern here in Korea, where the 2015 Incheon Declaration specifically included health and life skills as part of the goals for student learning leading up to 2030.

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The neglect, competition and confusion about H&LS, health & well-being (education for HPSD) includes

• Most of the scarce funding, research and attention has been focused on specific health & social problems (body-parts & behaviours) rather than generic, essential KAS
• Physical education, family studies/home economics, health education and personal-social development compete for instructional time, curricular structures and educator attention
• Extended education is used as a substitute for classroom instruction or as ad-hoc, disparate activities instead of long-term, developmental programs.
• Researchers & practitioners are still struggling to clarify and measure student learning in life skills, social & emotional learning, health literacy, resilience and other learning-behaviour models (LBMs).
• The alignment and coordination with other LBMs associated with the social role of schooling such as global citizenship and sustainable development consists of each LBM sprinkling its content across several subject
• Cultural or world views underpinning H&LS education vary significantly
• This confusion resides in most education systems which over-emphasize, value and reward the intellectual, vocational and accreditation functions of schooling

Health & Life Skills education is a pillar/common infrastructure or key part of several multi-component approaches and multi-intervention programs promoted and implemented simultaneously by several sectors and UN agencies. For H&LS education to be effective, the MCAs and MIPs must see H&LS as part of their framework. As well, the other pillars (policy, student services, physical environment and psycho-social support) need to be coordinated and the MCAs and MIPs need to be aligned, contextualized, implemented, coordinated, sustained, integrated within school systems, scaled up by incremental systems change.

Seeking Coherence

in a

Crowded Landscape

FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion �https://www.fresh-partners.org/wg-on-health-literacy-life-skills-social-inclusion.html

Over 60 researchers, practitioners and officials worked (See Activities Report) on papers and web meetings to build the foundations of the survey and document analysis:

• Scoping document on health & well-being (Health, Personal & Social Development
• Papers review/clarify Health Literacy, Life Skills/SEL & Social Inclusion
• Papers/working hypotheses for Behaviour Theories, Curriculum Coherence (Cross-Curricular Competency Frameworks, Instruction Time/Curriculum Design) & Extended Education (extra-curricular, school routines, community-based, online) & Workforce Development (Teachers & Other Professionals) & an Application to Preventing Violent Extremism/Youth Alienation-Isolation
• Draft & Final instruments for survey & document analysis (Fact-finding Survey, document Search Strategy, Document Analysis Plan, protype Jurisdiction Collection, prototype Jurisdiction Profile)

Other FRESH Partner discussions (previous and on-going) have examined inclusion, exclusion in Low Resource Countries, and several frameworks to prevent exclusion (learning disabilities, school meals/nutrition, WASH, bullying, etc. (Join the Inclusion Working Group

Health & Life skills education is one of several programs & practices promoting health & well-being (Health, Personal & Social Development) which are part of the socialization & care/custodial roles of schooling. It includes curricula/ classroom instruction as well as extended education in extra-curricular and co-curricula activities, school rules, routines & rituals, on-line and family, community-based programs.

The Survey & Document Analysis

Rather than a narrow focus on one aspect of the whole child or one program, the facts about several approaches and programs will be reported (with one issue (nutrition) examined in detail to illustrate how specific interventions need to be coordinated).

The Fact-Finding Survey will report on the status, structures, procedures and capacities of the multi-component approaches and multi-intervention programs that promote health and well-being. Health & Life Skills education will be examined with a view to enabling on-going monitoring with the SDGs. Separate tabulations on low, middle, high resource and conflict/disaster affected countries will be prepared.

The Document Analysis will collect policies, guidance, curriculum documents and more from the education ministries and other ministries where relevant. The initial collection of documents will be made available to all countries, practitioners and independent researchers through the UNESCO Resource Centre. Initial profiles of each country, state and province will be prepared and sent to respondents & correspondents.

Follow-up Actions to Fill the Gaps/Improve Systems using the Study

As well as various dissemination activities, there are three planned initiatives that will use the information from this study to improve policies, programs and practices:

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1. An International Research Network, established by the World Education Research Association, will continue its work in defining and acting on a Research/Knowledge Development agenda on Health & Life Skills education. Next event is at the American Education Research Association (AERA) April 21-26, 2022 in San Diego, California
2. Several activities & resources on School Food & Nutrition using a Community of Practice strategy will be aligned with larger initiatives being led by UNICEF, WFP and other global organizations.
3. A “profiles and pathways” initiative, complementing the work already done by UNESCO on inclusion policies, will create collections of documents for each country that can be used for many different analyses based on the inclusion strategies using the approaches and programs identified in the study. Please see our prototype collection of documents for one jurisdiction (Manitoba-Canada) and the draft Manitoba profile which we are creating as an example

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Thank you for your interest. For more information, contact:

dmccall@internationalschoolhealth.org

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Or visit the project web site at:

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https://www.fresh-partners.org/fact-finding-survey-policycurriculum-analysis.html

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