Organisation: The Government Outcomes Lab
Outcomes-based financing (OBF) is emerging as an innovative financing approach in education aimed at enhancing effectiveness, accountability, and transparency in education programming. This panel discussed the critical role of collaborative learning amongst diverse actors in examining the opportunities and challenges of implementing OBF within the education sector.
Building strong partnerships among researchers, service providers, investors, and funders to engage in a collaborative learning process is an important avenue to enhance the global knowledge base on the complexities, challenges, and success of using OBF. Learning partnerships that foster open communication, trust, and collective meaning-making have the potential to better understand whether, how, and under what conditions the OBF approach is beneficial to improving education outcomes.
Featuring a diverse panel of researchers, service providers, investors, funders, and intermediaries, this discussion offered a comprehensive exploration of how diverse interests converge to provide equitable, inclusive, and quality education to all. Each panellist brought a unique perspective, enriching the discourse with their experiences and insights. The discussion delved into the significant value that learning and research partnerships bring, the various models of engagement, the obstacles they face, and strategies to overcome these challenges. Furthermore, the discussion focused on strengthening collaborative learning between different actors to benefit the global education community with a transparent knowledge repository on reflections and lessons learned on the use of OBF in education. The insights shared in the panel were invaluable for stakeholders either considering OBF or who are already implementing education projects using OBF.
The first session of SOC24 saw participants discuss strengthening partnerships for collaborative learning, emphasising the need for deliberate and resourced collective learning initiatives in outcomes-based financing for education projects. Panelists highlighted the challenges of sustaining communities of practice, the importance of engaging education researchers, and the need to increase funding to support research. Jacqui O’Hanlon from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Outcomes Framework reminded us that “any outcomes framework needs to be relevant to the teacher”.