Following the approval of the SDG monitoring framework in 2017, two comprehensive reviews were scheduled by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), the UN-coordinated group of countries that is charged with indicator development. The first review in 2019/20 focused on indicator methodology. The second, upcoming review in 2024/25 will focus on indicator coverage. Last October, the IAEG-SDGs issued the review criteria: ‘data must be available for at least 40 percent of countries and of the population across the different regions where the indicator is relevant; and a plan for how data coverage will be expanded must be included if current data coverage is below 50 percent’.

In the case of SDG 4, two indicators have coverage below 40%: early childhood development (4.2.1) and youth and adult literacy proficiency (4.6.1). But it is indicator 4.1.1, the percentage of students who achieve the minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics, that has attracted the most interest. Coverage of indicator 4.1.1 is sufficient at the end of primary (4.1.1b) and the end of lower-secondary education (4.1.1c): 46% of the population and 60% of countries. But it is low at grades 2/3 (4.1.1a), which led the IAEG-SDGs to reclassify it from Tier I to Tier II: 16% of the population and 20% of countries. They come from two cross-national assessment initiatives: LLECE in Latin America (grade 3) and PASEC in francophone Africa (grade 2).

Many viewed this reclassification with alarm because of the signal it might send that early grade learning matters less, even though it is an issue of global significance. A handful of blogs were written to protest – and they almost invariably asked why three other assessments have not been used to report on indicator 4.1.1a. This blog explains the issues with these assessments, recent efforts to address them, and how more countries can report on this indicator.

Three assessments have been proposed as ways to increase coverage

Of the two authors of this blog, one was one of the creators of one of these assessments (Early Grade Reading Assessment, EGRA), and an advisor to the two other assessments (Foundational Learning Module of the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey, MICS; and the citizen-led assessments of the People’s Action for Learning, or PAL, Network). The other author is responsible for the definition of standards for reporting on the indicator – and a champion of the process to encourage and ultimately convince the IAEG-SDGs to add the early grade level to indicator 4.1.1 in 2018. We are therefore writing with both experience and a sense of responsibility in outlining the issues.

The first thing to note is that these three assessments were not originally designed for global, comparative reporting. Their potential to generate such comparable results has also not been sufficiently documented in a clear, standardized and centralized way. These assessments are administered on a one-to-one basis, either at school (EGRA) or at home (MICS and PAL Network), rather than to a group of children in a classroom.

EGRA and PAL Network assessments were created in the mid-2000s with the original intent to generate policy awareness, almost always on a country-by-country basis, by measuring concrete and easy-to-communicate skills that are precursors to reading with understanding. EGRA was used to evaluate the effectiveness of donor-funded projects, often in selected regions of a country. The PAL Network assessments were citizen-led initiatives intended to put pressure on governments to pay attention to low levels of learning. They both gained popularity and spread. They were often also used in research.

Soon after the SDGs were declared and the concept of a learning outcome indicator was floated, in the mid-2010s, the multipurpose MICS household survey team also decided to develop a module to increase the amount of measurement, at the time when definitions of the minimum proficiency level were being initiated by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the custodian agency of indicator 4.1.1.

What are the issues?

Against what seems to be a current of opinion voiced in the above-mentioned blogs, it is important to note that there was never any reluctance to consider the potential of these assessments to be used for global reporting and be an alternative that countries could consider. But it was also noted that issues related to the original intent of these assessments, which affected their design and rigour, may make them unable to withstand the scrutiny of global reporting.

These assessments:

• are not backed by evidence that is documented in an agreed-upon and centralized way on how the transparency of each language’s orthography affects reading accuracy and therefore how results would need to be adjusted to make reporting comparable;
• tend to measure precursor skills to reading with understanding: the level they assess is below minimum proficiency, according to the globally agreed definition as visually described in the figure;
• vary in how they are administered, and such processes are not always centrally documented: for example, whether different assessors in one-on-one assessments reach the same conclusions on children’s learning tends to be not measured, not reported or not reported in a standardized way;
• often do not have clear, accessible, and centralized documentation of their sampling (e.g. who was excluded, which children can replace those that have been sampled but cannot take part, whether children that could not be assessed the first time could be approached again etc.), even though such differences in survey design affect results, while many samples are not nationally representative.

What are ways forward?

Some blogs have suggested to ignore these issues – in other words, to ignore the definition of minimum proficiency agreed by global consensus – in order to boost the number of countries that can potentially report. They have pointed to, for instance, how measurement of child mortality is carried out. But while there is some leeway in, say, defining what counts as a live birth, a death is a biologically clear event. In contrast, the accumulation and progression of learning is a long and culturally determined process. Accepting the results of assessments that we positively know are not measuring the minimum proficiency level and are loose in their documentation is not likely to lead to progress. What needs to be done?

A first step to overcome all the issues noted above is detailed criteria for reporting to help guide these and other assessments that are looking more at foundational and precursor skills on how to improve in the future. This work has begun. In early December, the UIS convened a meeting of the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning, a constituent group of the Technical Cooperation Group (TCG) on SDG 4 Indicators, to chart a way forward. Criteria were proposed and then vetted by a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) in early March. Building on the TAG’s feedback the criteria will be refined and published.

It is one thing to see whether an assessment measures well, but a second step is to map their ‘score’ onto the UIS-generated Global Proficiency Framework and Minimum Proficiency Level statements.

A third step envisaged for the future is for the UIS to vet reports to make sure they meet the criteria set out in steps 1 and 2 above.

In parallel to – and independently of – these efforts, countries will need to develop plans how they might report this indicator to UIS. Equipped with those plans that will make firm commitments on how to increase reporting, the UIS can engage the IAEG-SDGs and the UN Statistical Commission in dialogue to argue in favour of reclassifying indicator 4.1.1a back to Tier I.

Finally, in addition to all these steps, it is ultimately each country’s decision and responsibility to choose which eligible assessment it wants to use to report on the indicator – and for organizations associated with particular assessments to support country decisions by providing them with the best possible documentation

The post On the way forward for SDG indicator 4.1.1a: setting the record straight appeared first on World Education Blog.

In September 2022, world leaders and education stakeholders gathered for the Transforming Education Summit (TES) to mobilize solutions to tackle the global learning crisis. Global and national commitments were made to take urgent action to transform education systems, including prioritizing foundational learning.

The Transforming Education Summit was a key milestone for education around the world – but its impact will be determined by the concrete actions we take to follow through on our commitments to transform education. Now, more than a year after this critical moment, what progress has been made? Here are three key findings based on UNICEF’s June–July 2023 pulse survey with 94 low- and middle-income countries.

1. Many governments are taking concrete action on TES commitment areas, with varying degrees of progress.

Over 3 in 4 countries reported concrete government action on digital learning and access to inclusive, quality and safe learning opportunities. Many governments are also taking steps to advance education for children in humanitarian settings as well as foundational learning. To further monitor countries’ progress on foundational learning, UNICEF and the Hempel Foundation launched the Foundational Learning Action Tracker in 2023. It found that countries are still initiating progress on foundational learning: fewer than half of countries have a specific focus on foundational literacy and numeracy in their national curriculum, and only five per cent of countries are assessing socioemotional skills at scale. 

2. Many of the countries where urgent action is needed most have reported taking concrete steps to meet their TES commitments.

For example, we find that among countries where more than half of children are in learning poverty – unable to read and understand a simple text at age 10 – about 3 in 4 countries reported concrete government action on foundational learning. In countries where over 10 per cent of primary school-aged children are out of school, about 4 in 5 countries are taking concrete government steps to advance access to inclusive, safe and quality learning opportunities.

3. Concrete actions are needed for greening education and education financing, especially among countries most affected by these challenges. 

Greening education and education financing are the areas in which the fewest number of countries reported taking government action on TES commitments. Moreover, for countries where these issues are particularly relevant, not enough concrete action is being taken to address them. Among countries with high or extremely high risk of children’s exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, only a third reported concrete government action to advance greening education. Among countries failing to meet the benchmark of allocating at least 15 per cent of total government expenditure to education, just under half of countries reported government action on education financing. 

These initial findings underscore how we cannot lose the momentum of the Transforming Education Summit. We need to keep education a national, regional and global priority.  

Looking ahead, the African Union (AU) has adopted education as the AU theme for the year 2024. In a region with very high learning poverty rates, it is promising that most African countries in our survey reported taking concrete steps to advance TES commitments, including foundational learning. However, some issues stand out as needing intensified efforts: fewer than 2 in 5 African countries reported that the government is taking concrete action on greening education, despite the high risk of children’s exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change in many African countries. 

The Transforming Education Summit was an important step forward, but a true transformation of education will depend on how we turn our commitments into real action for learners, particularly the most marginalized.  

Collectively, we need to ensure accountability to monitor progress and catalyze follow-up actions at national, regional and global levels. Only by doing so can we meet the goal of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all children – no matter who they are or where they live.

The post More than one year after the Transforming Education Summit: What progress have countries made? appeared first on World Education Blog.

These national targets have brought renewed energy to the 2030 Agenda in education. They have helped put the expected level of ambition between now and 2030 into perspective. They have helped put an end to the assumption that a country that has not achieved all targets has not made sufficient effort. And it is now being proposed by the SDG 4 High-level Steering Committee as the basis for the follow-up mechanism for commitments of the Transforming Education Summit.

The UN Secretary-General, as part of Our Common Agenda, called the extraordinary Transforming Education Summit to concentrate efforts where they are most needed to drive progress towards SDG 4. It was motivated by the consequences of the pandemic on education systems and their knock-on effect on efforts to address today’s major development challenges. Emerging from the consultations and several Commitments to Action are seven global initiatives, which will be presented on Leaders’ Day on September 19. These aim to capture the spirit of transformation that needs to be injected into education systems.

But the question in most people’s minds is how these aspirations and declarations will be translated into specific results and how countries and development partners will be held accountable for their achievement. Focusing on specific targets, expressed through well-defined indicators, has often accelerated efforts in many contexts.

The seven benchmark indicators already cover some global initiatives. For instance, the foundational literacy and numeracy global initiative can be monitored by the completion and minimum level of proficiency indicators, as also shown in the results released yesterday by the UIS and the GEM Report. Progress through the education in emergencies global initiative can be captured by the out-of-school rate, when disaggregated for refugee and displaced populations. Aspirations on the gender equality global initiative are reflected in the gender gap in secondary education completion, even if the concept of gender equality in and through education is broader and accordingly requires a broader set of indicators to be captured fully. And the education financing global initiative is adequately covered by the two benchmark indicators already in place since the Education 2030 Framework for Action.

The SDG 4 High-level Steering Committee’s Call for Action on the Summit follow-up process suggests that there is room to add a few more indicators to the SDG 4 benchmark indicator list to track progress towards other global initiatives expressing transformative commitments. Suitable indicators may be easier or more difficult to identify – and the support of the Technical Cooperation Group on SDG 4 indicators would be crucial in that respect.

An indicator, whether focused on schools or on learners, would be needed for instance for the greening education partnership, with its four dimensions on schools, curricula, teachers and adults aimed at getting every learner climate change ready.

An indicator would also be needed for the public digital learning initiative, with its three dimensions related to content, capacity and connectivity. For instance, the percentage of schools connected to the internet is a global SDG indicator, which it could benefit from incorporating more information sources. Once indicators have been identified, countries would then be asked to set their national targets.

Note: Indicators in bold are the 7 benchmark indicators. Indicators in other colours are placeholders for potential indicators, linked to global initiatives.

Words are not enough to transform education. This proposal builds on a tried-and-tested process: the benchmarks, which are country-led, and globally supported, with over 90% of countries participating already. It translates the promises made at the Summit on prioritization into concrete commitments that can be monitored on an annual basis, and which the UIS and the GEM Report, which share the mandate for monitoring SDG 4, commit to do in support of the SDG 4 High-level Steering Committee and its role.

Read the Call to Action for the follow up mechanism and support it through our social media resources.

A side-event will present the latest publication update on the national SDG 4 benchmarks and will discuss the Call to Action on the Summit follow-up.

It is hosted by Jordan and is supported by three international organizations, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat, the International Telecommunication Union and the World Food Programme, that are involved in global initiatives related to green, connected and healthy schools.

Join the event on Saturday 17 September at 10.00-11.30am EST

• in Room CR3, at the UN Headquarters
• online live on the day

The post A call to action on the follow-up of the Transforming Education Summit commitments appeared first on World Education Blog.

Since 2017, we have been working with countries to agree national #SDG4benchmarks on a set of seven SDG 4 indicators. In October 2021, the first set of benchmarks were submitted, which we have compiled in a new report released last week for International Day of Education. Two in three countries have directly or indirectly taken part in the process. We encourage all remaining countries to engage.

Halfway to our education goal, SDG 4, these benchmarks help reinvigorate the education agenda not just for policy makers, but for all of us who are keen for the goal to succeed. They define countries’ contribution to the common SDG 4 goal; enable them to contextualize the monitoring of progress and link their national with regional and global education agendas; help strengthen national planning processes; focus attention on remaining data gaps; and contribute towards mutual learning between countries on the best way forward.

Altogether, 19 benchmark values each for 2025 and/or 2030 have been set by countries for six of the seven benchmark indicators agreed by the Technical Cooperation Group: early childhood education attendance; out-of-school rates; completion rates; gender gaps in completion rates; minimum proficiency rates in reading and mathematics; trained teachers; and public education expenditure. We will be working with countries in the first half of this year to submit benchmark values for the seventh indicator, which focuses on equity: the gender gap in upper secondary completion.

As we detailed in an earlier blog on this site, the benchmarks answer a call in the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s synthesis report in 2014 for countries to embrace “a culture of shared responsibility” in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, based on “benchmarking for progress”. They follow a similar call in the Education 2030 Framework for Action, which called on countries to establish “appropriate intermediate benchmarks … for addressing the accountability deficit associated with longer-term targets”.

Where do countries expect to be by the SDG 4 deadline?

Compiling the benchmarks, as we have done in this new report, shows that, even if countries reach their benchmark values by 2030, the world will still fall short of the ambition expressed in SDG 4 – and this is before even accounting for the potential impact of COVID-19 on education systems.

Nevertheless, for several benchmark indicators (e.g. out-of-school and completion rates), countries appear to be committing to accelerate progress that is faster than the progress countries managed to achieve over 2000–15, an ambition we must all get behind.

According to their own measures, Latin America and the Caribbean and Central and Southern Asia are on course to achieve universal early childhood education. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa and Western Asia, however, do not expect to achieve this goal; they estimate that roughly two in three children in these two regions will be enrolled by 2030, up from less than half currently.

According to their plans, all regions will meet or be very close to achieving universal primary education. Challenges will remain in sub-Saharan Africa, where 8% of primary school-age children are still predicted to be out of school in 2030, down from 19% currently.

By 2030, countries in sub-Saharan Africa expect to reduce the rate of out-of-school upper secondary-age youth from 47% to 31%; those in Central and Southern Asia expect to reduce their rate from 32% to 17%. In Northern Africa and Western Asia, the benchmarks show that countries believe they can reduce the rate from 28% to 14% and in Latin America and the Caribbean from 19% to 12%.

The process has delivered a reality check with regard to the goal of universal secondary education completion by 2030, which no region is on track to achieve. Completion rates are expected to land at 89% in lower secondary and 72% in upper secondary education by the deadline.

By 2030, globally, an expected 26% will still not have basic mathematics skills by Grade 3, 24% at the end of primary and 34% at the end of lower secondary education. And by 2030, globally, an expected 22% will still not have basic reading skills at the end of lower secondary education.

The percentage of trained teachers is expected to increase to over 90% in each level of education by 2030. The fastest growth is expected at the pre-primary education level, from 70% in 2015 to 94% in 2030. Still, by the deadline, it is expected that over a quarter of preschool teachers in sub-Saharan Africa will remain untrained.

While SDG 4 is unlikely to be achieved by 2030, according to countries’ own estimations, facing up to this reality by no means dilutes the agenda. On the contrary, the benchmark-setting process is the clearest indication of country commitment. It can also rally action behind the agenda. The process builds on several key moments over the course of the coming years to continue providing a reality check and to help identify common challenges to progress as well as ways of addressing them together. It serves as a stark reminder to all parties of the importance of setting national education targets and of properly financing them, particularly in the face of the difficulties brought upon the sector by COVID-19.

The next phases of this process include, among others:

By June 2022, countries need to:

• submit benchmark values if they have not done so;
• submit benchmark values for the seventh indicator: the gender gap in upper secondary completion;
• revise benchmark values if they assess that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them adversely.

• An updated and extended version of this publication will be used for the SDG 4 review at the High-level Political Forum and the UN Secretary-General’s Transforming Education Summit in 2022.

• A series of regional actions will be planned, in collaboration with regional organizations where appropriate, for peer learning on key challenges ahead.

Please join us in congratulating countries that have taken part and in mobilising around the benchmarks they have set. Please also work with your country to encourage them to participate if they have not already.

• Download the Report
• Share the social media resources

The post National SDG 4 benchmarks: fulfilling our neglected commitment appeared first on World Education Blog.

It is increasingly said that this public health crisis is prompting large questions on economic and social life that were just beneath the surface, not least in education. The case of assessing learning is just one of those.

A focus on exams gives a structure to learning. Removing that structure, and the end goal that students have been working towards – some of them for years – will be hugely disappointing, and no doubt stressful for many. “They are taking away everything I have been working for?” one girl said in the UK when she heard the news. What are the implications?

Various different methods, and mixes of methods are being suggested by countries to put in place of exams. These include using previous grades from mock exams, teachers’ assessments and prior grade expectations.  But to what extent will these be fair representations of performance?

If exams are going to be replaced by predicted grades, for example, as proposed in the UK (but which might also implicitly be in the thoughts of many planners around the world), one concern is that this opens the door for stereotypes around particular types of students. Teachers are not immune from social bias, of course, as the forthcoming 2020 GEM Report on inclusion and education discusses. Such a change is likely to disadvantage black and minority ethnic and working-class and other marginalised students, about whom bias might result in lower expectations from teachers. The UK, for instance, moved from a modular system of assessment, including teacher assessment, to the current system that is more exam focused partly because the former system had been shown to be inconsistent and subjective.

As these debates rage, we must remember the strong arguments against the over-emphasis on exams, data and ranking, which many claim are at the expense of learning. Exams are not the only purpose of an education, this argument emphasizes. They should be the means to education ends, but not an end in themselves.

On the basis of these arguments, but unrelated to the virus, Zimbabwe is moving towards some forms of continuous assessment, feeling that it assesses student achievement in a far more balanced way. Announcing the change three weeks ago, the minister of education said: “We want to produce a child that can survive in any situation so we are producing skills as opposed to producing a child who can only cram. Before an exam, you would find someone stuffing themselves with information. Regurgitate what the teacher has been saying. What was done for over two years is dismissed over two hours? 

While millions are going through somewhat of a social experiment as they shift from one approach to another, it is worth drawing on the evidence from the 2017/8 GEM Report showing how highly debated test-based accountability is, with mixed evidence even on how it affects student achievement. Across 51 education systems participating in PISA analysed for the Report, 11 systems used test-based accountability. Of those, 5 saw some increase in their PISA mean mathematics score from 2003 to 2015, while scores decreased in 6. The most studied test- based accountability systems, including those of Australia, the Republic of Korea and the United States, did not show improved PISA performance on average or at the bottom of the distribution.

And, while we may worry for the impact on the disadvantaged with the sudden shift today to teacher assessments, various types of unintended negative consequences for the most marginalised also come with high-stakes accountability. With explicit sanctions and rewards, for instance, test scores may become the central focus of schooling, rather than one objective among many. Schools may initiate practices that maximize test score improvement rapidly but undermine overall quality and learning. Schools and teachers react to the pressure in several ways, including shaping the testing pool, narrowing curriculum, teaching to the test, teaching those on the verge of passing, and explicit cheating, where students may also be involved.

The 2020 GEM Report looks at assessments from the viewpoint of inclusion and calls for the focus to shift away from high-stakes assessments and instead to focus on students’ tasks: how they tackle them, which ones prove difficult and how some aspects can be adapted to enable success. Low-stakes formative assessments carried out over the education trajectory are far more fit for the purpose of inclusive education. They would also mean that sudden interruptions in education such as today’s would be less of an issue for ensuring qualifications were not affected.

Whatever the views may be on either side, it seems that Covid-19 means teacher assessment will be back in some form or another. It is easy to see how this year’s events could be the doorway to a new system that has less reliance on tests in the future. Will students be convinced of the change? Perhaps next year, once all this is over. For now, we owe it to them, and all the work that has already gone into their education to make sure this experiment does their learning justice.

The post Could coronavirus shape the way assessments work forever? appeared first on World Education Blog.

The issues also include questions about the roles of mainstream teachers. Public school teachers who provide supplementary tutoring can increase their incomes and perhaps are more likely to stay in the profession. However, in under-regulated settings teachers may be tempted to short-change their mainstream teaching in order to force their students to come to private classes after school. This pattern raises issues of corruption. And even in settings where teachers do not themselves provide tutoring, schools commonly assume that the majority of students gain extra support, and then themselves fail to provide all the support that they should.

The post Private supplementary tutoring: a global phenomenon with far-reaching implications  appeared first on World Education Blog.

“I see that there is a problem that signals a governance issue, a breakdown in supervision and oversight by the Minister and I have to intervene” said the Prime Minister before the House of Representatives, as the news broke.

The case unfolded with the questioning in an audit of the Ministry of Education conducted by the Auditor General’s Department (AGD). The audit is focused on “whether the selected public entities procurement and contracts management activities were conducted to attain value for money (which encompasses the achievement of economy, efficiency and effectiveness)”.

Source: AGD website

In the 2017/8 GEM Report we showed the importance of horizontal accountability mechanisms, such as audits, for exposing corruption, or mis-management within governments. They can also go beyond assessing compliance to audit performance, examining whether service provision is efficient and effective, whether policies and spending align with wider government and sector objectives, and whether organizational decision-making is sound. Poland’s Supreme Audit Office has carried out audits on issues ranging from the use of public funds for education institutions and research to the education of Polish citizens living abroad. The Swedish National Audit Office’s audit of the role of tertiary education institutions in providing lifelong learning opportunities led to a recommendation to the government to review incentive structures for such institutions.

Performance audits are increasingly common even in middle income countries. The Royal Audit Authority of Bhutan identified deficiencies in the school feeding programme and recommended setting standard dietary requirements, adapting menus accordingly and establishing a quality control system with an independent assessor.

Unfortunately, often the oversight function of audit mechanisms is not effective, which has partly to do with capacity. In Bangladesh, there was an average delay of 5 years before government agencies responded to audit observations on primary education and 10 years on secondary, for instance. In Sri Lanka, the Committee on Public Accounts demands follow-up on objections raised by the auditor general. For example, action against the director of an education department has been recommended, yet there has been no follow-up

Outside of public accounts committees, permanent committees on education in the legislatures can help hold governments to account, even though in practice their roles vary between countries. Analysis in the 2017/8 GEM Report of New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the United States and Zambia showed that committees usually carried out ex post reviews and provided oversight on legislation and executive actions, e.g. scrutinizing government actions, reviewing existing laws and recommending changes.

In short, while the facts are still unfolding, the case in the news in Jamaica at present shows how important it is for countries to invest in strong institutions to detect and deter corruption in education. The risk of corruption in all sectors and all levels require accountability mechanisms to be taken seriously. Our 2017/8 GEM Report is a good place to find out more about them.

The post Accountability in action in education in Jamaica appeared first on World Education Blog.

Education is like a seed. And for this empowering right to flourish and grow, it must have the best conditions. Education must not only be accessible to all, it must be of the highest quality. And it is not a privilege to be bestowed by a government, it is a legal right for everyone – children, youth and adults.

This looks good on paper yet is far from being a reality for millions around the world. Today less than 1 in 5 countries legally guarantee 12 years of free and compulsory education.

As we mark the 70th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are still 262 million children out of school, and more than 750 million youth and adults unable to read and write. This is unacceptable and countries must ensure that the millions of people left behind have access to the powerful seed of education they are entitled to.

That is why UNESCO has launched a new #RightToEducation digital campaign to focus global attention on this crucial issue and make the right to education a priority everywhere.

There are many things blocking the road – legal, economic, social and cultural barriers. We must remove them all and ensure that countries that have signed up to international conventions and agreements are putting them into practice. They must be held accountable.

The 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report showed the importance of accountability in addressing persistent education problems, which starts with governments, as primary duty bearers of the right to education. It stressed the fact that citizens who know about their rights may be able to challenge violations made by governments in court, but found that this is possible only in 55% of countries.

What is happening in your country?

Now you know that education is a human right protected by law and guaranteed to all by the State, how is your country advancing this right? You can check by using UNESCO’s global Observatory which provides valuable data of the right to education in 195 Member States. And you can engage in making education a reality for everyone.

Join UNESCO’s campaign and speak up for the voiceless.

Everyone can make a difference – students, parents, teachers, journalists, policy-makers, lawyers and more – by changing mindsets, sharing powerful messages, influencing decision-making, supporting peers and standing up for the rights of others when it comes to education.

Simple everyday actions can have a big impact. Here are some ideas on how to get involved. Use the power of your social networks to spread the word. Think of creative ways to advance the right to education in your school and community. Above all, make sure that the seed continues to grow and that its fruits are available to everyone, everywhere.

The post Education is not a privilege, it’s a legal right appeared first on World Education Blog.

This blog looks at the contrasting findings in the 2017/8 GEM Report on Accountability and a recent study by Berbauer, Hanushek, and Woessmann over whether more testing is good for education or not.

Released a year ago on this day, the 2017/8 GEM Report highlighted the multiple layers of accountability in education: different mechanisms, several actors, contrasting perceptions and nuanced meanings across languages.

One of its key messages was that, while accountability was an essential part of a solution package for challenges in education systems, it was necessary that all actors:

‘…should approach the design of accountability with a degree of humility, recognizing that education problems are complex in nature and often do not lend themselves to a single solution.’

It noted the trend in richer countries of tying student test scores to hold schools and teachers accountable. But it found that this approach risked promoting unhealthy competition, gaming the system and further marginalizing disadvantaged students.

In our recommendations, we made clear that ‘governments should design school and teacher accountability mechanisms that are supportive and formative, and avoid punitive mechanisms; especially the types based on narrow performance measures’.

We will be reiterating this message this week at the 5th International Conference on Education Monitoring and Evaluation to take place in Beijing, where the Chinese edition of the report will be shared with the participants.

However, a recent study argues that more testing has a positive impact on education. Drawing on six rounds of data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the authors have concluded that ‘accountability systems that use standardized tests to compare outcomes across schools and students produce better student outcomes’ and that ‘both rewards to schools and rewards to students for better outcomes result in greater student learning’ (p. 28).

So how do we reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings?

Different uses for tests can motivate different outcomes. This makes it important to identify the different ways tests can be used when analysing what effects they have on student outcomes.

The 2017/8 GEM Report showed that, across 101 education systems, some type of test for accountability was found in over 50% of OECD countries and 45% of non-OECD countries. These tests can be evaluative, whereby student scores are aggregated and disseminated at the school level, often through league tables or report cards. They can also be punitive, whereby results are tied to sanctions or rewards for schools. The United States under the No Child Left Behind policy would be the clearest example of a punitive system. Summative policies are those that have tests that are not deemed to be either punitive or evaluative.

Our review of the evidence found that evaluative policies promoting school choice exacerbated disparities by further advantaging more privileged children (pp. 49-52). Moreover, punitive systems had unclear achievement effects but troublesome negative consequences, including removing low-performing students from the testing pool and explicit cheating (pp. 52-56).

Misclassification misleads

By contrast, the way that Bergbauer and her colleagues classify testing systems confuses concepts. This leads to a misinterpretation of how external and internal factors affect student achievement.

Using 13 indicators on the use and purpose of testing, the authors created four categories of assessment use.

1. Standardized external comparisons include assessments that explicitly ‘allow comparisons of student outcomes across schools and students’ and attach rewards to students or (head) teachers. This category conflates the evaluative and punitive categories used in the 2017/8 GEM Report without understanding the key difference between high stakes on students and high stakes on educators.
2. Standardized monitoring involves using assessments to monitor student, teacher or school performance, but makes no public external comparisons.
3. Internal testing resembles low stakes formative assessment for ‘general pedagogical management’
4. Internal teacher monitoring covers internal assessments ‘directly focused on teachers’.

They found a positive relationship between the first two categories and student achievement but no relationship between the latter two categories and achievement. However, a deeper look at the indicators grouped under each category suggests that the four categories may be misleading. Correcting for those misclassifications would support the GEM Report’s findings.

First, the internal testing category (3) is associated with the indicator ‘achievement data posted publicly’. The authors justify this by suggesting that principals are posting grade point averages or teachers are posting grades on the blackboard. But this is inaccurate, as it does not take into account the wording of the question in the PISA school questionnaire, which suggests that achievement is publicly posted in the media, and therefore cannot be classified as internal testing. Their earlier work had emphasized the role of school report cards and league tables as key for facilitating market-based accountability, in contrast with the approach they have taken in this research. Their understanding also directly contradicts how the OECD interprets their own data.

The same is true with the internal teacher monitoring category (4), which uses indicators related to student assessments and class observations. While both these factors can help monitor teachers, placing them in the same category fails to recognize the differences in stakes and motivations when teachers are held accountable for their students’ test scores.

In fact, their results related to the indicators ‘achievement data posted publicly’ and ‘making judgements about teachers’ effectiveness’ suggest the use of test scores for accountability purposes are not associated with greater student achievement, a conclusion driven home in the GEM Report.

So what is driving the results of Bergbauer, Hanushek, and Woessmann? In the ‘standardized external comparisons’ category (1), three indicators are positively associated with student achievement:

• principals use student assessments to compare their school to district/national performance;
• presence of a high stakes student examination at the end of lower secondary; and
• presence of a high stakes student examination that dictates student’s career opportunities.

But the first indicator does not compare schools to schools nor does it make school results public; it is therefore unclear how this relates to external accountability. The latter two place stakes solely on students and not on teachers or schools.

The final indicator driving their overall results is part of the ‘standardized monitoring’ category. They find that those that do more standardized testing do better on PISA. But this practice, teaching to the test, which some consider to be detrimental, is also dispelled by the authors.

A subtler breakdown of results shows that linking test scores to teacher or school accountability has no significant effect on student achievement. Ultimately, we cannot hold individuals to account for something beyond their control, a point the authors also recognize: ‘the optimal design of incentives generally calls for rewarding the results of behavior directly under the control of the actor and not rewarding results from other sources. The problem…is that most testing includes the results of action of multiple parties’.

Let us also not forget that the analysis does not attempt to capture student level equity or gaming-the-system behaviour, both central concerns when using testing for accountability.

A year on, the messages of the 2017/8 GEM Report are as relevant as ever.

The post More testing? appeared first on World Education Blog.

The 2017/8 GEM Report showed that the basis of governments’ accountability to Parliament and to the public is a credible education plan with clear targets that allocates resources through transparent, trackable budgets.

Uganda is into its second decade of producing its Education and Sports Sector Annual Performance Report (ESSAPR), which is compiled by the Education Planning and Policy Analysis Department in collaboration with other Ministry of Education and Sports departments. The overall goal of the ESSAPR is to present an analysis of sector performance and feedback to key stakeholders, including the general public, on government efforts to educate its citizenry.

Findings from the ESSAPR are integrated into a comprehensive Government Annual Performance Report submitted to cabinet, which form part of a whole governmental approach to strengthen accountability.   

As per GEM Report recommendations, the ESSAPR assesses performance from early childhood through to tertiary education against policies and objectives to inform the next sector review, which seeks to identify priority areas for the coming year. It gives an account of ministry actions and their results at the input, process and outcome levels. It offers some analysis of challenges, discusses factors affecting the achievement of goals and contains budget performance information.

Uganda’s education system faces important challenges. Only 61% of 20-24 year olds had completed primary school in 2016 and in 2015 the pupil-teacher ratio in primary education was 46:1. Added to this are one million people who have crossed borders into the country seeking refuge.

To better learn from and understand the Ugandan experience we spoke to Mr Aggrey Kibenge, Undersecretary at the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports.

How does the current system of annual performance reporting allow you to improve the quality of education for all? 

The ESSAPR has a chapter dedicated to the quality of education that examines the progress towards achieving quality targets which puts in focus inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes. The reported information in each of these areas guides the interventions that the sector undertakes in the next financial year to improve quality of education for all.

What has your Ministry learned from the experience of compiling previous reports since 2003?

Every year, there are new emerging issues, which have not been covered in previous reports. For this reason the reporting format has to be continuously updated to accommodate new information.

How do you ensure that more education stakeholders are involved in the ESSAPR preparation process?

This is achieved through the Sector Wide Approach (SWAP), which involves representatives of all stakeholders in planning, decision-making, implementation and monitoring and accountability of educational developments in the sector. The SWAP is designed to facilitate the participation of all stakeholders in the ESSAPR preparation process via smaller departmental working groups, which feed into the larger report.

A consultative approach is therefore used during the process of writing the ESSAPR and the key stages include:

1. Constitution of core writing team (Secretariat) based on the broad thematic areas of access and equity, quality, efficiency and effectiveness to collect and collate performance information on agreed thematic areas for consolidation into the ESSAPR mainly from members of the Education Planning Policy Analysis department;
2. Review by Department working groups;
3. Review by the Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group, which is attended by education development partners;
4. Review by the Education Sector Consultative Committee (ESCC), which is also attended by education development partners; and
5. Review and approval by the top management.

From your point of view, in what ways can the current report preparation be strengthened and introduced in other contexts?

The current preparation can be strengthened by bringing more participants on board. For example, a lot of information among the non-state education providers still remains unreported. We therefore need to bring in the private providers who have vital information that we are not able to access.

We can also involve the local government officials who are the actual implementers on the ground. What happens now is that we visit the local governments and education institutions to validate the information in the ESSAPR.

In April 2018 the GEM Report launched its #MakeitPublic campaign calling on governments and regional organisations to report on education progress to their citizens via a regular education monitoring report, and to use those reports as key sources for the education section of their SDG national voluntary reviews

To date over twenty international organizations and Ministries of Education have signed up to the campaign including the Governments of Switzerland and Qatar. You can view additional information on the campaign via our website.

The post Learning lessons from Uganda on transparent education reporting for the public appeared first on World Education Blog.

On June 19, Switzerland published the

The report answers five hundred questions related to education in Switzerland, and examines differences in class size within cantons, stable and differentiated completion rates in upper-secondary education and the transitions between compulsory schooling and further education.

Published in four languages, the 2018 Report takes a deep dive into key trends in the field of higher education, such as high dropout rates at university level, and provides ongoing assessment of existing measures to ensure the highest standards in education. In the blog below representatives from Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) share their observations on the process of authoring the national education monitoring report and how this have been useful for identifying challenges and successes in education.

Tracing progress in education of the past over the past twelve years

Since the initial pilot in 2006 through to the 2018 publication, the Swiss Education Report has become a well-established point of reference and an indispensable tool for Switzerland’s education policy makers.

Let’s first have a look at the report from a systemic perspective. How does our country benefit from it?

As seen from this point of view, the report’s relevance may be summed up as follows:

• It provides us with an up-to-date overview of our education system.
• It is based on evidence and scientific rigor.
• It helps us to better understand our education system as a whole and to assess its performance according to the economically and socially relevant criteria of efficiency, effectiveness and equity.
• It contributes to establish and to continually improve transparency.
• It creates a common language transcending different levels and sectors.
• It serves as a basis for defining strategic objectives for the system’s development, to accordingly propose measures as well as to assess every four years the degree to which the objectives have been achieved.
• It shows us gaps of knowledge and data. Migrants for example (32% of the 15-17 old have a migration background): we currently lack data about the languages they speak, their social background and the time of their presence in Switzerland.
• It provides us with the possibility to better assess the system’s performance in the long run.
• It spurs us to both intensify and diversify research on dysfunctions, causal relations, weaknesses and strengths of systemic relevance.

We shouldn’t neglect, however, the Report’s usefulness as seen from a sectoral perspective:

• 

  It permits the system’s different levels and sectors to view and understand themselves as interdependent elements of a system as a whole.

• It helps different sectors and levels to mutually improve their knowledge about each other.
• It facilitates cross-sectoral approaches and discussions of educational issues.

The Report also recalls us some of the main challenges ahead:

• Keep in mind that the report is a tool. It doesn’t dispense politicians to take decisions and to be accountable for the system’s governance and funding.
• Be aware of fake news and post truth politics. They may look more attractive than evidence based data and causal relations.
• Don’t treasure only what you measure. It is impossible to quantify driving forces such as creativity, individual empowerment, trust and social responsibility. However, they are most likely to thrive in solidly funded educational systems based on accountability, efficiency, effectiveness and equity.

Launched in April 2018, the GEM Report’s #MakeitPublic campaign calls for all countries to report back to their citizens on progress in education. The campaign webpage is a virtual repository for all national education monitoring reports. Visit the site to find out how you can participate in the campaign and view our interactive map to see your country last produced a national education monitoring report.

The post A national perspective on the Swiss education system appeared first on World Education Blog.

The importance of parents for education is obvious from the direct links between people’s family background and their probability of success in and through education. Genetic factors, wealth and family networks are important for children’s education outcomes.

Beyond these, as many parents reading this blog will no doubt attest, engagement with and support to children’s schooling; exposure to cultural activities and availability of educational materials, such as books; and biases or stereotypes, such as unequal expectations for girls and boys, also matter tremendously for educational success.

Let’s look deeper at some of the direct links between the home environment parents set up, and between family background and success in education.

Whether or not a child has a supportive home environment that is, for example, free from violence, affects children’s ability to pursue and focus on schooling.

Parental capacity to engage in their children’s education depends strongly on their own literacy and education awareness, suggesting a strong need for adult literacy and intergenerational learning emphasis. There is substantial persistence of educational outcomes over generations. Contrary to expectations, education can often be a key factor in slowing down intergenerational mobility.

Parents influence matters at different levels. For instance, whether or not parents invest in early childhood education matters hugely for cognitive and non-cognitive skills.

At the basic education level, parental engagement can include involvement in school management committees or parent associations, interactions with teachers, and support for school and homework.

At higher levels of education, parents may provide specific advice on subject choices and preparation for higher education, vocational education or links to employment.

For some of these responsibilities as regards their children’s education, parents can be held accountable, as our last report showed. While students do take on much of the responsibility for their attendance, effort and behaviour as they get older, when younger, it does fall squarely on their parents’ shoulders. Child protection services and other accountability mechanisms, such as truancy laws or parent-school meetings are required when parents are unwilling or unable to fulfil their responsibilities.

Besides actions directly related to their own children’s education, parental preferences and decision-making can have a strong influence on education policy. The most motivated parents and parent groups can influence education decisions, such as support for different types of education provision, curricular content, and public expenditure allocation decisions. For example, in the United States, they pushed publishers to revise textbooks that strongly distorted climate change facts.

Some parents play strong roles holding teachers to account, as we featured in this blog on Honduras, for instance. However, since parent interest groups often have narrower interests, including using schooling to give their children access to the most desirable peer groups to signal their exclusiveness, their political efforts can be at odds with the goals of equitable financing, integration or social mixing.

Finally, parents play a key role in financing education. In most countries, the financing is directed to the education sector through taxation. But in many countries, and particularly the poorest, as the 2017/8 GEM Report showed, parents are bearing the brunt, covering at least one-third of education costs themselves.

As we recognise the hugely important role that parents play, and the heavy responsibilities on their shoulders for their children’s education, we should, at the same time, start to think how they can be supported to be successful. Community support, accessible and understandable information on education, social care policies or cash transfers can help parents fulfil their responsibilities towards their children’s schooling and reward the efforts parents are putting in.

The post Let’s not forget the role of parents in education! appeared first on World Education Blog.