Delivery Approaches in Education: Lessons from Ghana and Pakistan

SOE EduTalk, recently hosted a session on the topic of "Delivery Approaches in Education: Lessons from Ghana and Pakistan" at the LUMS School of Education. The session invited Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom, Dr. Rabea Malik, Dr. Soufia Siddiqi, and Dr. Faisal Bari to share their insights and experiences on how delivery approaches can be utilized to address the global learning crisis.
 

The session highlighted the importance of data-driven accountability and problem-solving in improving service delivery across different sectors, including education and health. However, there is a lack of peer-reviewed articles on the implementation and impact of delivery approaches. To fill this gap, the presenters shared findings from two country cases: Ghana and Pakistan, which have adopted delivery approaches to improve the quality of education service delivery.
 

In Ghana, a minister-led delivery unit was established in 2018 to coordinate national agencies to deliver ambitious education reform with a strong focus on accountability through performance contracts of sub-national bureaucrats. On the other hand, the Chief Ministers Special Monitoring Unit was set up in 2012 in Punjab, Pakistan to propel improvements in education and health service delivery at the district level. The Education Road Map reform in Punjab lasted for 8 years and is cited as a global example of deploying delivery units and data-driven accountability to improve services and outcomes.
 

The presenters shared the structures, processes, and practices that governments adopted in the two countries and the ways in which these interacted with and impacted the bureaucratic practices of governance and service delivery. The session ended with a lively discussion among the attendees about the relevance of these lessons for other countries facing similar challenges.
 

The session was attended by students, faculty, and management from the field of education and was well-received by the participants. The EduTalk aims to continue hosting similar sessions to bring together diverse perspectives on education-related issues and foster constructive dialogue on improving educational outcomes.