EdVance

What actually happens when a school decides that feeding children is just as important as teaching them? In this episode of the #EdVance Podcast, internationally acclaimed educator and founder of Green Bronx Machine, Stephen Ritz, explores what it really takes to engage students when traditional methods stop working. He questions conventional approaches to education, examines what traditional phil...

Are universities failing worldwide? Between rising student debt, shrinking budgets, and shifting job markets, higher education is under severe pressure. In this episode of the #EdVance Podcast, Professor Sue Rigby, Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University, makes a bold case for institutional reform. Moving from palaeontology research into university executive leadership, Professor Rigby brea...

Can schools really achieve high performance without putting staff wellbeing first? In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Alan Williamson, CEO of Taaleem, one of the UAE’s largest education groups, shares what decades in education have taught him about building great schools. He explores why relationships, culture and exceptional teachers sit at the heart of school success, and why wellbeing and...

Corporate playbooks may work in business, but do they work in schools? In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Dr Navin Valrani, CEO of Arcadia Education, reflects on his journey from the corporate world to educational leadership and what it has taught him about building great schools. He explores why standardisation has its limits, why leaders need to understand the individual journeys of the peo...

You can have the best ideas, the best strategies and the best people and still fail to transform an education system. So what is the missing piece? In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Iwan Syahril, former Director General at Indonesia’s Ministry of Education and Senior Advisor at Teach For All, reflects on what it really takes to lead education reform at scale. Drawing on his experience leadin...

Schools know how to measure achievement. They are much less certain how to help young people understand themselves. That gap may help explain why so many leave school with impressive results but little confidence about the path ahead. In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Devi Sahny, CEO of Ascend Now and The Edge, draws on her experience supporting more than 500,000 students across five contine...

India has one of the world's largest education systems, yet millions of children still learn through textbooks, blackboards, and memorisation. Everyone knows it has to change. Changing it in every classroom is the hard part. In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Smita Deorah, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of LEAD Group, shares how her organisation built one of India's largest integrated school learning...

Education is one of the only sectors where a failed product doesn't cost money. It costs a child a year of learning they never get back. In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Hernan Carranza, Chief Innovation Officer at Intercorp, shares how he helped grow Innova Schools into the largest K–12 private school network in Spanish-speaking Latin America, and what it took to innovate inside a sector w...

China has over 13 million students sitting for the Gaokao every year - a university entrance exam so competitive that a single score can shape a student's future. Behind China's world-leading academic results is a system where parents, teachers, and school leaders work together to ensure every child succeeds. But that success often comes with immense pressure. In this episode of the EdVance Podcas...

Brazil has 1.7 million public school teachers. Most of them start their careers underprepared, walk into classrooms of students with multiple learning profiles, and are left to figure it out alone. In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Ana Ligia Scachetti, Executive Director of Nova Escola, makes the case for what it will take to change that. Under her leadership, Nova Escola has grown from a pr...

Building a school culture that outlasts generations is a decision made every single day. Institut Le Rosey has been making it for 146 years, and the alumni it produces have taken that culture into some of the most consequential rooms in the world. In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Christophe Gudin, Director General of Institut Le Rosey, is clear about what is happening to education and who i...

India has over 1.4 billion people, a quarter of a billion children in school, a record number of teachers, and a system that, by its own admission, has not cracked what actually happens inside the classroom once the children sit down. The people who understand that gap most clearly are the ones who have spent their careers building inside it. Shreyasi Singh, Founding Managing Partner of Jetri, bui...

He was once told his entire class ranked in the bottom 10th percentile of their age group. He calls it one of the strangest things a school ever did to a child. He now runs 100+ schools. And that experience sits behind every decision he has made about what education should and should not do to a young person. In this episode of the #EdVancePodcast, Ng Yi Xian, Group CEO of EtonHouse International...

Efficiency is often the enemy of real education. In an age of instant answers and AI shortcuts, we are tempted to prioritise the "output" over the "process." But intellectual growth requires friction; if we let robots do the heavy lifting in our classrooms, we aren’t innovating - we are simply making our students, and our systems, weaker. In this episode, Olli-Pekka Heinonen , Director General of...

What if the design of your school is the very thing holding it back? Most schools are not running a bad design. They are running an inherited one, built for factories and mass production, not for learners. And most leaders have never once stopped to question it. In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Jeff Wetzler, Co-founder of Transcend and Head of Transcend Labs, joins host Vikas Pota to challe...

In Mexico, only one in ten children who start school will ever make it to university. At this school network, it is eight out of ten. So what are they doing differently? In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Yael Karakowsky, CEO of SER Network of Schools in Mexico, shares the thinking behind those results, the three principles her schools refuse to compromise on, and the one leadership lesson th...

What does it really mean to build a high-performing school in a nation transforming at speed? In this episode of the #EdVance Podcast, Dr Steffen Sommer, Director General of Misk Schools in Saudi Arabia, explores how leadership evolution, cultural alignment and strategic precision shape exceptional institutions. Dr Steffen shares lessons from leading schools across Europe and the Middle East, expl...

What does it take for schools to achieve elite outcomes while serving disadvantaged communities? In this episode of the #EdVance Podcast, Alex Crossman, Executive Head Teacher, London Academy of Excellence, discusses how belief, culture and clarity shape high performance. Alex shares lessons from leading one of England’s highest-performing schools, explaining why clarity of purpose matters, how le...

What does it take to build high-performance schools in one of the world’s most competitive education systems, and why does culture matter so much? In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Simon O’Connor, Headmaster of Harrow International School Dubai, reflects on more than a decade of school leadership in the UAE and what sustains strong performance over time. Simon explains why school culture, de...

What will it take to address Africa’s learning crisis, and why does progress depend on getting the basics right? In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Rapelang Rabana, Co-CEO of Imagine Worldwide, reflects on what teachers and systems across Africa are facing, and why foundational literacy and numeracy remain essential for sustained progress. She explains the difference between schooling and lea...

What does it take to design education reforms that actually work, especially at the scale of millions? And how do leaders stay focused when the system is crowded with competing priorities and complexity? In this episode of the EdVance podcast, Kruti Bharucha, Founder and CEO of Peepul, shares why every effective intervention begins with clarity. She reflects on the simple discipline of knowing wha...

What does it take to keep education going when a country faces conflict? How do school leaders stay steady, support their teams and protect learning when nothing feels certain? In this episode, Zoya Lytvyn, Founder of Osvitoria and a leading education voice in Ukraine, shares her journey and the work that has helped millions of children and teachers continue learning during the war. Zoya speaks ab...

What helps some education systems improve while others fall behind? In this new EdVance episode, Professor  Fernando M. Reimers  from the  Harvard Graduate School of Education  explains how high performing systems plan for the future through futures thinking, balance global citizenship with national identity, and use AI to support teachers and reduce workload. He shares how col...

How do schools close persistent learning gaps and raise student outcomes year after year? In this episode of the EdVance Podcast, Chancey Anderson Tauer, Co-Founder and CEO of Prodeo Academy in Minnesota. She explains how her schools improve results for underserved students through data-driven decisions, consistent expectations and coaching that strengthens teaching practice. Chancey shows how evi...

In this episode, Lil Bremermann Richard, Group CEO of Oxford International Education Group, shares about how universities can stay useful in a time shaped by technology and new expectations from students. Lil shares her own journey in leadership, including the challenges of working in male-dominated spaces and what she has learnt about perseverance, equality, and the importance of building strong...