Policy recommendations on building family-centered education systems

Family-centered education systems position families and communities as essential partners and assets in delivering a shared vision of education, create opportunities to build trusting home-school relationships and honor each other’s knowledge and perspectives, and are committed to collectively supporting student learning, development, and well-being. Partnerships between families, schools, and communities are critical to strengthening and transforming education systems.

The Center for Universal Education co-led the writing and development of a set of policy briefs with collaborating civil society and government institutions on different education systems contexts. These policy reports take the research conducted in the large international study—the Six Global Lessons on How Family, School, and Community Engagement can Transform Education (2024)—and tailor the findings and recommendations to specific countries and regions. The policy reports provide specific strategies and recommendations for building stronger partnerships and relational trust in each context.

Two global briefs on youth engagement in decision making and leadership elevate young people’s voice and role in education systems transformation.

The Government of Bangladesh recognizes the importance of families’ active engagement in their children’s education to ensure student participation, outcomes, and well-being. Secondary students face many barriers to school completion, including high educational costs, pressure to leave school to earn, early marriage, and more. Family engagement and relational trust is critical at this juncture in young people’s lives to ensure they are not only in school but also learning and thriving. This policy brief presents actionable strategies to deepen family, school, and community partnerships in rural and urban secondary schools and build a more family-centered education system.

Although education frameworks at the national, state, and municipal levels in Brazil formally recognize the importance of family engagement, they often fall short in providing concrete and actionable guidance to operationalize family and school partnerships. Drawing on participatory research with families and educators across three states, this policy brief offers evidence-based recommendations to support government institutions and civil society actors in reimagining families, not merely as overseers of attendance or decisionmaking bodies, but as integral partners in advancing equitable and high-quality education.

The government of Colombia has recognized family, school, and community engagement—known as Alianza Familia-Escuela—as essential throughout a child’s educational trajectory and has made it central to its education system across all levels. Despite ambitious policy priorities, in practice, these efforts have not yet been fully operationalized as intended in schools. Most notably, not all families are engaging in their children’s schools as aspired, particularly those who do not have flexible and secure work and rely on daily wages. This policy report provides actionable strategies and recommendations to ensure this well-intended policy vision is translated into practice.