Education Systems

Challenge: South Africa’s education system faces many intersectional challenges, including learning backlogs – a lack of required knowledge from previous grades, which prevent learners from accessing their grade-level content. These gaps in foundational knowledge build over time and hinder further learning.

Partnership: In 2021, the Zenex Foundation approached Reos Partners to begin a process to address the issue of learning backlogs in the country. Reos engaged a range of education stakeholders to distill a shared understanding of how to define the problem of learning backlogs, inform effective responses, and improve coordination of stakeholders.

Outcomes: Zenex is building upon this collaborative approach and using a synthesized report to provide input and influence the Department of Basic Education’s 2024 curriculum review process. Research on the interplay between language and learning is also being done and interventions to address the backlogs are being explored with potential partner organizations

Challenge: It’s increasingly difficult to afford college in the U.S. and for many students, a small, unexpected expense can lead to them dropping out. Several higher education institutions in the U.S. offer some form of emergency aid (EA), but only a few have a robust program that offers the potential for maximum impact on student retention and completion.

Partnership: Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Reos Partners facilitated an Emergency Aid Lab (EAL) with higher education leaders – financial aid and student services administrators, faculty, counselors, students, and other partners – over an 18-month period to determine how to best structure an EA program on campus.

Outcomes: The end product of the EAL is the Roadmap to Effective Emergency Aid, a program that guides higher education leaders in transforming informal emergency aid efforts into a comprehensive program that increases student success. The program is delivered through an interactive, online course, in-person workshops led by Reos Partners, and coaching.

Challenge: In 2015, Brazil’s national education system was struggling to serve its 50 million students, and grade repetition and drop-outs were common. The system was fragmented and the discourse was mired in ideological divides as various perspectives and priorities competed to influence the future of education in Brazil.

Partnership: Reos Partners used transformative scenarios to bring together a team of education leaders in Brazil to engage in dialogue about the different and often conflicting perspectives as to what is required to transform the future of basic education in the country. The Brazil Education Scenarios became a meeting point and a place for deep listening and learning to both collaborate and explore conflicts and differences.

Outcomes: There was a clear shift in the relationships between key stakeholders, most of whom had previously met only in adversarial contexts. The resulting National Scenarios for the Future of Education in Brazil were disseminated nationally. They provide new language, improved understanding of the challenges beyond ideologies, and a precedent of relationship within the sector.