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Providing evidence for policy makers - to improve education for all.
The Centre for Education Systems helps governments, advisors and campaigners learn from education systems around the world. We describe different policy approaches, their contexts, and their outcomes.
Where the OECD tracks outcomes, CES explains how different approaches work. Where EEF focuses on classroom practice, CES focuses on policy and system design. Our objective is not to find the “right” answer, but to understand the available options, context, mechanisms and outcomes and to advise policy makers on “what’s possible”.
Sam Freedman, CES Strategy Director.
New Comparative Review summaries: published December 2025
Full reports available in the Resources tab
Latest news
The Centre for Education Systems has now completed its 2024-25 Nuffield funded accountability and curriculum reviews, partnering with UCL's EPPI and Cambridge's CUP&A teams, plus the 2025 Nuffield funded SEND review with UCL's ScopeSEND team. All reports are available in the Resources tab.
Why compare education systems?
“Systems evidence will improve the quality of the conversation between teachers, the sector and politicians and we certainly need that".
—Baroness Estelle Morris, Labour Secretary of State for Education, 2001-2
“The opportunity for CES to bolster the knowledge and understanding of the person who is appointed in a government re-shuffle is absolutely enormous”.
—Baroness Nicky Morgan, Conservative Secretary of State for Education, 2014 -16
“CES are considering context, data trends and how local policy instruments interact together, this will discourage magpie like policy borrowing”.
—Professor Becky Francis CBE, leading the Curriculum and assessment review, 2024-25
CES Partners
CES Partners (for current and recent work)
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