Education Statistics
Well-managed and responsive statistical information services are essential to viable policy formulation and efficient investments in education. This principle is at the basis of the activities of the Working Group on Education Statistics (WGES). Since it was created in 1989, the Working Group has focused on building capacities to implement, maintain and manage effective national education information systems. It has succeeded in developing a growing, structured network of education information managers and statisticians throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In 2000, the Working Group continued its capacity-building efforts, and was actively involved in assisting countries to participate in the EFA assessment.
The core of the ADEA Working Group on Education Statistics (WGES) is the joint capacity-building program, Strengthening National Education Statistical Information Systems (NESIS). NESIS is supported by nine agencies and over 40 sub-Saharan African countries. Its main objective is to develop sustainable statistical information systems for education policy-making. The NESIS team operates from the NESIS Regional Center and sub-regional office for East and Southern Africa at UNESCO Harare, and the sub-regional office for West and Central Africa in Dakar. It manages capacity-building activities, country implementation, and the exchange of experiences in the sub-regions. It also serves as the Working Group secretariat.
Building capacity for the EFA 2000 assessment
During 1999 and the first half of 2000, WGES mobilized the NESIS network to coordinate, train, and assist countries in producing statistical indicators for the assessment of progress toward the Jomtien goals. In this activity, WGES received support from DFID, the Netherlands, UNICEF, UNESCO, SIDA, and the French Cooperation, and it collaborated with the Education for All (EFA) Global Forum. In March 2000, following national assessments and the sub-Saharan Africa Conference on Education for All in Johannesburg, held in December 1999, NESIS and EFA Harare organized a meeting of the Regional Technical Advisory Groups (RTAG) country representatives to prepare issues for the World Education Forum (Dakar, April 2000).
The NESIS team produced a report synthesizing the country assessments, entitled "Assessment of basic education in Sub-Saharan Africa 1990-1999." The report was presented in draft at the Dakar conference and is now being printed. The team created a database containing country data and indicators, which is being updated, and prepared a statistical publication.
In December, at a meeting of heads of UNESCO field offices in sub-Saharan Africa, held at BREDA in Dakar to discuss EFA follow-up activities, NESIS presented its strategies and capacity-building activities related to the EFA monitoring and assessment functions.
Other activities in 2000
WGES has also been engaged in other activities, including the development of regionally-based training programs. Projects in the following areas have been implemented:
- Information on Books and Education Materials (IBEM): Initiated in 1999, IBEM is a joint project conducted by WGES and the ADEA Books Working Group. The project is developing a system to track books from design to use in classroom, with the aim of improving book production and distribution. The preliminary findings were reported in the ADEA Newsletter.1 As an integral part of Zambia's Basic Education Sub-Sector Investment Program (BESSIP), WGES is helping to develop an IBEM database.
- Information systems on nonformal education: Although many NGOs provide education and training, these programs are usually neglected in official education statistics. In collaboration with the Working Group on Nonformal Education, WGES organized a workshop in Nairobi in December for statisticians and nonformal education (NFE) specialists to assess the state of statistics on NFE. The Working Groups proposed pilot projects for the development of information systems, one on a national directory of NFE courses and providers (Kenya) and another on statistics on enrolment and performance in basic education equivalency courses provided by the NFE sector (Zimbabwe).
- Use of population censuses and household surveys: UNICEF and NESIS are collaborating in a project to learn more about why children are not in school. The objectives are to examine in three pilot countries how data from routine ministry of education data systems and from population census and household surveys can be combined and utilized to identify characteristics of children out of school and the reasons they do not enroll.
- Publications and information services: The Netherlands is supporting a project on the design, development, and management of statistical publications and information services. A work plan and terms of reference for pilot projects were prepared and a task-manager was hired to coordinate the implementation and development of materials.
- Module on statistical data collection and processing: A module was developed in collaboration with the Ecole Supérieure d'Informatique de Bobo Dioulasso in Burkina Faso. The module is based on the new education management information system (EMIS) in Burkina Faso and results of a workshop on restructuring information systems in a decentralized environment. It contains a document on the approach and system design and a CD-ROM containing data management software, sample questionnaires, a database, and data sets. A team of national experts from Burkina Faso and Senegal is developing the module, with support from French Cooperation experts and the NESIS node in Dakar.
- Other activities of the sub-regional NESIS office for West and Central Africa in Dakar included: Interactive seminars for educational planners through the RESAFAD server in Ouagadougou; contributions to the OAU evaluation of "The State of Education in West Africa in year 2000"; and collaboration with ADEA's Communication for Education and Development (COMED) program to elaborate a module on education statistics for journalists.
- Internet connectivity: USAID is financing Internet connections for ministries of education in NESIS countries; it is providing subscriptions to local Internet service providers (ISPs), training in start-up and maintenance, and equipment. Countries connected in 2000 are Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, and Zambia.
- Nigeria EMIS and Federal Education Data Bank: the NESIS coordinator took part in a joint UNESCO/World Bank mission to Nigeria in September-October, resulting in Nigeria's decision to conduct a NESIS diagnostic survey and formulate an action plan.
- OAU seminar: representatives from the East African countries convened in Nairobi in December to review OAU's decade of education program. Strategies for capacity building were presented, emphasizing the institutional, technical, and human aspects.
Distance training programs
NESIS and the Zimbabwe Open University are preparing a proposal for the development of distance education training programs. The project would elaborate and transform NESIS technical materials that have been developed and tested in country pilot projects into materials for distance learning training. Within the framework of this project, it is planned that a network of specialists and institutions in the sub-region will conduct a training of trainers program.
Ko-Chih R. Tung
Coordinator of the Working Group on Education Statistics
Anna Eriksson
NESIS Coordinator for Eastern and Southern Africa
Bernard Audinos
NESIS Coordinator for Western and Central Africa
1. See the article Why are there so few books in the schools ADEA Newsletter, Vol.12, No.3, July-Sept. 2000, pp. 11-12.
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