Understanding what contributes to improving a system will help us tackle the problems in education systems that usually fail disproportionately in providing quality education for all, especially for the most disadvantage sectors of the population. This paper presents the results of a qualitative systematic literature review aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of what education research can say about the factors that promote education systems’ improvement. This literature is emerging as a topic of empirical research that merges comparative education and school effectiveness studies as standardized assessments make it possible to compare results across systems and time. To examine and synthesize the papers included in this review we followed a thematic analysis approach. We identify, analyze, and report patterns in the papers included in this systematic review. From the coding process, four drivers for system improvement emerged: (1) system-wide approaches; (2) human capital; (3) governance and macro–micro level bridges; and (4) availability of resources.

了解什么有助于改进系统将帮助我们解决教育系统中的问题，这些问题通常在为所有人提供优质教育方面不成比例，特别是对于人口中最弱势的群体。本文介绍了定性系统文献综述的结果，旨在全面概述教育研究可以说明促进教育系统改进的因素。这些文献正在成为一个实证研究的主题，它将比较教育和学校有效性研究相结合，因为标准化的评估使得跨系统和跨时间比较结果成为可能。为了检查和综合本次审查中包含的论文，我们采用了主题分析方法。我们识别、分析、并在本系统评价中包含的论文中报告模式。从编码过程中，出现了四个系统改进的驱动力：（1）系统范围的方法；(2) 人力资本；（3）治理和宏观微观层面的桥梁；(4) 资源的可用性。