Publications

How can countries engage teachers, parents, and learners in the successful of scale-up digital learning solutions? 

EDUINO, North Macedonia's platform for digital learning, fostered a community of practice and successfully crowdsourced a large amount of educational content from teachers and educators around the country within weeks of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This research presents factors that enabled the rapid development and scale-up of EDUINO at a systems, school, and classroom level.

Research findings in the brief are organized around four key implementation strategies:

1. Developing and crowdsourcing curriculum-aligned learning content

2. Fostering user engagement through a community of practice

3. Furthering teacher capacity for digital learning, and

4. Reaching students with disabilities and other learning barriers.

In Italy, more than 700,000 asylum seekers and migrants arrived in the country between 2014-2020. Newly arrived children including refugees and migrants need to quickly acquire Italian skills to succeed in school and society. To help address this urgent need, the Akelius digital learning application was introduced in Bologna and Rome for Italian and English language learning in the 2021/22 school year. This research presents findings from the first year of implementation of the Akelius digital learning application in Italy. Results show the use of the application supported self-paced learning, boosted students’ motivation and confidence and the use of the tool was especially beneficial for newly arrived children and children with disabilities. The report also explores challenges and good practices to inform improvements in the use of digital learning in classrooms. 

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the number of refugees and migrants arriving in the country has increased from just a few dozen arrivals annually prior to 2017 to 95,000 between 2018 and 2022. This increase has put incredible strain on the country’s education systems.

This research presents critical findings on the implementation and effectiveness of the Akelius digital learning application in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was introduced as a tool to support refugee and migrant children’s English and German language learning.

The findings demonstrate that using the digital application in a blended learning approach in classrooms was especially useful for personalizing learning and supporting children with diverse learning levels and needs.

The report also explores the challenges faced, and good practices to tangibly improve the implementation of digital learning in classrooms. 

Le gouvernement togolais, à travers le plan sectoriel de l'éducation (PSE) 2014-2025, vise à atteindre une éducation primaire universelle de qualité. A travers cet objectif, le gouvernement reconnaît les défis actuels en liaison avec l'accès et la participation à l’éducation primaire, ainsi que dans la rétention de tous les écoliers Togolais. Mieux comprendre les performances des écoles fait partie des actions nécessaires pour relever ces défis.

Quelles ressources et quels facteurs contextuels sont associés à de bonnes performances scolaires au Togo ? En fusionnant et en analysant les bases de données administratives déjà existantes au Togo, ce rapport aide à identifier les écoles modèles positives - celles qui obtiennent de meilleurs résultats que les autres écoles, bien qu'elles opèrent dans des contextes et avec des ressources similaires.

Data Must Speak - une initiative mondiale mise en œuvre depuis 2014 - vise à combler le manque d’évidence afin d’atténuer la crise de l'apprentissage en utilisant les données existantes. La recherche DMS sur les modèles positives est cocréée et mise en œuvre conjointement avec les ministères de l'Éducation et des partenaires clés. Elle s'appuie sur des méthodes mixtes et des approches innovantes (telles que l'approche modèle positive, les sciences du comportement, la recherche sur la mise en œuvre et la science de la mise à l'échelle) pour produire des connaissances et des enseignements pratiques sur "ce qui fonctionne", "pourquoi", et "comment" mettre à l'échelle ces solutions locales.

La recherche DMS est actuellement mise en œuvre dans 14 pays : Brésil, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Éthiopie, Ghana, République démocratique populaire de lao, Madagascar, Mali, Népal, Niger, République-Unie de Tanzanie, Tchad, Togo et Zambie.

In this publication we report our Evidence and Gap Mapping (EGM) of “Inclusive Interventions for Children with Disabilities in LMICs”. It shows that research is lacking in many critical areas: awareness and non-discrimination, protection, adequate standard of living, family and community life, and empowerment – that represent critical areas of policy and programming in need of robust evidence to improve inclusion and participation.

Specific areas overlooked include tackling harmful stereotypes, tackling abuse and violence and ways to reduce stigma; on improving accessibility to water, sanitation, hygiene, housing and food; and interventions that aim for children with disabilities to enjoy their right to be heard, to play and to have their views considered in all matters affecting them.

Health research covers 3 in 4 of all studies in our EGM, but there is little evidence on improving access to general health services and accessibility for children with disabilities in healthcare settings.  Inclusive education was moderately represented, but lacked the detail to understand how it was implemented or if inclusive education was effective in improving (or harming) academic outcomes, school readiness, graduation rates or the quality of educational services.

The companion protocol for the EGM can be found at this link

Please also see our EGM on Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Interventions

Access to early childhood education has increased over the last two decades, with global enrolment rates showing gender parity in access among boys and girls. Despite this gender parity in access, the pre-primary education system does not always deliver on its potential to tackle gender inequities and address harmful gender stereotypes while they are being absorbed by the youngest learners. As such, this research explores the ways in which pre-primary education can become more gender-transformative at a system level and presents 11 key strategies to support this goal. The strategies are organized around five interconnected action areas: planning and budgeting; curriculum; workforce development; family and community engagement; and quality assurance. These strategies can help governments and policymakers to proactively incorporate gender-responsiveness into the design and implementation of their pre-primary education policy and programming, following a system-wide perspective.

Funded by the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, through its Safe Online initiative, ECPAT, INTERPOL, and UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti worked in partnership to design and implement Disrupting Harm – a research project on online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). This unique partnership brings a multidisciplinary approach to a complex issue in order to see all sides of the problem. OCSEA refers to situations that involve digital or communication technologies at some point during the continuum of abuse or exploitation; it can occur fully online or through a mix of online and in-person interactions between offenders and children. The Disrupting Harm research was conducted in six Southeast Asian countries and seven Eastern and Southern African countries, including Mozambique. Data were synthesised from nine different research activities to generate each national report which tells the story of the threat, and presents clear recommendations for action.

Funded by the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, through its Safe Online initiative, ECPAT, INTERPOL, and UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti worked in partnership to design and implement Disrupting Harm – a research project on online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). This unique partnership brings a multidisciplinary approach to a complex issue in order to see all sides of the problem. OCSEA refers to situations that involve digital or communication technologies at some point during the continuum of abuse or exploitation; it can occur fully online or through a mix of online and in-person interactions between offenders and children. The Disrupting Harm research was conducted in six Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia, and seven Eastern and Southern African countries. Data was synthesised from nine different research activities to generate each national report. These tell the story of the threat and present clear recommendations for action.

Funded by the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, through its Safe Online initiative, ECPAT, INTERPOL, and UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti worked in partnership to design and implement Disrupting Harm – a research project on online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). This unique partnership brings a multidisciplinary approach to a complex issue in order to see all sides of the problem. OCSEA refers to situations that involve digital or communication technologies at some point during the continuum of abuse or exploitation; it can occur fully online or through a mix of online and in-person interactions between offenders and children. The Disrupting Harm research was conducted in six Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia, and seven Eastern and Southern African countries. Data was synthesised from nine different research activities to generate each national report. These tell the story of the threat and present clear recommendations for action.

How can we harness the power of mobile technologies to track learning in emergencies? Identifying ways to improve assessments in emergencies is incredibly important as there remains large gaps in understanding how children are learning in crisis settings. This report aims to provide practitioners with practical guidance and resources on using mobile technology to conduct learning assessments in emergency settings. It is the second of a two-part series on uses of mobile phones for education in emergency programmes and draws from a review of the existing literature as well as feedback from education in emergencies practitioners.

In 2021, an estimated 37 million children were forcibly displaced across the globe. Ensuring these children continue their education in times of crisis is a significant challenge. One tool that can help children stay in education is basic mobile phones. Basic mobile phones can provide learning through multiple channels, such as text messages, voice calls, nudges and lessons through radio broadcasts. This report outlines, in detail, how mobile phones can be applied as a learning tool in emergency settings. It also provides practical case studies and references for how mobile phones have been used to teach students, support parents and train teachers.

This report is also part of the On Call two-part series on the uses of mobile technologies for education in emergency settings, with the second report focusing on mobile technologies for learning assessments.

Funded by the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, through its Safe Online initiative, ECPAT, INTERPOL, and UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti worked in partnership to design and implement Disrupting Harm – a research project on online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). This unique partnership brings a multidisciplinary approach to a complex issue in order to see all sides of the problem. OCSEA refers to situations that involve digital or communication technologies at some point during the continuum of abuse or exploitation; it can occur fully online or through a mix of online and in-person interactions between offenders and children. The Disrupting Harm research was conducted in six Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia, and seven Eastern and Southern African countries. Data was synthesised from nine different research activities to generate each national report. These tell the story of the threat and present clear recommendations for action.