Blog

Theirworld will work with seven non-profits across three continents to help them take their bold learning initiatives for marginalised children to the next level. The organisations from Africa, Asia and Latin America have been named as the fifth cohort of Theirworld’s Education Innovation Awards. The winners were chosen in late 2025 and each will receive support to grow their already impressive impact.

The winners include:

A Ciegas Teatro por la Integración Asociación Civil (Argentina)

The programme uses immersive, sensory experiences in complete darkness to improve emotional and cognitive learning in school children aged four to 17, inspiring empathy, inclusion and creativity.

Chance for Childhood (Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, DRC, Kenya)

The organisation launched the Disability Detect App – a digital screening tool designed to help teachers more easily and accurately identify signs of disability, communication disorders or special educational needs in children aged three to eight.

Read about the award and all the winners.

In the context of a growing poly-crisis, complex challenges such as climate change, forced migration, conflict and economic shocks increasingly intersect and compound one another.

While resilience sometimes risks becoming another buzzword, it has important implications for how education systems are understood, governed and supported. Yet there is still no clear consensus on what education system resilience means in theory or practice.

Through the Observatory on Education System Resilience initiative, implemented under the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX), six regional observatories are helping fill this gap. Although the term “resilience” is not always explicitly used, countries have developed a wide range of practices that align closely with resilience, shaped by lived realities and the dominant risks they face. Most of these practices focus on system strengthening, planning and responding to shocks and disruptions.

Read the blog.

In partnership with Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crises (ERICC), this webinar brought together researchers, policymakers, and education stakeholders to explore promising approaches and practices that improve access, quality, and continuity of education for marginalized learners affected by crisis and conflict.

Watch the webinar. 

In recent years, Latin American countries have implemented various policies and programs to strengthen the educational inclusion of people with disabilities. The report “Towards barrier-free education: Advances and challenges in inclusive education evidenced by the SIRIED 2024 results” provides an updated diagnosis of the educational situation of the population with disabilities in Latin America.

The report shows discontinuous and vulnerable educational trajectories, a condition that worsens as students’ progress through school. This situation is reflected in over-age enrollment and dropout rates.

Read the other findings and download the report. 

This blog draws on comparative research exploring how headteachers in rural public basic schools across Ghana and the Philippines conceptualise and enact leadership to promote equity and inclusion.

Their candid accounts reveal what effective school leadership looks like when policy frameworks meet realities of poverty, infrastructure deficit, and social marginalization, based on a focus group discussion among headteachers in the Gomoa Central District of Ghana and Davao City in the Philippines.

Read the blog.

In India, educational success has been defined largely through curriculum coverage, examination performance, procedural compliance and the efficient administration of a large and complex education system. Teachers have been socialised into structures that reward completion, standardisation and measurable outcomes.

A reform, called the New Education Policy 2020, now asks the same system to additionally nurture creativity, agency, critical thinking, collaboration, social-emotional development and holistic learning. While these ambitions are widely welcomed, they often sit alongside older structures that continue to shape incentives, accountability mechanisms, teacher preparation and daily classroom realities.

Teachers frequently navigate the tension between their beliefs about what matters for young people and the systems that ultimately reward them for their work. Policies may encourage student-centred learning, while assessment systems continue to prioritise narrow measures of academic performance. Professional development may advocate for innovative pedagogies, while offering limited opportunities for sustained reflection, experimentation and practice. Schools may be encouraged to cultivate creativity and agency while continuing to operate in cultures shaped by compliance, standardisation and procedural expectations.

Read the blog.

In Ghana, learners with visual impairment are paired with sighted peers. These peers, often called readers, assist their classmates with visual impairment by describing visual materials, explaining classroom demonstrations, reading notes aloud and helping with other learning activities.

However, as the author of this blog notes, the “readers” are learners themselves not teaching assistants, they might not understand what is being taught and have their own learning needs.

“Inclusion should not be simply understood as access to classrooms, but as access to equitable opportunities for meaningful participation. Teachers require practical preparation and support to make STEM content accessible, particularly when teaching concepts heavily involve visual representations. This includes developing skills in verbal description, adapting learning materials and designing lessons that minimise visual barriers.”

Read the blog. 

Research with persons with disabilities can expose unconscious assumptions we often do not know we carry. While conducting PhD research in Ghana, the author had an experience that challenged deeply-embedded assumptions they were not aware they held. This blog shares that experience.

“This encounter serves as a reminder that inclusion is not always about grand intentions and patronising rhetoric, but paying attention to the small, often unnoticed details in everyday interactions with differently abled people. Inclusive research demands more than methodological adaptation – it requires critical awareness and ongoing reflection on the assumptions embedded in our everyday practices.”

Read the blog.