The Millions Learning project at the Center for Universal Education focuses on scaling the impact of quality education innovations and initiatives for all children and youth.
Millions Learning views scaling as referring to a range of approaches—from deliberate replication to organic diffusion to integration into national systems—that expand and deepen impact leading to lasting improvements in people’s lives.
This conceptualization of scaling implicitly takes a systems approach where the focus is not on growing an individual project but on enacting and sustaining change in the broader system. Since 2014, the Millions Learning project has engaged in three phases of collaborative research with partners around the world to understand the “how” of scaling impact in education systems.
Since 2014, the Millions Learning project has engaged in three phases of collaborative research with partners around the world to understand the “how” of scaling impact in education systems.
Research on Scaling the Impact of Innovations in Education (ROSIE)
Interest in scaling promising innovations to effect systemic change in education around the world has grown over the last decade, but effective scaling is not just about designing and delivering the innovations; it is also about embedding them in thoughtful, multifaceted ways to ensure that they grow, deepen, and have lasting impact. It’s about how the innovation, the scaling process, the broader environment, and scores of people and institutions are engaged for success.
To support and better understand how to scale effectively, in 2020 the Millions Learning project at the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings joined the Global Partnership for Education’s (GPE) Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX), a joint partnership between the Global Partnership for Education and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), to facilitate a cross-national, multiteam, design-based research and professional support initiative called Research on Scaling the Impact of Innovations in Education (ROSIE). ROSIE brings together researchers and practitioners working in low- and middle-income countries to study the process of scaling education initiatives for impact.
In 2021, 15 KIX grantee teams joined ROSIE, working alongside the CUE team to think about, study, and deepen the impact of their work.
In 2024, the ROSIE community was expanded to include 43 KIX grantee teams working in 47 countries within five broad themes of scaling/research:
- Education data systems and data use.
- Gender equality, equity, and inclusion at school.
- Teacher professional development, agency, and well-being.
- Inclusive early learning and school readiness.
- Out-of-school children and youth.
This group is focused on research, learning exchange, and knowledge mobilization within and across KIX project teams through the ROSIE Global Learning Community.
Additionally, Millions Learning is conducting complementary qualitative research on how governments at both national and subnational levels engage in the work of identifying, supporting, and adopting education innovations to scale.
Real-time Scaling Labs
Despite the proliferation of innovations that improve learning outcomes, the vast majority still reach only a small fraction of the children and youth in need. How do we scale and sustain those initiatives that are most effective at improving learning for all? To answer this question, in 2018 Millions Learning and partner institutions around the world co-created Real-time Scaling Labs (RTSLs)—a participatory, action research approach to learn from, support, and document education interventions as they scaled in real time. The ultimate goal of the labs was to support initiatives as they deepened and expanded while simultaneously gaining deeper insight into how policymakers, civil society, and the private sector can most effectively work together to bring about large-scale transformation in the quality of children’s learning and their development. The labs offered concrete opportunities for peer learning and exchange through in-person and virtual convenings while also generating knowledge on the “how” of scaling impact.
Learnings from the RTSLs were shared in four individual lab case studies, a suite of scaling tools, and a summative report, “Scaling impact in education for transformative change: Practical recommendations from the Real-Time Scaling Labs.” While the research phase of the RTSLs concluded in 2023, the work of scaling has continued in each of the labs in different ways and the research continues to be built on in the ROSIE project.
Scaling up quality education in developing countries
The first phase of the Millions Learning project (2014-2016), drawing on existing literature and conducting 14 retrospective case studies from around the world, examined how policies and programs in low- and middle-income countries went to scale. The findings and insights from this work appear in “Millions Learning: Scaling up quality education in developing countries.” The report identified 14 core ingredients that, in different combinations depending on the context, contribute to scaling effective practices and approaches that improve learning and used the case studies and reflective commentary to illuminate lesson and scaling journeys.