Monitoring Education Development

Albert Motivansa.motivans@unesco.org

UNESCO Institute for Statistics

International Forum on Monitoring National Development:Issues and Challenges

Beijing, People’s Republic of China28 September, 2011

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics

• Founded in 1999, in Montreal since 2001• About 120 staff around the world • Mandated to maintain cross-nationally

comparable databases for:– Education– Science and technology– Culture– Communication and

Information

UIS mandate• Collects, produces and disseminates cross-nationally

comparable data • Analyzes comparative data• Develops international classifications and maintains

standards and definitions • Develops technical capacity within countries • Advocates for statistics as a tool for better policies

Monitoring Education Development Outline

• How has education development changed in the last decade?

• What are the new demands for education statistics?

• What efforts to meet these demands build upon the existing monitoring framework?

Education is vital to meet all of the development goals

EFA and MDG goals

1. Expanding early childhood care and education

2. Universal primary education by 2015

3. Equitable access to learning and life skills programmes for young people and adults

4. 50% increase in adult literacy rates by 2015

5. Gender parity by 2005 and gender equality by 2015

6. Improving quality of education

Millennium Development GoalsEducation for All

Obj. 2: Achieve universal primary education- Target 3: Completion of primary schooling by all children by 2015

Obj. 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

- Target 4: Eliminating gender disparities by 2005 in primary and secondary education, and at all levels no later that 2015

Gains in primary school enrolments, but not all children benefit

• In Kenya, 96% of rural Somali girls (aged 17-22) have less than 2 years of education. • The primary net attendance rate for Somali girls is only 30%.

20%

31%

17%

8%

25%

57%

73%

84%

96%

97%

Nigeria

Kenya

Ghana

Pakistan

India

Group average

Country average

Extreme education poverty% with less than 2 years of education

(age 17-22)

, poor, Hausa, girls

, rural, Somali, girls

, northern region, rural, girls

, rural, Sindhi, girls

, poor, Uttar Pradesh, girls

Source: UNESCO, EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2010

Achieving quality education for all children is still an unfinished agenda

Sources: UNESCO Institute for Statistics and EFA GMR

% ever enrolled

% reach grade 5

% with minimum mastery in language

Malawi

91

31

7

Namibia

97

74

19

Increased government investment in education in Africa in the 2000s

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Financing Education in sub-Saharan Africa, 2011

But is it sustainable given recent declines in GDP?

Four key directions: meeting emerging data needs

• Education quality: results of learning at all stages of education provision

• Equity: measures that capture those who are excluded from opportunity

• Underserved sectors: Indicators for areas outside of the formal education system

• Focus on regional target-setting, measure-ment and benchmarking

Direct measures of student learning outcomes and adult skills

• Are learners achieving intended knowledge and skills?

• Large wave of large-scale student assessment at the regional and national level at different points in educational pathway

• Challenges: Technical capacity, cost, underused data

Measuring education disparities

• Who is excluded from educational opportunities? Do education systems reach the “hardest to reach”?

• Harmonised international household surveys has led to a critical mass of comparative education indicators allow production of disaggregated indicators by target group (low SES, rural, etc.)

• Challenges: limited in national scope and use, not owned by national policymakers

Data needs beyond formal education Constituencies outside of formal basic education

– Adult literacy and learning• CONFINTEA, Belem, 2010 – new reporting tool developed for

countries to report on progress towards adult learning• Direct assessment of literacy skills (IALS, ALL, LAMP, PIACC) mainly

in more developed countries– Early Childhood Education and Development

• Global Conference, Moscow, 2010 – efforts include generating a global holistic index of child development

– Youth and skills• Global TVET Conference, China, 2012

• Challenges: Consensus on conceptual frameworks has been elusive and national statistical systems are not well-developed

Regional initiatives in setting targets and monitoring

• 2nd Decade of Education, African Union

• Goals of the Summit of the Americas, Miami 1994 / Santiago 1998

• Education Goals 2021, agreed at the XVIIth Ibero-American Conference on Education

Need to be realistic about effort and what can be achieved

Equity

Quality

NFE/TVETECCE

Conceptual and statistical frameworks

for education statistics

From ISCED 1997 to ISCED 2011:new developments

• Extends ISCED 0 to include education for younger children

• Better defines formal and non-formal education• Simplifies programme orientation (general and

vocational)• Redefines education at the tertiary level

– Short-cycle tertiary– Bachelor and equivalent – Master and equivalent– Doctoral and equivalent

• New approach to measuring educational attainment

Data sources for education indicators

Strengths Limitations

Administrative data

Regular (annual)Low cost to compileMeasures system outputs

Doesn’t capture demandData quality issuesRequires external population data (source of error)

Surveys and censuses

Covers children outside of school system / demand for educationAllows for analysis of subgroups and disadvantageSingle data source for both participation and population

Little ownership of data, especially by line ministriesDoesn’t link to other data (e.g., teacher or finance)Ad-hoc and irregularCan be costly exercises

Direct measures

Directly measures outcomes - skills and knowledge

Costly, requires significant technical capacity often not present

Aim is to move countries up to the next level towards better data quality…

SELF-SELF-SUSTAININGSUSTAINING

BASICBASIC

INTERMEDIATEINTERMEDIATE

Lacking statistical infrastructure; Little government commitment and use of data; less need for intl. comparable data

Basic data channels in place; some commitment to data use; data fragmented across ministries; coverage and relevance; regional comparisons

Stable information system, good links between users and producers of data, responsive to relevant policy issues, but the demands are more complex. Intl comparisons used widely

Moving the education monitoring agenda forward

• Efforts should build on the principal of national ownership

• Agree on a common language and understanding of the concepts

• Measurement frameworks which are reached by consensus

• Data collection that is sustainable and is built into planning

• Recognise technical capacity needs• Partnerships are essential