COMMUNITIES
World Education Indicator Program: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the World Bank measure the current state of education in the world
As a joint UIS-OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) collaboration, this program develops education indicators with national coordinators from 19 middle-income countries that comprise over 70% of the world's population.
Aim of the Program
The primary aim of the project is to develop a critical mass of education indicators that measure the current state of education in an internationally comparable, timely and efficient manner.
The group takes on special projects that improve the comparability or broaden the scope of international education indicators. For example, there have been special studies on levels of decision-making in education, based on surveys of primary schools conducted in participating countries.
Achievements
The outputs of the programme include:
The program has also led to high-level ministerial cooperation and political commitment among the partner countries. Currently, a project which is the first comparative school-based survey to study school effectiveness across the participating countries is underway.
Evolution of the Program
The program began as a pilot project in 1997 with an original group of 12 countries which were invited to participate by UNESCO and OECD. Since then, the group has expanded to now covering every region of the world, through 19 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and Zimbabwe.
Since its establishment, the UIS has been supported by the World Bank through its "Development Grant Fund". For the “World Education indicator Program”, the World Bank provides financial assistance for its organisation and administration.
From 2001- 2004 UNESCO received short-term (annual applications, max 3-4 years), support for project-based work from the World Bank. In 2005, the mutual trust that had developed between the two organisations manifested itself through World Bank making longer-term commitments to UNESCO.