1. EFA Mid-Decade Assessment: addressing Disparities in Education
United Nations Statistical Institute For Asia and the Pacific
Second Group Training Course in
Module on Fundamental Official Statistics
13 – 14 February 2007
Chiba, JAPAN

2. Education for All Goals
In March, 1990
At Jomtien, Thailand
Leaders from 155 countries
Proclaim the following World Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs.

3. Education for All Goals
Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.
Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes.

4. Education for All Goals
Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults.
Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls' full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality.
Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

5. Looking back...

6. Looking back
1990
The Jomtien Declaration included a commitment to monitoring
National education reforms were to be coupled with monitoring of implementation and assessment of outcomes
1999
Countries prepared the EFA2000 Assessment Report
Countries were under-prepared and/or reports were prepared externally
Little investment had been made towards capacity building for monitoring, evaluation and assessment
The Jomtien Declaration had foreseen the need for the Member States to monitor the progress toward the attainment of the EFA Goals.
Along with the education reforms to fulfil their commitments to the EFA Goals, the Governments, as matter of good governance, would monitor the implementation and assess the outcomes of their policies.
Ten years went by and less than a year before the Dakar Conference, the Member States were invited to submit the end-of-decade “EFA2000 Assessment Report.”
Many countries could not adequately prepare the report in such a short time. In many cases, the reports were prepared by agency-sponsored consultants who had to rely upon poor and out-dated data.
Most Governments did not follow-through with investment in the long-term process of national capacity building of this function with regard to each of the Six EFA Goals

7. Looking back
The reports for the EFA2000 left many areas in the dark, especially those areas not covered by the formal primary education:
ECCE,
Life Skills,
Literacy and NFE
Sub-national variations in the impact of the education reforms
In almost all cases, relying largely on already available data based on school-administrative data and aggregated at the national level.
The reports for the EFA 2000 left many areas in the dark, especially those areas not covered by the formal primary education
ECCE,
Life Skills,
Literacy and NFE
sub-national variations in the impact of the education reforms since the Jomtien Declaration
Who constitute the un-reached target groups?
Who have been left out of the Education for All?

8. From Jomtien to Dakar: New challenges
World Education Forum, Dakar Senegal, 2000
Dakar framework for action included new commitment and challenges:
Equity and Equality issues (disparities: gender, vulnerable and disadvantaged children, ethnic minorities, castes, etc.)
Quality improvement in education and life skills
Efficient and regular monitoring mechanisms
What progress has been made to address these challenges?

9. Availability of education statistics: Asia
Central Asia
East and South East Asia
South and West Asia
Initially attached at Paris HQ
She used to be a Director General of Statistics Office at UK

10. EFA Global Monitoring Report
Gender
Quality
Literacy

11. EFA Global Monitoring Report
Early Childhood Care and Education
2007
EFA Progress Report to 2015
2008

12. The enrolment challenge
Primary school enrolments have risen sharply in South and West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but these two regions are still home to 70% of the world’s 100 million out-of-school children

13. The enrolment challenge
Progress varies in Primary school Net Enrolments Rates (NER) in East Asia: 2001 to 2002

14. Gender parity
Considerable progress in countries with lowest gender parity index
Gender imbalance at primary level in over 60 countries is nearly always at the expense of girls
At secondary level, boys are under represented in 56 countries
The 2005 gender parity goal has been missed by 94 countries
Gender parity
Gender Parity Index (F/M), 2002
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
South
West
Asia
Sub
Saharan
Africa
Arab
States
Centr.
East.
Europe
Latin
America
Caribbean
Central
East
Pacific N.
America/
W. Europe
primary
secondary

15. The impact of exclusion and disadvantage
Where poverty rates are higher, literacy rates tend to be lower
Women: 88 literate women for 100 adult literate men – 92 in East Asia and the Pacific, 66 in South and West Asia
Indigenous peoples: their lower literacy rates reflect limited access to formal schooling
Disabilities: over 600 million people have a disability, two-thirds live in low-income countries. Evidence suggests weak literacy skills
Migrants: dramatic growth within and between countries
Rural residents: disparities are greater in poorer countries with low overall literacy rates (44% rural vs 72% urban in Pakistan)

16. Dakar Follow-Up Strategy
EFA HLG Task Force, UNESCO 2002:
“An international strategy to opera-tionalize the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All (EFA)”
Strategy 11: systematically monitor progress towards EFA goals and strategies at the national, regional and international levels.
Performance monitoring and evaluation of all stakeholders and development partners
The regular and systematic monitoring of EFA progress constitutes a central strategy for achieving Education for All by 2015

17. Regional EFA Mid-Decade Assessment (EFA MDA)
Are we moving closer to the goals? Forward? Backward?
Regional EFA Mid-Decade Assessment (EFA MDA)

18. Global Monitoring Mechanism for EFA
Annual Global Monitoring Report
EFA 2000 Assessment
World Education Forum
2000, Dakar, Senegal
World Conference on EFA
1990, Jomtien, Thailand
EFA 2015
Assessment
1996: Mid-Decade
Evaluation
2006: A/P Mid-Decade
Assessment
Goals and targets set
Goals and targets assessed and re-set
National Action Plans prepared

19. Why MDA?
to identify problems, issues, policies and strategies of education reform
to ensure that education will reach the un-reached groups.
To inform the mid-term review of national education policy against the findings of the national assessment report
to better formulate appropriate policies for attaining EFA by the year 2015.

20. Mid-Decade Assessment objectives
assess national (and sub-national) progress toward the attainment of the EFA Goals and Targets, and
identify the remaining gaps in terms of quality and equity across the national sub-populations of learner-groups, in order to
prepare for the Mid-Term Review (2007/8) for planning the next phase of education reforms to attain the 2015 EFA Goals and Targets and MDG.

21. The Assessment will try to answer:
What were the most common achievements in terms of quality and equality, if any, since the year 1990 and especially in the last 5 years?
Goals and targets set by the national EFA action plan
National Education Sector Development Plan
What actions and benefits reached the main intended target groups?
What groups benefited most from these achievements? What policies, resource inputs and contextual factors facilitated these successes?
the most common achievements in terms of quality and equality, if any, since the year 1990 and especially in the last 5 years?
Goals and targets set by the national EFA action plan
National Education Sector Development Plan
Actions and benefits reach to the main intended target groups?
What groups benefited most from these achievements? What policies, resource inputs and contextual factors facilitated these successes?
Are these group (the poor, ethno-linguistic minorities, learners with disabilities, remote inhabitants, etc.) also benefit much from the achievements?
Which groups benefited least or not at all.
What policies, resource inputs and factors facilitated and what factors obstructed the reaching the targets and resolving the issues - the inclusion of unreached groups in sharing the benefits of the past efforts with regard to this particular Goal?
What still need to be achieved and what are still missing to address.

22. The Assessment will try to answer:
What were the most common gaps in progress in terms of quality and equality?
Do traditionally-disadvantaged groups benefit much from the achievements?
Which groups benefited least or not at all?
What policies, resource inputs and factors facilitated and what factors obstructed the reaching the targets and resolving the issues - the inclusion of unreached groups in sharing the benefits of the past efforts with regard to this particular Goal?
What still need to be achieved and what are still missing to address?
the most common achievements in terms of quality and equality, if any, since the year 1990 and especially in the last 5 years?
Goals and targets set by the national EFA action plan
National Education Sector Development Plan
Actions and benefits reach to the main intended target groups?
What groups benefited most from these achievements? What policies, resource inputs and contextual factors facilitated these successes?
Are these group (the poor, ethno-linguistic minorities, learners with disabilities, remote inhabitants, etc.) also benefit much from the achievements?
Which groups benefited least or not at all.
What policies, resource inputs and factors facilitated and what factors obstructed the reaching the targets and resolving the issues - the inclusion of unreached groups in sharing the benefits of the past efforts with regard to this particular Goal?
What still need to be achieved and what are still missing to address.

23. Focus on distribution of quality education across sub-national target groups
MDA Management, Policy Analysis and Statistical Analysis of unattained goals and un-reached target groups and
Disparities in access to different levels of quality education across various strata and groups in the society:
Gender
Persons with disabilities
Religious, linguistic, racial and ethnic groups
Castes, classes and other social stratifications
Residents of remote areas/border regions
Undocumented people, non-citizens, non-registered residents
Migrants, refugees, displaced persons and their children
The extremely poor

24. The framework for the assessment
Inclusive Education and Lifelong Perspective
inclusion of diversity of learning needs of sub-populations (incl. disabled, linguistic, ethnic minorities, castes, disadvantage groups, etc.) – equity, equality and disparity
provision of quality education for all learners

25. EFA Monitoring, Assessment and Evaluation
Purpose
improve implementation/
formative
Improve Learning
Formative/sum
improve policies and strategies/ summative
Aimed at
operations and management
teachers and course providers
policymaking and leadership
Focus
account of what have been implemented
TL methods and materials
evaluation of policies and strategies vs goals & targets
Information
inputs and process
Learning achievements per TL process, quality
outcomes and impact
Indicators
resource input, efficiency, quality of delivery
Learning results per method-materials
learning achievements, socio-economic changes

26. Analyzing Implementation of EFA Policy and EFA Goals
Policy Cycle/
indicators
ECCE
UBE
Skills
Literacy
Gender
Quality
Governance, policy, agencies coordination
Resource mobilization
Courses, programs, Facilities
Quality & Equity Outcomes
Impact Assessment

27. Timeline and Milestones for National and Regional Assessment
Preparation
Assessment
Policy Review
2003-5
2006
2007
2008
Module development, case studies
With the objective of identifying the unattained targets and un-reached target groups for each of the Six EFA Goals, the participants discussed many aspects of the process. Among them, the following are the current plans with regard to the points raised in the concept paper for the Global EFA Review :
• In addition to the usual school-based statistics, they will use mostly the existing data collection, such as the population and housing census, various household surveys, labour force surveys, household income and expenditure surveys, etc.
• National IE policies on minorities, disabled, the extremely poor, etc.
• As the source of UIS data is the national statistics, the national assessment exercise will motivate and accelerate national data collection and reporting
• The exercise will generate materials that may be of use to the GMR
• Case studies have been conducted and more will be undertaken, especially in areas where standard statistics are not available and inadequate.
• The structure and process of implementation will be examined carefully to identify how the policies were differently implemented with regard to the different target groups
• Because of the composition of the participants, the discussions did not focus much on the financing aspects of the Six EFA Goals.
• Timeline: end of 2006, initial outline with raw data; 2007 analytical and politically anchored reports; 2008 regional policy review
initial outline with raw data
analytical and politically-anchored reports
Sub-regional policy review

28. Activities
2006
First Quarter: prepare and distribute guidelines and background concept paper; regional strategy meeting and launch of national assessments
Second Quarter: distribution of guidelines and proposed national report outline; advisory and technical assistance missions and national workshops
Third Quarter: sub-regional capacity building workshops and peer review of draft policy reports, data compilation and analysis workshop
Fourth Quarter: draft national data and policy analysis reports
2007
First Quarter: penultimate draft national reports (technical working document) and initial draft of regional synthesis report
Second Quarter: final national reports approved and released by governments
Third Quarter: sub-regional peer review of draft sub-regional synthesis reports
Fourth Quarter: regional synthesis report
2008
Mid-term regional policy review

29. Plan for national and regional assessment
In addition to the usual school-based statistics, countries will use existing data, such as the population and housing census, household surveys, labour force surveys, household income and expenditure surveys, etc.
Case studies will be undertaken, especially in areas where standard statistics are not available and inadequate (eg. gender equality, literacy, life-skills, etc)
The structure and process of implementation will be examined carefully to identify how the policies were differently implemented with regard to the different target groups
With the objective of identifying the unattained targets and un-reached target groups for each of the Six EFA Goals, the participants discussed many aspects of the process. Among them, the following are the current plans with regard to the points raised in the concept paper for the Global EFA Review :
• In addition to the usual school-based statistics, they will use mostly the existing data collection, such as the population and housing census, various household surveys, labour force surveys, household income and expenditure surveys, etc.
• National IE policies on minorities, disabled, the extremely poor, etc.
• As the source of UIS data is the national statistics, the national assessment exercise will motivate and accelerate national data collection and reporting
• The exercise will generate materials that may be of use to the GMR
• Case studies have been conducted and more will be undertaken, especially in areas where standard statistics are not available and inadequate.
• The structure and process of implementation will be examined carefully to identify how the policies were differently implemented with regard to the different target groups
• Because of the composition of the participants, the discussions did not focus much on the financing aspects of the Six EFA Goals.
• Timeline: end of 2006, initial outline with raw data; 2007 analytical and politically anchored reports; 2008 regional policy review

30. Assessment mechanism (2006-2007)
Preparation
Assessment
Reporting
Case studies
Case studies
Sub-regional and Regional EFA Assessment Reports
Case studies
Case studies
Case studies
Case studies
Data collection (School Censuses)
Capacity Building
Data collection (School Censuses)
Capacity Building
Data collection (School Censuses)
Capacity Building
Regional Conference on reviewing EFA Progress
Bangkok EFA Meeting
In-depth data analysis on household surveys
In-depth data analysis on household surveys
In-depth data analysis on household surveys
Global EFA Assessment Report
Country work plan and Assessment guideline
Formation of Regional and National Assessment teams
National EFA Assessment Reports

31. Summary: reality and a vision for the future
Governments, accountable for their own policies and implementation, must monitor and assess the education reform processes and outcomes in their own countries.
Capacity and infrastructure – lacking in most countries – are necessary to conduct a systematic and proper assessment at national level
Rather than building agency-driven bypasses for what should be the responsibility of the Governments, all stakeholders should work together to support and facilitate the development of national capacity to conduct the assessment to review the commitments to the EFA Goals.
It is the prime responsibility of the Governments, who is accountable for their own policies, to implement, monitor and assess the education reform processes and outcomes in their own countries.
However, there is a lack of capacity and infrastructure to conduct a systematic and proper assessment at national level and this time, it will be more challenging to address the areas where the previous assessment left out.
Rather than building agency-driven bypasses for what should be the responsibility of the Governments, all stakeholders should work together to support and facilitate the development of national capacity to conduct the assessment to review the commitments to the EFA Goals.

32. For further information, please visit: www.unescobkk.org/aims
or contact the AIMS unit:
Assessment, Information Systems, Monitoring and Statistics Unit (AIMS)
UNESCO Bangkok
Mom Luang Pin Malakul Centenary Building
920 Sukhumvit Road
Bangkok Thailand
tel: fax:

33. thank you