Education Development & Research Cell is a vital unit of the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) given its directive of critically reviewing the developmental and educational practices undertaken within and outside the Foundation.

With the increase in SEF’s portfolio and outreach, the organization’s need to promote institutionalized learnings has grown. Documentation and information compilation were emphasized and in 1998 for the first time research was formally initiated in the Foundation. The Unit mandated as the EDRC, focuses on studying the conceptual and operational directions of the SEF programs with the objective of utilizing it for learning, improvement and change. The evolving research deliberates on aspects of societal development, community participation, education and social change.

Research philosophy at EDRC is focused on creating strong linkages with communities not only for eliciting information from them but also to assess, synthesize and analyze this knowledge. Learning from research findings continually enriches the Programs at SEF. A dissemination approach to inspire and communicate systematic research and thinking in education and development, brings together audiences of academia and research institutions, fostering interaction through multidisciplinary research, seminars and discourses at the national and international forums and publication of articles and reports. EDRC seeks further to engage in serious dialogue with policymakers for bringing to the fore indigenous insight and understandings on education and development and linking them with specific education-content and pedagogical practices. The strength of the Unit lies in its dedicated team that brings together competencies in areas of social research, psychology and communications.

Objectives
• Interface with community through regular dialogue and participatory social research for mutual understandings and reclaiming a mix of outside (national/international)
• Study, through discourses and discussions, the progression of programs in light of new and innovative understandings of the thematic framework for bridging the gap between community needs and program objectives
• Exchange research based learning and understandings of development and education within various forums, institutions, government as a means of influencing internal and external educational ideologies, practices and policies.
• To follow up the progress of all the programs of SEF through collection of all the basic information about the programs in order to facilitate the process of ‘informed’ decision making and trouble shooting
• To create a quantitative reference point on the basic educational indicators by creating a comprehensive data repository
• To provide knowledge base for qualitative research
• To strengthen the quantitative perspective of the SEF programs