By Tanya Guyatt, 60 million girls Foundation
International Women’s Day on 8 March is a time to celebrate achievements in advancing gender equality. It’s also a day to push for more progress, and this year’s theme “think equal, build smart, innovate for change” suggests that real change requires a new approach. We need innovative solutions to reach the remaining out-of-school girls and to ensure that all children finish school with the skills to thrive in today’s modern, global economy.
By Friedrich Huebler, Head of Education Standards and Methodology at the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and Kevin McGee, Economist in the Development Data Group at the World Bank.
A new guidebook published by the World Bank and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) casts light on how to measure the heavy burden of education spending that falls on the world’s families. Measuring Household Expenditure on Education: A Guidebook for Designing Household Survey Questionnaires will help countries report on SDG 4 Indicator 4.5.4: education expenditure per student by level of education and source of funding. The guidebook also aims to ensure proper representation of education expenditure in consumption-based poverty and inequality measures, and enable more micro-econometric research on resource allocation in households.
By Manos Antoninis, Director of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
On the first International Day of Education, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report announce a new partnership to demonstrate education inequalities and show those lagging behind in achieving the global UN education goal, SDG 4. Continue reading
By Ben Alcott, Pauline Rose, Ricardo Sabates and Rodrigo Torres, Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, University of Cambridge
This blog was also published by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
As governments pursue Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education, with its strong focus on equity, are they embedding equity at the very heart of their national education plans? Recent research suggests that, in many cases, the answer is no, but it also highlights ‘honorable exceptions’: countries that are tracking equity in access to education and in learning.
In the Handbook on Measuring Equity in Education, published earlier this year by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), we explored how well equity is captured by indicators in today’s national education plans – the main tool used by governments to plan and implement education policy. Our aim is to offer guidance for policymakers when selecting indicators and help them track progress. Continue reading
This blog was also published by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
We know it is critical to measure equity in education: the fairness of education provision and quality of learning outcomes, as well as access to schooling, if we are to meet the global goals and targets for education.
We also know there are many different ways to conceptualize the measurement of equity, with different perspectives, start points and aims – often driven by the current political climate.
But now it is time to take a deep breath and make that all-important leap from the conceptual to the practical measurement of education equity. In the Handbook on Measuring Equity in Education, published earlier this year by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), we zoom in on two key concepts – equality of condition and impartiality – and map out a five-step process for their measurement. We hope that it will help researchers navigate their way towards a fairly reliable measure of educational equity. Continue reading
By Sonia Ilie, Pauline Rose and Asma Zubairi, Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, University Of Cambridge
This blog was also published by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
It’s Global Action Week for Education, with the focus firmly on accountability. As we all know, if we want to hold our decisionmakers to account, we must have good data. Without it, we have little evidence of whether they are keeping their promises or not.
In the case of education, this certainly means knowing how many children are in school, how many are out of the classroom, and whether they are making good progress in their learning. But there is another critical area that is crucial not only for accountability on education, and that is the money. Who pays for education? How much do they pay? Where does the money go? And very importantly, who is benefiting from public spending by governments? Continue reading
By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), and the authors* of The Handbook on Measuring Equity in Education
This blog was also published by the Global Partnership for Education
It is something we have come to see as self-evident: education is a fundamental right, and without it, our lives – and indeed our world – would be greatly diminished. It is something we even take for granted.
But as the most recent data show, one in every five children, adolescents and youth worldwide is denied this right, shut out of the education that could, or should, transform their lives. They are often the poorest of the poor, the children with disabilities, the refugee or migrant children. They are often girls, but in some countries – and at some levels of education – they are also boys. Continue reading
