The Centre for Education Systems (CES) is a partnership to improve education for all - by learning from systems around the world.
CES international reviews published 23:59 pm Sunday 14th December
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
What we do
The Centre for Education Systems exists to solve the education challenges affecting everyone. By learning from education systems around the world, CES provides governments, advisors and campaigners with evidence on different approaches, so that important goals can be met in a smart and effective manner.
As our insight and comparative analysis builds, we will provide a deep understanding of each policy area; offer alternative approaches to individual policy initiatives; explain how policy instruments interact and develop an overall architecture to help build system coherence and identify intervention priorities. All of this information and insight will be provided in our Resources section, free and easy to use.
CES awarded additional Nuffield Foundation grant
Following awards to study both curriculum and accountability, the Centre for Education Systems has recently been awarded a further grant from the Nuffield Foundation to collaborate in an international study of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). This comparative review reflects CES's focus on improving outcomes by learning from education systems around the world. The study will provide insights to guide SEND reforms in the UK and internationally.
In collaboration with the UCL ScopeSEND team and using CES's network, the project will extend to eight new jurisdictions: Ontario, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, France, Poland, Estonia, and the Netherlands, in addition to the existing reviews of the UK home nations, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, and Finland. The broad scope will include diverse policy approaches and identify practices that can inform future SEND provision globally.
Importantly, the study will examine intersections with accountability, curriculum and assessment, incorporating findings from existing CES studies.
Academic teams
Loic Menzies leads the project on behalf of CES, alongside Research Associates Taylor Hughson and Dev Tiwari. Dr Susana Castro-Kemp of UCL Institute of Education is the Principal Investigator for the existing SEND study, working alongside Professor Jo Van Herwegen (UCL Institute of Education), Dr Peter Kemp (King’s College London), and Dr Catherine Antalek (UCL Institute of Education).
Research questions
The research questions in this study focus on the process of developing policy in the area of SEND (and equivalent concepts). It is designed to dovetail with other strands of CES and SCOPE SEND's research partnership which focuses more closely on the content and effects of each country's policy. The research questions for this study are: What is SEND policy seeking to achieve? How is SEND policy made and introduced? How does research and evaluation shape SEND policy? And, how does context shape SEND policy and reform? These four questions will be examined through interviews with policy makers and policy influencers as well as a rapid systematic literature review.
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