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are obliged to use the new database. District education officers have been also trained to analyse
and use the school data for diagnostics purpose (Malaysia Ministry of Education, 2013; UNESCO,
2017). A third good practice is the formation of broad-based coalitions of stakeholders to avoid
implementation failure. To this end, Malaysia created a performance delivery unit (PEMANDU)
or a “lab model” to spearhead comprehensive reforms in many sectors, including education
(WDR 2018). This approach has been subsequently exported to a number of other developing
countries. The PEMANDU model resembles the “problem driven, iterative adaption” (PDIA)
approach where the key is to avoid implementation failure (Sabel and Jordan 2015). This
approach integrates planning and doing authorizing local actors to incrementally improve initial
plans. This ensures engagement of stakeholders in the design as well as implementation phase
of reform (World Bank 2017/Malaysia). Stakeholders usually meet in the labs for six to nine
weeks at the inception phase to finalize performance indicators and implementation plans.
Decisions made at local levels are corrected by judgments at “higher” ones and vice versa. Nearly
a third of the initial plans are implemented as they emerge from the Labs while the remaining
two-thirds are revised in implementation. This has also inspired the Ministry of Education to
create a similar accountability system—the “Performance and Delivery Unit” (PADU). Programs
approved under the process have been credited with increasing grade 3 literacy rates in
Malaysia from 89 percent in 2009 to close to 100 percent in 2012 (WDR 2018). However, none
of these three potentially good practices have been scientifically evaluated. Hard evidence
documenting their impact on student learning remains absent.
Policy Efforts To Improve Education Quality In The OIC Countries
The need for substantive improvements in education statistics and indicators of progress has
long been emphasized for some member states (Heyneman, 1997). Yet only a handful of
countries have responded positively. There is no OIC-wide initiative that coordinates actions
and programs to improve the quality of education in member countries. This is despite the fact
that these countries face common challenges and share socio-religious characteristics that
impact schooling and learning outcomes. One body that goes some distance in filling this void is
the “Islamic Education, Science and Culture Organization” (ISESCO) which spearheaded a
number of initiatives to coordinate progress with the Islamic world towards meeting the
millennium challenges. In 2005, a 10-year long Programme of Action to Meet Millennium
Challenges was launched following the 3rd Extraordinary Islamic Summit in Mekkah. The
initiative aimed to tackle various challenges facing the Islamic Ummah in the 21st Century. This
was followed by a new three-year action plan (2013-2015) adopted in 2012 by the 11th General
Conference held in Riyadh (Altwaijri, 2014).
Other important regional organizations involving OIC countries include the “Arab League
Education, Culture and Science Organization” (ALECSO) and “Arab Regional Agenda for
improving Education Quality” (ARAIEQ) and “Arab Program for Early Childhood Development”
(APECD)5 . The recently launched “Strategy for the Development of Education in the Islamic
World” amended and adopted by the First ISESCO Conference of Education Ministers has clearly
shifted to the focus education quality:
“The first step in building the future of the Islamic world as we aspire to is to eradicate
illiteracy in all its forms, functional illiteracy, digital illiteracy and information illiteracy.
It also entails developing and improving the quality of education by adopting modern
and world class educational systems, starting with the training of teachers who believe