SPARKS Egypt: Rethinking Teacher Development Through Pedagogical Mindsets

Investigating the intersection of policy, pedagogy, and classroom realities to transform teacher professional development.

About SPARKS

The Strengthening Pedagogical Approaches for Relevant Knowledge and Skills (SPARKS) project is a global research initiative that examines the gap between research, policy, and classroom practice in primary and secondary education. SPARKS is currently being implemented in Egypt, India, and Mexico, with a focus on innovative pedagogies that transform teaching and learning.

Funded by the LEGO Foundation, SPARKS aims to ignite a global conversation about the invisible pedagogical mindsets—the underlying beliefs, attitudes, and cultural influences that shape how education reforms unfold in classrooms. The initiative is implemented in Egypt by the Foundation for Self-Discovery and Development, in partnership with the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution.

Why Study Pedagogical Mindsets?

In Egypt, the EDU 2.0 reform is transforming education by introducing new pedagogies, technology integration, and student-centered learning approaches. However, successful reform requires more than new policies—it demands an understanding of how teachers’ mindsets, cultural influences, and lived experiences shape their adoption of reforms.

Through a comparative study across three school types, SPARKS Egypt investigates:

✅ How teachers, students, policymakers, and civil society actors perceive and respond to educational reforms.
✅ How Arabic language instruction, as a subject deeply tied to identity and literacy goals, reflects systemic changes in pedagogy.
✅ The impact of technology integration in Arabic instruction and how it aligns with teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and classroom realities.
✅ The historical evolution of education reforms in Egypt and their socio-cultural implications.

By uncovering these hidden dynamics, SPARKS Egypt aims to bridge the gap between policy ambitions and classroom realities, ensuring that teacher professional development is responsive, sustainable, and impactful.

The Research Policy Collaborative (RPC) Approach

At the core of SPARKS Egypt is the Research Policy Collaborative (RPC) model—a new way of linking research with real-world education policy and practice.

🔹 What is an RPC?
RPCs bring together educators, policymakers, researchers, civil society organizations, representatives of teachers, academics and community members to co-design research, ensuring it is relevant, actionable, and directly informs policy.

🔹 Why does it matter?
Traditional top-down education policies often fail to capture the realities of the classroom. SPARKS-RPCs prioritize co-creation, allowing teachers, students, and policymakers to collaborate in shaping reforms based on real-world challenges and opportunities.

By embedding research within ongoing policy discussions, SPARKS ensures that education reforms are not only ambitious but also feasible, teacher-centered, and culturally grounded.