Providing evidence for policy makers - to improve education for all.
The Centre for Education Systems helps governments, advisors and campaigners learn from education systems around the world. We describe different policy approaches, their contexts, and their outcomes.
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: published December 2025
Full reports available in the Resources tab
Latest news
In June, CES hosted an international roundtable on SEND policy reforms with Schools Minister Georgia Gould. The session came after an announcement from the then Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson of the formation of an International Alliance on SEND, citing three shared challenges that emerged from CES’ international comparative review on SEND policy as contributing to the rationale for that alliance.
Loic Menzies and our associate SEND experts Ellie Harris and Dev Tiwari brought together leading experts from Wales, France, Finland and the Netherlands to share their experiences of implementing SEND system reforms with Minister Gould and the Department's SEND and AP team.
Ellie and Loic outline their findings from the session in this TES article.
(Left to right) Barbara Jenssens, Merja Koivisto, Klara Kovarski, Pirjo Koivula, Matthieu Lahaye, Loic Menzies, Minister Georgia Gould, Georgina Haarhoff, Louise Brown, Hannah Wharf and Ellie Harris.
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
CES Partners (for current and recent work)
