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The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is moving forward to transform education with initiatives to develop new benchmark indicators and create internationally comparable learning data for SDG 4. As part of this effort, the UIS and education partners have developed innovative ways to measure and report learning outcomes. The UIS is also part of the Global Coalition for Foundational Learning to support countries' data collection efforts. In addition, a new ISCED Review Committee will identify any necessary changes in the current categorization of education systems. To support countries, the UIS is developing a new metric for measuring teacher training programmes (ISCED-T).
Transforming education
High Level Steering Committee Sherpa Group outlines benchmark process. The UIS participated in the High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC) Sherpa Group meeting 31 May–1 June to discuss follow up measures to the September 2022 Transforming Education Summit. To meet commitments, we are working towards filling gaps in monitoring progress toward SDG 4 through data collection and analysis and promoting evidence-based policy. In January 2023, the UIS and the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, technical co-leads, produced an SDG 4 Benchmark Scorecard assessing country progress toward seven national benchmark targets for 2025 and 2030. An updated Scorecard is slated for release in January 2024, with an in-depth focus on teachers.
Digital connectivity added to SDG 4 benchmarks
Following approval from the Technical Cooperation Group on SDG 4 Indicators (TCG), global Indicator 4.a.1 measuring the proportion of schools connected to the internet was added as the eighth SDG 4 benchmark indicator to reflect school conditions conducive to digital learning. This indicator is already collected and monitored by Member States.
In addition, the UIS and the GEM Report are leading the development of a proposed green schools indicator based on an index of the frequency of keywords related to climate change, biodiversity, and sustainability in policy documents. First results are expected by the end of 2023 with national target setting for 2025 and 2030 to begin next year. A youth engagement indicator is awaiting funding.
Leading on internationally comparable learning data
As a member of Global Coalition for Foundational Learning, the UIS supports Member States' efforts to monitor learning. Our role is to:
• Collate common tools as a menu of options available to countries to measure and report on learning, to disseminate and share within and between coalition partners, national governments, and education partners.
• Coordinate between agencies to support countries without learning data in rolling out best available resources and tools to measure progress on learning, including through shared training with 'field staff'.
• Support countries to use data, share and amplify existing information on learning using available resources and tools.
As part of ongoing work to report internationally comparable learning data, the UIS and education partners have developed options for countries, even if students participate only in national assessments.
The following methodologies enable comparison:
Policy Linking involves training curriculum experts to use an internationally approved judgment method to set the minimum score needed for students to meet the global Minimum Proficiency Level (MPL) in reading and mathematics at their grade level. Read the evaluation reports from the pilot workshops in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Lesotho, Nepal, and Zambia.
Pairwise Comparison consists of a group of reading and mathematics experts (mainly teachers) and psychometricians evaluating the difficulty of assessment items but in an independent way.
Assessments for Minimum Proficiency Levels (AMPL) offers modules included in national assessments, or as standalone tests. Test items are available in the UIS Global Item Bank. Curriculum experts analyze student responses and link them to the Global Proficiency Framework for reading or mathematics, aligning them with the MPL. The Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Jordan and Pakistan participated in AMPL pilot projects in 2022 and 2023, and India will participate in early August. We anticipate completion of all AMPL pilot projects by early November.
Resources:
The Learning Data Toolkit explains the methodologies to create comparable data for SDG 4.
An updated brochure on Assessments for Minimum Proficiency Levels explains the linking process.
Aligning and reporting on Indicator 4.1.1 presents the UIS workflow.
The SDG 4 Data Explorer has indicators, country profiles, and regional averages.
The Global Education Observatory provides a gateway for all education data, including benchmarks, with links to methodologies, research reports and interactive data visualizations.
The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is a comprehensive framework for organizing education programmes and related qualifications. As part ISCED governance, a new review committee will advise the UIS on the administration of ISCED 2011 and ISCED-F 2013. The committee will review the current version of the classifications, as well as related questionnaires, manuals, and country mappings. It will also identify areas for further development of the classifications. The UIS expects the inaugural meeting to take place in the third quarter of 2023.
Organizations invited: African Centre for Statistics, Education International, ILO, OECD, UNESCO HQ, UN ECLAC, and UNCEISC. Countries invited: Brazil, Cameroon, Egypt, India, Jamaica, Norway, and Uzbekistan
ISCED-T for data on teacher training programmes
The International Standard Classification of Teacher Training Programmes (ISCED-T 2021) is a framework for assembling, compiling, and analyzing cross-nationally comparable statistics on teacher training programmes and qualifications.
As part of the implementation, the UIS is developing a global metric on the minimum standard of teacher qualification by level of education. An initial proposal was approved at the post 9th TCG consultation in March 2023. The aim is to contribute to policy dialogue on teacher quality, including the production of comparable data on 'qualified' and 'trained' teachers, and improvement of the quality of data used for monitoring SDG Target 4.c. The data production strategy will use ISCED-T as the main reference framework to collect data on teachers. A pilot survey on ISCED-T to test the survey instruments and refine them for the global data collection, is planned for the second half of 2023.
Other news
Members of the Policy and Planning Committee (left to right): Ethel Agnes Pascua-Valenzuela (Philippines), Carol Nuga Deliwe (South Africa), Silvia Montoya (UIS Director), Dankert Vedeler (Norway), Luis Crouch (Dominican Republic), and Arevik Anapiosyan (Armenia).
At its XXIV session on 6 July in Montreal, the UIS Governing Board's Policy and Planning Committee endorsed a new innovative data production strategy, aimed to ensure better data for monitoring SDG 4.
Country profiles, including ISCED diagrams, are available on the SDG 4 Data Explorer. Just click "country profiles" on the left-hand side of the screen and choose a county to generate SDG 4 indicator trend data.
The UIS launched the 2023 Survey on R&D data for SDG 9.5.1 on R&D expenditure and SDG 9.5.2 on the number of researchers, on 16 June.
The UIS will launch a new survey on public spending on cultural and natural heritage for SDG 11.4.1 in early September. In the meantime, current data are included in a new synthesis report on SDG Target 11 by UN Habitat released during the High-Level Political Forum in July.
The UIS education data release is coming in September 2023 with updated data on SDG 4 indicators and other education policy indicators.
