Reflections from the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conference

The almost 70-year-old Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conference held this year in Chicago brought together more than 3000 educators, researchers, policymakers, opinion makers and practitioners to explore the theme ’Envisioning Education in a Digital Society’. As the world increasingly becomes more digital and with many of us are grappling with advanced digital platforms like ChatGPT, the Internet of Things, and Generative Artificial Intelligence, this theme could not have come at a better time.

This year, I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the CIES along with my colleagues on ‘Gender Transformative Whole School Approaches to School Related Gender Based Violence.’ Schools are supposed to be a safe and inclusive place for children where they go to learn, play and socialise. However, that reality changed for many including myself when in 2014, terrorists stormed into a school in Peshawar, Pakistan killing 141 people out of which 132 were school children. And for many students across the world, schools are a place of violence and fear, and many students are victims of physical, sexual, psychological and online abuse in schools perpetrated by their peers or teachers. According to UNICEF, violence against children affects over 50% of children globally each year and is linked to future violence against women.

Schools as incubators of social change

Our session at the CIES conference was attended by a number of people including students, researchers and feminists. We spoke about how the normalisation of violence is shaped during adolescence, how schools play a key role in shaping attitudes towards gender equity, and that programmes in schools can shift behaviors and attitudes to reduce violence in the long-term. We also shared our methodology which is based on the hypothesis that play and sports-based experiential, holistic and whole school approaches will bring positive, attitudinal and behavioral changes among boys and girls that will shift social norms and lead to reductions in violence against children. As a result, this also improves children’s mental health and educational outcomes. We saw the impact and evidence of this in What Works I which demonstrated that gender-transformative education in schools can help break cycles of violence and promote safer, more equitable environments for children and communities.

Charting a new path forward

It's important to note that this year’s CIES conference was held in the backdrop of a radical reshaping of the global foreign and development policy with a number of governments reducing their aid budgets. So even though the main theme was Education in the Digital World, there were a lot of sessions, discussions and shared solidarity in the tremendous shift in our sector and how moving forward, we need to restructure and rebuild differently.

Despite the uncertainty these changes bring, there was also a lot of hope and optimism with many participants talking about how countries in the Global South now have the opportunity to think beyond short-term aid interventions to contextually rooted, inclusive change and how the decision-making power needs to shift to local actors and move away from external control. Many believed this radical and extreme change might help reduce aid dependency and this would help local organisations and movements who would be able to take ownership and be present when the international community leaves. Personally, I feel it would have been good to see a stronger focus on the gender angle when we talk about the impact of aid cuts, and the consequences for women and girls and gender-sensitive work.

Another key theme that emerged from this conference was the critical needs and gaps needed in education in emergencies and protracted crises and how the well-being of teachers is crucial in these times. It was interesting to see, however, that even during the discussions on education in emergencies, there was quite a bit of awareness and interest on the use of play-based methodologies and the need to move from formal structures like schools to non-formal like non-formal community-based education centers so that learning continues. I was pleasantly surprised to observe that there was also heightened interest in social-emotional learning (SEL) and psychosocial support and quite a few sessions were talking about the need to incorporate SEL early in the work that the respective organisations will be doing in education in emergencies.

At the end of the five days and after attending multiple sessions and interacting with various people from many different contexts and countries, a number of shared messages stood out. Despite the technological advancements and integrating digital tools in education, if the development world doesn’t move on from short-term interventions to scalable solutions, if we don’t put teachers’ wellbeing at the heart of the work that we do, if we don’t collaborate with the government and local organisations and if we don’t center our conversations around those working on the ground, then we’ll always fall short of achieving long-term impact and making a difference in the lives of the communities that we serve.

About the author

Maham Khan is an Education Specialist from Right to Play (RTP), Pakistan an NGO dedicated to safeguarding, educating, and empowering children who are confronted with adversity in some of the world's most challenging and disadvantaged regions. RTP is implementing a What Works II funded project using the transformational power of play to empower youth and prevent violence in and around schools.

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