A recurring challenge in education is that we do not have a good view of what research and evaluation is happening, where it is happening, and what has already been learned. Yet we are not starting from scratch. Several existing initiatives already hold different pieces of this puzzle. The opportunity may be less about creating another repository and more about exploring how these pieces could connect.
1. NED Connect – linking interventions to the research and evaluation around them
What exists: NED Connect, developed and stewarded by NASCEE, is building a national picture of who is doing what, where, and with whom in the education ecosystem. It includes organisation profiles, geographic information and interactive maps, including school-level mapping of reported support.
The possibility: Could NED Connect include an additional research and evaluation layer? An intervention could be tagged to indicate that research or evaluation is planned, underway or completed, with basic metadata and links to reports or other evidence. We could then begin to see not only where interventions are happening, but also where evidence is being generated about them.
2. AfrED – building on an existing repository of African evaluation evidence
What exists: CREST's African Evaluation Database (AfrED) already captures bibliographic information about evaluation reports, journal articles and doctoral theses. It currently contains around 7,800 documents, including more than 4,000 evaluation reports, and is specifically intended to make African evaluation production more visible.
The possibility: Rather than creating another repository for completed evaluation reports, could we strengthen the connection between AfrED and other education platforms? NED Connect might show that an intervention has been evaluated, while AfrED could provide the searchable evidence record. Over time, this could create a much clearer pathway from intervention → evaluation → evidence.
3. DDD – connecting evaluation with longitudinal system data
What exists: Data Driven Districts (DDD), a partnership involving the DBE and New Leaders Foundation, turns SA-SAMS data into accessible information for education officials. It currently incorporates data on around 12 million learners across approximately 24,000 schools, including information on attendance and performance.
The possibility: DDD raises a different opportunity. Could evaluation information be linked to the rich longitudinal information already available about schools and learners? Knowing which interventions and evaluations have taken place in a school, alongside its administrative and performance trajectory, could open new possibilities for secondary analysis, longer-term follow-up and new evaluation designs. It may also allow us to learn more from data already being collected rather than repeatedly creating parallel datasets. And here is a novel idea - Why don't we set up the system so that the schools can also use the evaluation and research output?
4. A more connected ethics and research approval process – making planned research visible earlier
What exists: Research and evaluation currently passes through multiple processes: funders and researchers commission work; ethics bodies review studies; and provincial education departments manage research approvals. Each process has a legitimate purpose, but they are largely separate. No single actor therefore has a complete view of the research and evaluation landscape.
The possibility: Could a central or coordinated education ethics review function become another point of connection? It might draw basic metadata from provincial approval processes and ethics applications, identify possible overlaps, and trigger follow-up where appropriate: Another evaluation is already taking place in these schools. Similar data have recently been collected. Have the two teams spoken? Is there existing evidence that should be considered? The aim would not be another layer of bureaucracy, but a light-touch coordinating function that helps the system notice connections before data collection begins. This builds on the idea of pre-ethics review, a research and evaluation registry, and a small enabling coordination function already explored in the Weave concept.
5. The Zenex–CREST meta-review – showing the value of bringing evaluation evidence back together
What exists: The Zenex Foundation has recently supported CREST to undertake a meta-review of selected evaluations commissioned by the Foundation since 2015, across Foundation, Intermediate and Senior Phase work. Rather than looking at another individual programme, the exercise brings together a body of evaluation evidence accumulated over roughly a decade and examines it systematically.
The possibility: This illustrates why visibility matters. Individual evaluations answer important questions about individual programmes. But when we can find, organise and synthesise evaluations across time, another level of learning becomes possible: What findings recur? Which approaches appear promising across contexts? Where does evidence disagree? What have we repeatedly tried? And what important questions remain unanswered?
The bigger opportunity
These initiatives do different things, and they should not necessarily be combined into one large system. But together they suggest the beginnings of an evidence infrastructure:
NED Connect helps us see what is happening where.
Provincial approvals and ethics processes could help us see what research is about to happen.
AfrED can help us find what research and evaluation has already been completed.
DDD provides longitudinal system data that can potentially deepen what we can learn from evaluations.
Meta-analysis and synthesis allow us to step back periodically and ask what the accumulated evidence is telling us.
The opportunity may therefore not be to build one more database. It may be to make the connections between what already exists — so that each new research or evaluation investment contributes not only to an individual programme, but progressively to what the education system knows.
AI disclosure: I used ChatGPT to help structure, refine and edit this post, based on my own ideas, experience and source material. I reviewed and take responsibility for the final content.
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