ABSTRACT
This chapter is about how we best resource education improvement in low- and middle-income countries. We make the case that whilst education systems need funds, money alone does not make the difference. We also explain that in a post-COVID-19 world, where domestic tax revenues and donor funding are (likely) stagnating, there might not be much more of it to be had anyway. This means that all systems – including those in low- and middle-income contexts – may need to learn to do more with less (a.k.a. get Lean). In the second half of the chapter, we introduce the Lean methodology, which started life in the automotive industry as a thinking lens to identify educational Jenga blocks that can be removed, hollowed out, or not added in the first place.
