Our vision
Education systems that deliver high quality and equitable outcomes for all children and young people.
Our mission
CES analyses education policies from across the world to inform the development of coherent and effective education systems that best serve children and young people.
Where the OECD tracks outcomes, CES explains how different approaches work. Where EEF focuses on classroom practice, CES focuses on policy and system design. Our objective is not to find the “right” answer, but to understand the available options, context, mechanisms and outcomes and to advise policy makers on “what’s possible”.
Sam Freedman, CES Strategy Director.
Comparative Review summaries - Full reports available in the Resources tab
Latest news
Our Chief Research Officer, Loic Menzies, recently held a panel discussion at the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge University, to discuss the themes of his recently published book, 'How Policy Happens: Understanding the Decisions that Shape Our Education Systems'.
Loic was joined by Baroness Nicky Morgan, David Laws, Rae Snape and CES Advisory Board member, Prof Anna Vignoles, to explore how policy really gets made – not in tidy theories or ministerial press lines, but in time-pressured collisions between convictions, evidence, and conflicting demands.
Drawing on insights from Loic's book, the panel takes a fresh look at the last four decades of education reform – from selective schools and academisation to curriculum and funding – to uncover the funnels or forces that push policy down a particular track.
Why compare education systems?
“Systems evidence will improve the quality of the conversation between teachers, the sector and politicians and we certainly need that".
—Baroness Estelle Morris, Labour Secretary of State for Education, 2001-2
“The opportunity for CES to bolster the knowledge and understanding of the person who is appointed in a government re-shuffle is absolutely enormous”.
—Baroness Nicky Morgan, Conservative Secretary of State for Education, 2014 -16
“CES are considering context, data trends and how local policy instruments interact together, this will discourage magpie like policy borrowing”.
—Professor Becky Francis CBE, leading the Curriculum and assessment review, 2024-25
“CES systematically selects systems to study, and uses a principled approach to analysis, so that their reviews are authoritative, practical and relevant to policymakers". —Professor Dylan ap Rhys Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at UCL Institute of Education
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