Monitoring Education Development

1. Monitoring Education Development Albert Motivans a.motivans@unesco.org UNESCO Institute for Statistics International Forum on Monitoring National Development: Issues and Challenges Beijing, People’s Republic of China 28 September, 2011

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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?

5. Education is vital to meet all of the development goals

6. EFA and MDG goals Education for All Millennium Development Goals • Expandingearly childhood care and education • Universal primary education by 2015 • Equitable access to learning and life skills programmes for young people and adults • 50% increase in adult literacy rates by 2015 • Gender parityby 2005 and gender equality by 2015 • Improving qualityof education Obj. 2: Achieve universal primary education - Target 3: Completion of primary schooling by all children by 2015 Obj. 3: Promote gender equalityand empower women - Target 4: Eliminating gender disparities by 2005 in primary and secondary education, and at all levels no later that 2015

7. Extreme education poverty % with less than 2 years of education (age 17-22) Nigeria , poor, Hausa, girls • 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%. 25% 97% Kenya , rural, Somali, girls 8% 96% Ghana , northern region, rural, girls 17% 84% Pakistan , rural, Sindhi, girls 31% 73% India , poor, Uttar Pradesh, girls 20% 57% Country average Group average Gains in primary school enrolments, but not all children benefit Source: UNESCO, EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2010

8. 97 91 74 31 19 7 Achieving qualityeducation for all children is still an unfinished agenda % ever enrolled % reach grade 5 % with minimum mastery in language Namibia Malawi Sources: UNESCO Institute for Statistics and EFA GMR

9. Increased government investment in education in Africa in the 2000s But is it sustainable given recent declines in GDP? Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Financing Education in sub-Saharan Africa, 2011

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Need to be realistic about effort and what can be achieved ECCE NFE/TVET Quality Equity

16. Conceptual and statistical frameworks for education statistics

17. 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

18. Data sources for education indicators

19. Aim is to move countries up to the next level towards better data quality… SELF-SUSTAINING 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 INTERMEDIATE Basic data channels in place; some commitment to data use; data fragmented across ministries; coverage and relevance; regional comparisons BASIC Lacking statistical infrastructure; Little government commitment and use of data; less need for intl. comparable data

20. 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