A new methodological paper explains the process undertaken by UIS experts to produce internationally-comparable education indicators. Entitled “UIS Indicator Development in the Field of Education”, the paper explains how the Institute takes measures to reduce the burden on survey respondents by using existing mechanisms and outlines the steps taken to produce new indicators.
The UIS has launched two new surveys to gather information on the financing of large-scale learning assessments in countries and potential sources of technical and financial support from donors and other institutions.
New data on learning are steadily coming on-stream, helping us to gauge the extent to which children and youth, in school and out, are learning acquiring the skills they need to build their lives. This week at the UKFIET (The Education and Development Forum) Conference in London, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) has set out progress on the development of a global approach to measure learning. The UIS presentation showed the challenges and the most feasible solutions to resolve them.
The theme of this year's International Literacy Day on Friday, 8 September, is ‘Literacy in a Digital World’. The Day aims to highlight the kind of literacy skills people need to navigate this world and the literacy policies and programmes that can leverage the opportunities such a world provides.
The UIS offers a wide range of resources and tools to help countries strengthen the collection, quality and use of their data to monitor progress and achieve the SDG 4-Education 2030 goals.
Metadata for the Global and Thematic Indicators for the Follow-Up and Review of SDG 4 and Education 2030
Mapping potential data sources to monitor SDG 4
In 2015, the international community agreed on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which now forms the universal education agenda to 2030. Many countries still have a far way to go to reach these targets, and to do this, they will need external support to overhaul their education systems. There are two dimensions at stake to achieve SDG 4: identification of policy priorities and the associated data availability and quality to monitor progress.
The push for globally-comparable measures of learning is truly underway, with work well advanced through the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML) to develop common metrics to benchmark student performance in reading and mathematics. The development of common metrics is fundamental to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4): ensure inclusive and quality education for all by 2030.
The pursuit of the data needed to achieve the world’s education goals is moving up a gear, thanks to the effort of UNESCO’s Education Sector and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in implementing a Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) pilot initiative in ten countries as part of the UNESCO Capacity Development for Education (CapED) Program. Being piloted in 10 countries, this ambitious and innovative initiative aims to help bridge the gap between national education policies and data collection and use.
As part of efforts to support global efforts to reach SDG 4, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) through its Centre for Global Education Monitoring (GEM) are developing the tools, methods and approaches to build comparable indicators of learning outcomes.
By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
This blog was also published by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
Last month saw a major leap forward on the global reporting of learning outcomes – on which children are learning, which children are not learning, and why.