New Guide to Help Countries Introduce Reforms in Learning Assessments

In continued efforts to build statistical capacity in countries, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) has released a new guide to help countries to initiate learning assessment reforms by providing the tools needed to begin policy dialogue and outlining the value gained by collecting these data. Assessments can be the most cost-effective reform to implement, and data on learning allow governments to better target policies and practices to raise the educational outcomes of students. The data are also needed to monitor progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) at the national, regional and global levels.

The second in a series of guides on learning assessments, Quick Guide No. 2: Making the Case for a Learning Assessment presents the rationale for administering learning assessments, addresses key questions about different types of assessments to implement and discusses how they can be aligned with national education goals.

This tool is one of six guides being produced under the auspices of the Secretariat of the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML) in an effort to increase the number of countries reporting on SDG 4 indicators. The series overall addresses financial implications, reporting strategies and integrating other education data sources. The following guides are currently available:

• Quick Guide No. 2: Making the Case for a Learning Assessment
• Quick Guide No. 3: Implementing a National Learning Assessment

The UIS regularly produces guidelines and technical manuals to help countries to develop or strengthen standardised data collection processes, the results of which can be compared globally. The range of additional resources and tools can be used to produce sound data to benchmark progress.