education topic is

How do we reinvent education? These TED Talks explore the latest thinking — from teachers, parents, kids — on how to build a better school.

Video playlists about Education

The Butterfly Effect: Talks from the TEDinArabic Summit

A love letter to science

The pursuit of curiosity and understanding

The most popular TED Talks in Hindi

Talks about education.

What Earth in 2050 could look like

The Greek myth of Demeter's revenge

The underground cities of the Byzantine Empire

What causes addiction, and why is it so hard to treat?

The miracle of organ donation — and a breakthrough for the future

Why was the Rosetta Stone so important?

One of the world’s oldest condiments

When is anger justified? A philosophical inquiry

How humanity got hooked on coffee

Will the real Fernando please stand up?

The billion-dollar problem in education

Can you solve the magical maze riddle?

The warrior who defeated the mighty Mughals

When ancient wisdom beats modern industry

Why can't you put metal in a microwave?

The god who wanted to rule the seas

Exclusive articles about education, even gritty people get discouraged, here’s one way to make solar energy more affordable and accessible: share it with your neighbors, how to raise emotionally intelligent kids.

• Our Mission

The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2021

From reframing our notion of “good” schools to mining the magic of expert teachers, here’s a curated list of must-read research from 2021.

It was a year of unprecedented hardship for teachers and school leaders. We pored through hundreds of studies to see if we could follow the trail of exactly what happened: The research revealed a complex portrait of a grueling year during which persistent issues of burnout and mental and physical health impacted millions of educators. Meanwhile, many of the old debates continued: Does paper beat digital? Is project-based learning as effective as direct instruction? How do you define what a “good” school is?

Other studies grabbed our attention, and in a few cases, made headlines. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Columbia University turned artificial intelligence loose on some 1,130 award-winning children’s books in search of invisible patterns of bias. (Spoiler alert: They found some.) Another study revealed why many parents are reluctant to support social and emotional learning in schools—and provided hints about how educators can flip the script.

1. What Parents Fear About SEL (and How to Change Their Minds)

When researchers at the Fordham Institute asked parents to rank phrases associated with social and emotional learning , nothing seemed to add up. The term “social-emotional learning” was very unpopular; parents wanted to steer their kids clear of it. But when the researchers added a simple clause, forming a new phrase—”social-emotional & academic learning”—the program shot all the way up to No. 2 in the rankings.

What gives?

Parents were picking up subtle cues in the list of SEL-related terms that irked or worried them, the researchers suggest. Phrases like “soft skills” and “growth mindset” felt “nebulous” and devoid of academic content. For some, the language felt suspiciously like “code for liberal indoctrination.”

But the study suggests that parents might need the simplest of reassurances to break through the political noise. Removing the jargon, focusing on productive phrases like “life skills,” and relentlessly connecting SEL to academic progress puts parents at ease—and seems to save social and emotional learning in the process.

2. The Secret Management Techniques of Expert Teachers

In the hands of experienced teachers, classroom management can seem almost invisible: Subtle techniques are quietly at work behind the scenes, with students falling into orderly routines and engaging in rigorous academic tasks almost as if by magic. 

That’s no accident, according to new research . While outbursts are inevitable in school settings, expert teachers seed their classrooms with proactive, relationship-building strategies that often prevent misbehavior before it erupts. They also approach discipline more holistically than their less-experienced counterparts, consistently reframing misbehavior in the broader context of how lessons can be more engaging, or how clearly they communicate expectations.

Focusing on the underlying dynamics of classroom behavior—and not on surface-level disruptions—means that expert teachers often look the other way at all the right times, too. Rather than rise to the bait of a minor breach in etiquette, a common mistake of new teachers, they tend to play the long game, asking questions about the origins of misbehavior, deftly navigating the terrain between discipline and student autonomy, and opting to confront misconduct privately when possible.

3. The Surprising Power of Pretesting

Asking students to take a practice test before they’ve even encountered the material may seem like a waste of time—after all, they’d just be guessing.

But new research concludes that the approach, called pretesting, is actually more effective than other typical study strategies. Surprisingly, pretesting even beat out taking practice tests after learning the material, a proven strategy endorsed by cognitive scientists and educators alike. In the study, students who took a practice test before learning the material outperformed their peers who studied more traditionally by 49 percent on a follow-up test, while outperforming students who took practice tests after studying the material by 27 percent.

The researchers hypothesize that the “generation of errors” was a key to the strategy’s success, spurring student curiosity and priming them to “search for the correct answers” when they finally explored the new material—and adding grist to a 2018 study that found that making educated guesses helped students connect background knowledge to new material.

Learning is more durable when students do the hard work of correcting misconceptions, the research suggests, reminding us yet again that being wrong is an important milestone on the road to being right.

4. Confronting an Old Myth About Immigrant Students

Immigrant students are sometimes portrayed as a costly expense to the education system, but new research is systematically dismantling that myth.

In a 2021 study , researchers analyzed over 1.3 million academic and birth records for students in Florida communities, and concluded that the presence of immigrant students actually has “a positive effect on the academic achievement of U.S.-born students,” raising test scores as the size of the immigrant school population increases. The benefits were especially powerful for low-income students.

While immigrants initially “face challenges in assimilation that may require additional school resources,” the researchers concluded, hard work and resilience may allow them to excel and thus “positively affect exposed U.S.-born students’ attitudes and behavior.” But according to teacher Larry Ferlazzo, the improvements might stem from the fact that having English language learners in classes improves pedagogy , pushing teachers to consider “issues like prior knowledge, scaffolding, and maximizing accessibility.”

5. A Fuller Picture of What a ‘Good’ School Is

It’s time to rethink our definition of what a “good school” is, researchers assert in a study published in late 2020.⁣ That’s because typical measures of school quality like test scores often provide an incomplete and misleading picture, the researchers found.

The study looked at over 150,000 ninth-grade students who attended Chicago public schools and concluded that emphasizing the social and emotional dimensions of learning—relationship-building, a sense of belonging, and resilience, for example—improves high school graduation and college matriculation rates for both high- and low-income students, beating out schools that focus primarily on improving test scores.⁣

“Schools that promote socio-emotional development actually have a really big positive impact on kids,” said lead researcher C. Kirabo Jackson in an interview with Edutopia . “And these impacts are particularly large for vulnerable student populations who don’t tend to do very well in the education system.”

The findings reinforce the importance of a holistic approach to measuring student progress, and are a reminder that schools—and teachers—can influence students in ways that are difficult to measure, and may only materialize well into the future.⁣

6. Teaching Is Learning

One of the best ways to learn a concept is to teach it to someone else. But do you actually have to step into the shoes of a teacher, or does the mere expectation of teaching do the trick?

In a 2021 study , researchers split students into two groups and gave them each a science passage about the Doppler effect—a phenomenon associated with sound and light waves that explains the gradual change in tone and pitch as a car races off into the distance, for example. One group studied the text as preparation for a test; the other was told that they’d be teaching the material to another student.

The researchers never carried out the second half of the activity—students read the passages but never taught the lesson. All of the participants were then tested on their factual recall of the Doppler effect, and their ability to draw deeper conclusions from the reading.

The upshot? Students who prepared to teach outperformed their counterparts in both duration and depth of learning, scoring 9 percent higher on factual recall a week after the lessons concluded, and 24 percent higher on their ability to make inferences. The research suggests that asking students to prepare to teach something—or encouraging them to think “could I teach this to someone else?”—can significantly alter their learning trajectories.

7. A Disturbing Strain of Bias in Kids’ Books

Some of the most popular and well-regarded children’s books—Caldecott and Newbery honorees among them—persistently depict Black, Asian, and Hispanic characters with lighter skin, according to new research .

Using artificial intelligence, researchers combed through 1,130 children’s books written in the last century, comparing two sets of diverse children’s books—one a collection of popular books that garnered major literary awards, the other favored by identity-based awards. The software analyzed data on skin tone, race, age, and gender.

Among the findings: While more characters with darker skin color begin to appear over time, the most popular books—those most frequently checked out of libraries and lining classroom bookshelves—continue to depict people of color in lighter skin tones. More insidiously, when adult characters are “moral or upstanding,” their skin color tends to appear lighter, the study’s lead author, Anjali Aduki,  told The 74 , with some books converting “Martin Luther King Jr.’s chocolate complexion to a light brown or beige.” Female characters, meanwhile, are often seen but not heard.

Cultural representations are a reflection of our values, the researchers conclude: “Inequality in representation, therefore, constitutes an explicit statement of inequality of value.”

8. The Never-Ending ‘Paper Versus Digital’ War

The argument goes like this: Digital screens turn reading into a cold and impersonal task; they’re good for information foraging, and not much more. “Real” books, meanwhile, have a heft and “tactility”  that make them intimate, enchanting—and irreplaceable.

But researchers have often found weak or equivocal evidence for the superiority of reading on paper. While a recent study concluded that paper books yielded better comprehension than e-books when many of the digital tools had been removed, the effect sizes were small. A 2021 meta-analysis further muddies the water: When digital and paper books are “mostly similar,” kids comprehend the print version more readily—but when enhancements like motion and sound “target the story content,” e-books generally have the edge.

Nostalgia is a force that every new technology must eventually confront. There’s plenty of evidence that writing with pen and paper encodes learning more deeply than typing. But new digital book formats come preloaded with powerful tools that allow readers to annotate, look up words, answer embedded questions, and share their thinking with other readers.

We may not be ready to admit it, but these are precisely the kinds of activities that drive deeper engagement, enhance comprehension, and leave us with a lasting memory of what we’ve read. The future of e-reading, despite the naysayers, remains promising.

9. New Research Makes a Powerful Case for PBL

Many classrooms today still look like they did 100 years ago, when students were preparing for factory jobs. But the world’s moved on: Modern careers demand a more sophisticated set of skills—collaboration, advanced problem-solving, and creativity, for example—and those can be difficult to teach in classrooms that rarely give students the time and space to develop those competencies.

Project-based learning (PBL) would seem like an ideal solution. But critics say PBL places too much responsibility on novice learners, ignoring the evidence about the effectiveness of direct instruction and ultimately undermining subject fluency. Advocates counter that student-centered learning and direct instruction can and should coexist in classrooms.

Now two new large-scale studies —encompassing over 6,000 students in 114 diverse schools across the nation—provide evidence that a well-structured, project-based approach boosts learning for a wide range of students.

In the studies, which were funded by Lucas Education Research, a sister division of Edutopia , elementary and high school students engaged in challenging projects that had them designing water systems for local farms, or creating toys using simple household objects to learn about gravity, friction, and force. Subsequent testing revealed notable learning gains—well above those experienced by students in traditional classrooms—and those gains seemed to raise all boats, persisting across socioeconomic class, race, and reading levels.

10. Tracking a Tumultuous Year for Teachers

The Covid-19 pandemic cast a long shadow over the lives of educators in 2021, according to a year’s worth of research.

The average teacher’s workload suddenly “spiked last spring,” wrote the Center for Reinventing Public Education in its January 2021 report, and then—in defiance of the laws of motion—simply never let up. By the fall, a RAND study recorded an astonishing shift in work habits: 24 percent of teachers reported that they were working 56 hours or more per week, compared to 5 percent pre-pandemic.

The vaccine was the promised land, but when it arrived nothing seemed to change. In an April 2021 survey  conducted four months after the first vaccine was administered in New York City, 92 percent of teachers said their jobs were more stressful than prior to the pandemic, up from 81 percent in an earlier survey.

It wasn’t just the length of the work days; a close look at the research reveals that the school system’s failure to adjust expectations was ruinous. It seemed to start with the obligations of hybrid teaching, which surfaced in Edutopia ’s coverage of overseas school reopenings. In June 2020, well before many U.S. schools reopened, we reported that hybrid teaching was an emerging problem internationally, and warned that if the “model is to work well for any period of time,” schools must “recognize and seek to reduce the workload for teachers.” Almost eight months later, a 2021 RAND study identified hybrid teaching as a primary source of teacher stress in the U.S., easily outpacing factors like the health of a high-risk loved one.

New and ever-increasing demands for tech solutions put teachers on a knife’s edge. In several important 2021 studies, researchers concluded that teachers were being pushed to adopt new technology without the “resources and equipment necessary for its correct didactic use.” Consequently, they were spending more than 20 hours a week adapting lessons for online use, and experiencing an unprecedented erosion of the boundaries between their work and home lives, leading to an unsustainable “always on” mentality. When it seemed like nothing more could be piled on—when all of the lights were blinking red—the federal government restarted standardized testing .

Change will be hard; many of the pathologies that exist in the system now predate the pandemic. But creating strict school policies that separate work from rest, eliminating the adoption of new tech tools without proper supports, distributing surveys regularly to gauge teacher well-being, and above all listening to educators to identify and confront emerging problems might be a good place to start, if the research can be believed.

What Is Education Topic? Exploring Its Significance and Key Themes in 2024

Jane Ng • 15 Nov 2023 • 7 min read

Education is the key that unlocks the door to a brighter future. It empowers individuals to reach their full potential and fosters the growth of societies. In this blog post, we’ll unravel the concept of education and its profound significance. From the fundamental question of “ What is education topic? ” to specialized education areas, we’ll embark on an educational journey like no other.

Table Of Contents

What is education and importance of education, philosophical foundations of education, contemporary education trends, k-12 education, higher education, research in education, early childhood education, physical education, key takeaways, faqs | what is education topic.

More Education Topics with AhaSlides

• Fun Games to Play in Class
• Probability Games Examples
• Circle Time Activities

Still looking for games to play with students?

Get free templates, best games to play in classroom! Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!

“Education” – What does it mean?

Education, in its simplest form, is the process of learning and gaining knowledge. It’s how we acquire information, skills, values, and understanding about the world around us. Education is not limited to schools and classrooms; it happens throughout our lives, every time we explore, ask questions, read a book, or learn from our experiences.

The Importance of Education

Education has a big impact on our lives and the world around us. It’s like a toolkit that helps us grow, learn, and make the most of our potential.

Here are some reasons why education is crucial:

• Personal Growth: Education helps us become smarter and more skilled. It teaches us how to think for ourselves, find solutions, and share our ideas clearly. It’s like exercise for our brains, making us better at understanding the world.
• Better Opportunities: With education, we have access to more job opportunities and careers. It opens doors and gives us a better chance to secure good jobs and support ourselves and our families.
• Understanding Society: Education helps us understand the world we live in. It teaches us about different cultures, histories, and societies. This understanding promotes tolerance, empathy, and better relationships with others.
• Problem Solving: Educated individuals are better equipped to solve problems and make informed decisions. They can contribute positively to their communities and society as a whole.
• Innovation: Many of the world’s greatest inventions and discoveries have come from educated minds. Education fuels creativity and innovation, pushing society forward.

Key Topics Of Education – What Is Education Topic?

What is education topic? The topic of education covers a vast landscape of ideas and practices. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key topics in education and group them into broader themes.

What is philosophy of education topic? – Education is deeply rooted in various philosophies that guide how we teach and learn. Here are five major educational philosophies:

• Idealism: This philosophy believes in the pursuit of knowledge and truth as the highest goals of education. It emphasizes critical thinking and the study of classical literature and philosophy.
• Realism: Realism focuses on teaching practical skills and knowledge that can be applied to everyday life. It emphasizes subjects like math, science, and literature.
• Pragmatism: Pragmatism emphasizes the practical application of knowledge. It encourages hands-on learning and problem-solving to prepare students for real-world challenges.
• Existentialism: Existentialism encourages individuality and self-expression. It values personal experience and self-discovery, often through art and creativity.
• Constructivism: Constructivism suggests that learners actively build their own understanding of the world. It values collaborative learning and hands-on experiences.

These philosophies shape the education system by influencing curriculum choices, teaching methods, and the overall goals of education.

In today’s rapidly changing world, education is evolving to meet new challenges. Here are some contemporary education trends:

• New Normal in Education: What is new normal in education? With the advent of technology and the COVID-19 pandemic, education has adapted to online and blended learning models. This “new normal” includes virtual classrooms, digital resources, and remote collaboration.
• Digital and Online Learning: Digital learning, including mobile learning (m-learning) and electronic learning (e-learning), has become increasingly popular. It offers flexibility and accessibility for learners of all ages.

What is education topic – K-12 education is called the foundation of a student’s academic journey. Here’s what it entails:

• Definition of K-12 Education: K-12 education refers to the education system from kindergarten (K) through 12th grade (12). It provides students with a comprehensive and structured learning experience.
• Significance in a Student’s Life: K-12 education equips students with foundational knowledge and essential skills. It prepares them for higher education or vocational pursuits and helps them develop critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.

What is higher education topics? Higher education plays a crucial role in shaping individuals’ careers and society. Here’s what you need to know:

• Role of Higher Education: Higher education institutions, like colleges and universities, offer advanced learning opportunities in various fields. They provide specialized knowledge and training that prepare students for careers and leadership roles.
• Vocational Education : Vocational education focuses on practical skills and job-specific training. It’s essential for careers in trades, technology, healthcare, and other industries, contributing to a skilled workforce.

What is best topic for research in education? Research is the driving force behind educational improvement. Here’s what’s involved:

• Research Topics and Titles: Educational research covers a wide range of topics, from effective teaching methods to student learning outcomes. Research titles can vary greatly, reflecting the diversity of educational inquiry.
• Impactful Research Areas: Educational research has a profound impact on improving teaching and learning. It addresses critical issues such as student achievement gaps, curriculum development, educational equity, and the use of technology in education.

Specialized Education Topics – What Is Education Topic?

Education isn’t one-size-fits-all; it caters to specific needs and stages of life. Here, we explore two specialized education topics that focus on early childhood and physical education.

Early childhood education is like planting seeds in a garden. It’s incredibly important because it provides a strong foundation for a child’s future. Early education helps kids transition smoothly into formal schooling. They enter school with confidence, ready to learn.

What is a good research topic for early childhood education? If you’re interested in exploring early childhood education through research, consider these topics:

• The Impact of Early Literacy Programs: Investigate how programs that promote reading to young children affect their language and cognitive development.
• The Role of Play in Learning: Explore how play-based learning influences a child’s creativity, problem-solving abilities, and social skills.
• Parental Involvement in Early Education: Research how parents’ active participation in their child’s early education impacts their academic and emotional development.

Physical education isn’t just about sports; it’s about keeping our bodies healthy and active. Physical education helps students manage stress and build resilience. Through sports and group activities, physical education teaches important life skills like teamwork, leadership, and sportsmanship.

What is topic in physical education? If you’re interested in delving into the world of physical education research, consider these topics:

• The Impact of Physical Activity on Academic Performance: I nvestigate whether students who engage in regular physical education perform better academically.
• Inclusivity in Physical Education: Explore how physical education programs can be made more inclusive for students with disabilities or diverse needs.
• The Role of Technology in Physical Education: Research how technology and digital tools can enhance physical education lessons and encourage physical activity.

What is education topic? – The topic of education is a vast and multifaceted realm that encompasses the very essence of our growth, both as individuals and as a society.

In the spirit of continuous learning and engagement, AhaSlides offers a platform for interactive presentations and discussions, enabling educators, learners, and presenters to engage in a meaningful exchange of ideas. Whether you’re a student seeking knowledge, a teacher sharing wisdom, or a presenter igniting curiosity, AhaSlides provides interactive features to enhance the educational experience.

From live polls , word cloud that gauge comprehension to live quizzes that reinforce knowledge, AhaSlides fosters active participation and deeper engagement. The ability to gather real-time feedback and spark discussions elevates the learning process to new heights, making education not only informative but also enjoyable.

What is the topic meaning of education?

The meaning of the topic of education refers to the subject matter or themes within the field of education that are being discussed, studied, or explored. It pertains to the specific areas, questions, or aspects of education that researchers, educators, and learners are focusing on or investigating.

What are the best topic for education?

The best topics for education can vary depending on your interests, goals, and the context of your education. Some popular and important educational topics include Educational Technology, Early Childhood Education, Curriculum Development, Teacher Training and Development, and Higher Education Trends.

What are some great research topics?

Great research topics in education often align with current trends, challenges, and areas of critical importance. Here are some compelling research topics: The Impact of Remote Learning on Student Engagement, Mental Health Support Services in Schools, and The Role of Social-Emotional Learning in Reducing Bullying and Improving School Climate. 

Ref: Cram | Britannica | Early Childhood Education Degrees

A writer who wants to create practical and valuable content for the audience

More from AhaSlides

Ideas & Impact

The latest education research, actionable strategies, and innovation from the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Combatting Chronic Absenteeism with Family Engagement 

As post-COVID absenteeism rates continue unabated, a look at how strong family-school engagement can help

Crack the Code for Girls

Current student empowers girls in low and middle-income countries through digital literacy

Human Schools and Deeper Learning. What's the Secret?

Education Now examines how we can transform K–12 public school systems into more human-centered communities that support both educators and students

Getting to College: FAFSA Challenges for First-Gen Students

The hurdles faced by first-generation college students as they make their way through the financial aid process — and how to help them overcome the barriers

Blair Named Associate Professor

Peter Blair, an economist whose research focuses on the link between the future of work and the future of education, will assume the role on July 1

Math, the Great (Potential) Equalizer

How current practices in math education around tracking and teaching can be dismantled to achieve the promise of equity in math classrooms

Education in Turbulent Times

Responding to current events, mental health, and educating in times of crisis

Askwith Education Forum Tackles Polarization in Education

HGSE panel offered advice for educators in divided times

Tackling Unhealed Trauma in Communities and Schools

An exploration of healing-centered engagement, a social-emotional learning approach that promotes self-esteem and offers a holistic view of recovery for young people of color managing trauma while also creating positive conditions for academic achievement.

Childhood Health Amid a Changing Climate the Focus of Askwith Education Forum

Chelsea Clinton, researchers, and climate activists discuss the impact of a warming planet on early development

Despite Progress, Achievement Gaps Persist During Recovery from Pandemic

New research finds achievement gaps in math and reading, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, remain and have grown in some states, calls for action before federal relief funds run out

Confronting Bullying in the Cyber Age

Tips and insight from experts about the impacts of online bullying in children

In the Media

Commentary, thought leadership, and expertise from HGSE faculty

"The skills required to use evidence well are in short supply, and districts and states vary tremendously in their capacity."

Shaping the Future of Education

From research projects to design labs, discover how HGSE is at the forefront of innovation in education.

Reach Every Reader

Develops tools to support the vision that all children can develop the skills, knowledge, and interest to become lifelong readers

Public Education Leadership Project

Works to improve leadership competencies of public school administrators through professional development to drive greater educational outcomes

Immigration Initiative at Harvard

Advances interdisciplinary scholarship and hands-on research about immigration policy and immigrant communities

Explore More Topics

HGSE research, coursework, and expertise ranges widely across education topics. Browse the full list of topics or view our in-depth coverage of Climate Change and Education.

• College Access and Success
• Counseling and Mental Health
• Disruption and Crises
• Entrepreneurship
• Evidence-Based Intervention
• Immigration and Refugee Education
• Language and Literacy Development
• Moral, Civic, and Ethical Education
• Social Emotional Learning
• Teachers and Teaching
• Technology and Media

Search for a topic, trending issue, or name

Harvard Ed. Magazine

The award-winning alumni magazine, covering timely education stories that appeal to the Harvard community and the broader world.

Harvard EdCast

Harvard’s flagship education podcast, acting as a space for education-related discourse with thought leaders in the field of education.

The latest education research, strategies, and perspectives from the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Usable Knowledge

Translating new research into easy-to-use strategies for teachers, parents, K-12 leaders, higher ed professionals, and policymakers.

The World Bank Group is the largest financier of education in the developing world, working in 90 countries and committed to helping them reach SDG4: access to inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Education Finance Watch: Africa Edition

This special edition of the EFW extracts its findings on Africa.

Starting the Story for More Children on International Day of Education

#StartTheStory celebrates the power of stories and reading on International Education Day, January 24, 2024.

Achieving Gender Equality in Education: Examining Progress and Constraints

Education at-a-glance.

Education is a powerful driver of development and one of the strongest instruments for reducing poverty and improving health, gender equality, peace, and stability. Developing countries have made tremendous progress in getting children into the classroom and the majority of children worldwide are now in primary school. Nevertheless, some 260 million children are still out of primary and secondary school.

A Second Chance at Education in Timor-Leste

Some 1,600 students had completed a one-year adult education course, gaining essential skills in linguistics and science. Nine community learning centers with trained staff and library facilities, continue to support community literacy and education programs.

FOCUS AREAS

Early childhood development.

Investing in the early years is one of the smartest things a country can do.

Higher Education

Higher Education is instrumental in fostering growth, reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity.

Skills Development

Skills development can reduce unemployment, raise incomes, and improve standards of living.

Girls’ Education

Every day, girls face barriers to education caused by poverty, cultural norms, poor infrastructure, violence and fragility.

Digital Technologies

The use of information and communication technologies in education can play a crucial role in providing new and innovative ...

Teachers are the single most important school-based factor affecting how much students learn.

Safe and Learning in the Midst of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence : A World Bank Group Approach Paper

Realizing Education's Promise: A World Bank Retrospective

Making Teacher Policy Work

The State of Global Learning Poverty

Regional Director

Stay Connected

News & events, latest events.

Global Education Newsletter - December 2023-January 2024

What's happening in the World Bank Education Global Practice? Read to learn more.

Human Capital Project

The Human Capital Project is a global effort to accelerate more and better investments in people for greater equity and economic growth.

Impact Evaluations

Research that measures the impact of education policies to improve education in low and middle income countries.

Investing in People for a Livable Planet

Global thought leaders came together to champion investments in people to eradicate poverty on a livable planet.

Additional Resources

Media inquiries.

This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser. To learn more about cookies, click here .

Global education trends and research to follow in 2022

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, emily gustafsson-wright , emily gustafsson-wright senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @egwbrookings helen shwe hadani , helen shwe hadani former brookings expert @helenshadani kathy hirsh-pasek , kathy hirsh-pasek senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @kathyandro1 maysa jalbout , maysa jalbout nonresident fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @maysajalbout elizabeth m. king , elizabeth m. king nonresident senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education jennifer l. o’donoghue , jennifer l. o’donoghue deputy director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @jennodjod brad olsen , brad olsen senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @bradolsen_dc jordan shapiro , jordan shapiro nonresident fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @jordosh emiliana vegas , and emiliana vegas former co-director - center for universal education , former senior fellow - global economy and development @emivegasv rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

January 24, 2022

• 12 min read

As the third calendar year of the pandemic begins, 2022 promises to be an important one—especially for education. Around the world, education systems have had to contend with sporadic closures, inequitable access to education technology and other distance learning tools, and deep challenges in maintaining both students’ and teachers’ physical and emotional health. At the same time, not all of the sudden changes precipitated by the pandemic have been bad—with some promising new innovations, allies, and increased attention on the field of global education emerging over the past three years. The key question is whether 2022 and the years ahead will lead to education transformation or will students, teachers, and families suffer long-lasting setbacks?

In the Center for Universal Education, our scholars take stock of the trends, policies, practices, and research that they’ll be closely keeping an eye on this year and likely in the many to come.

More than ever, in 2022 it will be critical to focus on strengthening the fabric of our global education system in order to achieve positive outcomes—particularly through an increased focus on data-informed decisionmaking. We have seen a renewed focus on different forms of data that are critical to enhanced education outcomes, such as real-time performance data, which allow teachers and other decisionmakers to course-adjust to the needs of learners to better support their educational journeys. Additionally, high-quality program cost data are needed for decisionmakers to plan, budget, and choose the most cost-effective interventions.

One way we are seeing these areas strengthened is through innovative financing for education, such as impact bonds , which require data to operate at full potential. This year, pooled funding through outcomes funds—a scaled version of impact bonds—should make a particularly big splash. The Education Outcomes Fund organization is slated to launch programs in Ghana and Sierra Leone, and we also expect to see the launch of country-specific outcomes funds for education such as OFFER (Outcome Fund For Education Results) in Colombia, the Back-to-School Outcomes Fund in India, and another fund in Chile. At the Center for Universal Education, we will be following these innovations closely and look forward to the insights that they will bring to the education sector.

As we look ahead to 2022, one continued challenge for many families is navigating the uncharted territory of supporting children’s learning with a growing number of school closures . But while the pandemic forced an abrupt slowdown in modern life, it also provided an opportunity to reexamine how we can prioritize learning and healthy development both in and out of school. Moreover, the cascading effects of the pandemic are disproportionally affecting families living in communities challenged by decades of discrimination and disinvestment—and are very likely to widen already existing educational inequities in worrisome ways.

One innovative approach to providing enriching learning opportunities beyond school walls that address the inequities in our current systems is Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) —installations and programming that promote children and families’ learning through play in the public realm. A current focus for PLL at Brookings is measuring the impact of these spaces to show that PLL works and to garner greater investment in them. To that end, Brookings and its partners developed a framework and an initial set of indicators from both the learning science and placemaking perspectives to help assess the positive effects of PLL on learning outcomes , as well as its potential to enhance social interaction and public life in revitalized spaces. The framework will continue to evolve as we learn from communities that are testing the expansion and adaptation of PLL—this important work is just beginning.

The pandemic highlighted several trends in education that promise to be the focus of future policy and practice in 2022 and beyond: the importance of skills that supplement the learning of content, systemic inequities in education systems, and the role of digital technology in the education of the future. It has become increasingly clear that the memorization of content alone will not prepare children for the jobs and society of the future. As noted in a Brookings report “ A new path for education reform, ” in an automated world, manufacturing jobs and even preliminary medical diagnoses or legal contracts can be performed by computers and robots. Students who can work collaboratively—with strong communication skills, critical thinking, and creative innovation—will be highly valued. Mission statements from around the globe are starting to promote a “whole child” approach to education that will encourage the learning of a breadth of skills better aligning the education sector with needs from the business sector.

The past year also demonstrated weaknesses and inequalities inherent in remote learning that I’ll be closely tracking in the years to come. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that virtual learning presents risks to social-emotional learning . Further, research suggests that academic progress during the pandemic slowed such that students demonstrated only 35 to 50 percent of the gains they normally achieve in mathematics and 60 to 68 percent in reading. The losses are not experienced uniformly , with children from underresourced environments falling behind their more resourced peers.

The failure of remote learning also raises questions about the place of digital learning in the classroom. Learning will become more and more hybrid over time, and keeping an eye on advances in technology—especially regarding augmented reality and the metaverse—will be particularly important, as both have real consequences for the classrooms.

In 2022, I’ll be focusing on one group of children in particular–refugees–who are among those children who have historically had the least access to preprimary education. The pandemic has affected them disproportionally , as it pushed them and their families into poverty and deprived them from most forms of education during the school closures.

While much more investment in early childhood education research and evaluation is needed to improve evidence and channel scarce resources effectively, there are a few important efforts to watch. A report commissioned by Theirworld last year provided an overview of the sector and focused on a critical gap and opportunity to address the inequity of access to early childhood education in refugee settings by better supporting teachers and community workers. This year, Theirworld and partners will pursue two of the report’s recommendations–making the science of early childhood brain development widely accessible in refugee communities and building the evidence base on what works in supporting early childhood education teachers and the young refugee children they teach.

The report was informed by existing initiatives including Ahlan Simsim, which in 2017 received the largest known grant to early education in a humanitarian context. While the evaluation of Ahlan Simsim will not be complete until two more years, the Global Ties for Children research center, Sesame Workshop, and the International Rescue Committee will share critical insights into their learning to date in a forthcoming episode of the podcast the Impact Room .

This coming year I’ll be focused on how education systems can prepare for future disruptions, whatever the cause, with more deliberateness. The past two years of the COVID pandemic have seen education systems throughout the globe struggle to find ways to continue schooling. Additionally, there have been other public health crises, natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and severe storms, and wars and terrorism in different parts of the world that have gravely tested school systems’ ability to minimize the cost of catastrophes on students and teachers. Finding safer temporary learning places outside the school and using technologies such as radio, TV broadcasts, and online learning tools have helped, but quick fixes with little preparation are not effective approaches for sustaining and advancing learning gains.

In the age of broadcast and digital technologies, there are many more ways to meet the challenges of future emergency situations, but life- and education-saving solutions must be part of the way school systems operate—built into their structures, their staffing, their budgets, and their curricula. By preparing for the emergencies that are likely to happen, we can persevere to reach learning goals for all children.

By the close of 2021, a number of studies began to document the impact of COVID-19 on girls’ educational trajectories across the Global South. These studies point to promising trends –lower than expected dropout rates and reenrollment rates similar to (if not greater than) those of boys–while still highlighting the particular challenges faced by adolescent girls and girls living in poverty , conflict, and crisis .

In 2022, it will be critical to continue to generate more nuanced evidence—carefully considering questions such as “for which girls,” “where,” “when,” and “why.” And then we must put this knowledge to use to protect and promote girls’ and young women’s rights not just to education, but to participate and thrive in the world around them. Ensuring that marginalized girls and young women become transformative agents in improving their lives and livelihoods—as well as those of their families and communities—requires us to develop new strategies for learning and acting together.

At the Center for Universal Education, this means strengthening our work with local leaders in girls’ education: promoting gender-transformative research through the Echidna Global Scholars Program ; expanding the collective impact of our 33 Echidna alumni; and co-constructing a learning and action community to explore together how to improve beliefs, practices, programs, and policies so that marginalized adolescent girls’ can develop and exercise agency in pursuing their own pathways.

Going into year three of COVID-19, in 2022 I’m interested to see whether countries will transform their education systems or largely leave them the way they are. Will leaders of education systems tinker around the edges of change but mostly attempt a return to a prepandemic “normal,” or will they take advantage of this global rupture in the status quo to replace antiquated educational institutions and approaches with significant structural improvement?

In relation to this, one topic I’ll be watching in particular is how countries treat their teachers. How will policymakers, the media, parent councils, and others frame teachers’ work in 2022? In which locations will teachers be diminished versus where will they be defended as invaluable assets? How will countries learn from implications of out-of-school children (including social isolation and child care needs)? Will teachers remain appreciated in their communities but treated poorly in the material and political conditions of their work? Or will countries hold them dear—demanding accountability while supporting and rewarding them for quality work?

I’m interested in learning more about how pandemic lockdowns have impacted students. So far, we’ve only gotten very general data dealing with questions that are, in my opinion, too simple to be worthwhile. It’s all been about good and bad, positive and negative, learning loss and achievement. But I’ll be watching for more nuanced studies, which ask about specific ways increased time away from school has impacted social-emotional development. How do those results differ between gender, race, socioeconomic status, and geographic location? I suspect we’re going to learn some things about the relationship between home environment and school environment that will challenge a lot of our taken-for-granted assumptions.

In 2022, I’ll be tracking emerging evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 school closures on children and youth. Several researchers, including my co-authors and me , have provided estimates of the school closures’ impact on student learning losses, unemployment, future earnings, and productivity globally. But only recently are researchers analyzing actual evidence of learning losses , and an early systematic review finds that “Although robust and empirical research on COVID-19-related student learning loss is limited, learning loss itself may not be.”

Likewise, there is little rigorous reviews of remote learning tools’ and platforms’ impact on student learning during the school closures. After the pandemic, it is almost certain that remote and hybrid learning will continue—at a minimum occasionally and often periodically—in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. It is urgent that we build the evidence base to help education decisionmakers and practitioners provide effective, tailored learning experiences for all students.

Finally, a key issue for education is how to redesign curricula so that this generation (and future generations) of students gain a key set of skills and competencies required for technologically-advancing labor markets and societies. While foundational literacy and numeracy skills continue to be essential for learning, a strong foundational knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is ever more important in the 21st century, and I look forward to contributing research this year to help make the case for curricula redesign efforts.

I will be interested to see how parent-teacher relationships progress after the pandemic has (hopefully) faded into the background. COVID-19 has had an inescapable impact on the way we deliver education globally, but none more so than on how education leaders and teachers interact with students and their families.

For the past three years, I have been studying family-school collaboration. Together with my colleagues and partners, we have surveyed nearly 25,000 parents and 6,000 teachers in 10 countries around the world and found that the vast majority of teachers, parents, and caregivers want to work together more closely. Quality family-school collaboration has the potential to significantly improve educational outcomes, spur important discussions on the overall purpose of school, and smooth the path for schools and families to navigate change together. From community schools in New Mexico  to text message updates from teachers in India , new innovations are popping up every day—in every corner of the world. I’m excited to see what the future holds for family-school collaboration!

Education Technology Global Education

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Darcy Hutchins, Emily Markovich Morris, Laura Nora, Carolina Campos, Adelaida Gómez Vergara, Nancy G. Gordon, Esmeralda Macana, Karen Robertson

March 28, 2024

Larry Cooley, Jenny Perlman Robinson

March 8, 2024

The Brookings Institution, Washington DC

9:00 am - 5:00 pm EDT