A Quick Win in Monitoring How Much Children Learn

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By Nadir Altinok (Associate Professor of Economics, Université de Lorraine, France) and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

This blog was originally published by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)

The news that more than more than half – 617 million – children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age worldwide are not reaching minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics is a wake-up call for educators and for statisticians. Without such data, we would be unaware of the learning crisis that threatens progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a crisis that demands an urgent response from education ministries, most certainly, but also from the world’s data gatherers. Continue reading →

There is a global learning crisis. Our young people deserve better skills.

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This blog was originally published by the World Economic Forum

By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and Dankert Vedeler, Co-Chair of the SDG Education 2030 Steering Committee and Assistant Director General of the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research

Driving systematic change in critical areas such as health, energy and infrastructure is the task of the Global Future Council’s 700 members in Dubai this week. They are investigating how breakthrough technologies can be used to “join the dots”.

One key prerequisite for such change is a global population that is well-informed, well-educated, and literate. This is essential for progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education, for example. But many other SDGs also depend on populations becoming literate and numerate. Continue reading →

The Teacher’s Waking Nightmare

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

You did well at school and at college. You studied hard and made great sacrifices to qualify as a teacher – determined to help the next generation reach their full potential. But now you’re standing in a poorly-equipped classroom in front of 50 children aged from 6 to 11 years old. You have a few textbooks that are falling apart, only a handful of pens and pencils, a few scraps of paper, and no chalk for the chalkboard painted on the crumbling wall behind you. And your pupils are looking at you expectantly, ready for you to teach them everything that they need to know.

This is not some nightmare that ends when you wake up. It’s a daily reality for many of the world’s teachers. Continue reading →

News from Hamburg: Big Steps Forward towards Reliable Metrics to Harmonise Learning Assessment Data Globally

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and Dirk Hastedt, Executive Director of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)

This blog was also published by Norrag.

On the day that the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) released new global numbers of children and adolescents not learning, representatives from regional and international learning assessments gathered in Hamburg, Germany. They had answered the UIS’ call to come together to help tackle measurement issues around the coverage and comparability of data for SDGs Indicator 4.1.1: the proportion of children and young people in Grade 2 or 3; at the end of primary education; and at the end of lower secondary education, achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics. Continue reading →

New Data Reveal a Learning Crisis that Threatens Development Around the World

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), and Karen Mundy, Chief Technical Officer at the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)

New data released today by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) show that 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not reaching minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. This signals a learning crisis that could threaten progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Continue reading →

Building a True Picture of Lifelong Learning

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

This blog was originally published by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)

New data on learning are steadily coming on-stream, helping us to gauge the extent to which children and youth, in school and out, are learning acquiring the skills they need to build their lives. This week at the UKFIET (The Education and Development Forum) Conference in London, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) has set out progress on the development of a global approach to measure learning. The UIS presentation showed the challenges and the most feasible solutions to resolve them. All of this information is vital for the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Continue reading →

Tracking Literacy in an Increasingly Digital World

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).

The theme of this year’s International Literacy Day on Friday, 8 September, is ‘Literacy in a Digital World’. The Day aims to highlight the kind of literacy skills people need to navigate this world and the literacy policies and programmes that can leverage the opportunities such a world provides. Continue reading →