Summary report for UIS Regional Workshop on education statistics for Anglophone Africa 5 7 November 2012 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Transcription

1 Summary report for UIS Regional Workshop on education statistics for Anglophone Africa 5 7 November 2012 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia This is the sixth regional education workshop organised by the UIS for Eastern and Southern African countries. During the opening session, statements were made by Ethiopia Ministry of Education followed by remarks from UNESCO Addis Ababa and Africa Union. ISCED2011 and Higher Education Statistics were the main themes of the workshop. Other topics covered include education finance statistics and the regional module for Africa. The workshop agenda attached presents a comprehensive list of activities that have been covered. Main workshop sessions: The sessions on ISCED2011 were very instructive. Participants learned about basic concepts on the new ISCED and practiced criteria to remap their national education programmes from ISCED97 to ISCED2011. The list of education programmes from each country has been updated and all national ISCED97 mappings have been reviewed and remapped to ISCED2011. Two sessions were organised on higher education statistics to review the survey instruments especially the most common data items that have the lowest response rate in the region (typically data on teaching staff by level of ISCED, enrolment by age, enrolment and graduates by field of education, foreign students by country of origin). Calculation and interpretation of key tertiary indicators were also presented and a round table discussion on good practices concerning the production and used of higher education statistics was organised. The focus on tertiary education was of particular importance considering that a large part of changes in the new ISCED is about higher education. Significant changes will be made to the corresponding UIS survey instrument which is expected to be launched in The session on education finance presents and discusses the data conversion template and stimulates experience sharing from the education finance capacity building project. Two (of the four) countries that participated to the project (Gambia and Ghana) shared their experiences with the group on data production and use. Copies of the education finance brief produced by the four countries that participated to the project were distributed as concrete examples of their achievement. Based on the successful experience presented by Gambia and Ghana, countries representatives to the workshop expressed interest in benefiting from UIS assistance in order to improve the quality of their education finance data production and international reporting. Countries have been encouraged to send assistance request to UIS who will examine them based on priorities and resources availability. The session on regional module emphasised the high demand of the data requested typically for use in the monitoring of AU 2 nd decade of education goals, and by UIS to inform international community (e.g. through the production of factsheet). The keys indicators produced from the module have been presented and ways to increase response rates in the region have been discussed (bilateral meetings examined the issues of low response rate based on data collected in school census forms and how to convert these data into the module format for reporting to UIS). Bilateral meetings: Many issues concerning the quality of data reported to UIS (ex. ISCED mapping and updating, response rates, data gaps, inconsistencies in indicators values) have been discussed and resolved with representatives from each country. Several representatives talked about the problems they encountered with submitting data to UIS. They also expressed issues they face in collecting and consolidating data at national level. Where necessary, UIS staff provided tailored trainings on ISCED, education survey instruments and education indicators. 1

2 A major post workshop follow point is the outstanding questionnaires and the ISCED mappings updating. Response rates to education questionnaires had slightly increased compared to the status before the workshop but many countries promised to provide data or revised ISCED mapping when back home. At the moment, 21 updated ISCED mappings (from all participating countries) were produced during the workshop. Two new data submissions were received for each of the 3 education questionnaires. A workshop evaluation questionnaire administered at the end of the workshop helped assess the achievement of the workshop objectives. The result from evaluation shows that the workshop was very successful. 2

3 Annex 1: Minutes of bilateral meeting between Nigeria and UIS representatives Date: 8 November, 2012 from 2 to 5 pm Attendees: Nigeria UIS Mr David R. Obadeyi: Chief Data Processing Officer Primary Education Data Bank (Ministry of Education); Mrs Florence Asemadahun: Acting Director Academic Standards Department (National University Commission); Mr Ade O. Aimola: Director Planning, Research and Statistics (National Board for Technical Education); Mr Garba M. Koko: Chief Statistician Planning, Research and Statistics (National Commission for Colleges of Education); Mr Marc Bernal, Regional Advisor for sub Saharan Africa Mr Olivier Labe, Asst programme Specialist Education indicators and Data Analysis Unit, Eastern and Southern African countries Objectives of the bilateral meeting: 1. Clarify pending issues regarding ISCED2011 and the update of education programmes; 2. Discuss the major quality issues regarding education data reported to UIS; 3. Develop a strategy for production and reporting of national tertiary data to UIS in a sustainable way. Main conclusions from the meeting: 1. A draft ISCED2011 re mapping template (please find excel file enclosed) was produced by Nigeria representatives for review by the UIS. 2. UIS questionnaire A: Nigeria feedback on data issues is presented in the word file attached. UIS questionnaire B: collection of data on education financing in Nigeria is still representing a political issue. The majority of States don t report these data to the Federal. Much need to be done to overcome this issue. UIS questionnaire C (please see soft copy attached): Strategy to resolve the low response rate and quality issues is presented in point 3 below. 3. Three main institutions collect data on tertiary education in Nigeria: the National University Commission (NUC), the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) Comprehensive data at national level relies of collaboration between these three institutions Examination of data collected by each institution shows that the following data items requested in UIS are not available in all three institutions: o Part time data; o enrolment by age; o enrolment and graduates according to some fields of education; o data on foreign student by country of origin Consequently, there is a need to determine common data items which will render data consolidation consistent and comparable across the years. The following data items have been identified for submission to the UIS: o Enrolment Gender (MF, F) Levels of education (5A, 5B and 6) Country of origin: All together 3

4 Fields of education: consider fields with big heading (General programmes, education, Humanities and arts, etc please see tables 5 and 6 of the questionnaire). Keep record of how data have been reported as aide memoire for future data submission Type of institutions (public, private) Age [WILL NOT BE SUBMITTED AS DATA ARE NOT AVAILABLE] Graduates (by field of education) o Teachers Gender (MF, F) Levels of education (5A, 5B, 6) Type of institutions (public, private) Institutionalization of data production at national level and key dates Focal point for data compilation and consolidation from the three institutions: Mrs Florence Asemadahun (NUC) o After data consolidation, Mrs Asemadahun to provide FEMIS (Mr Obadeyi) with the data for official submission to the UIS. Deadlines for data reporting to UIS: o End of December 2012: data for 2010 (and possibly 2011) o During the course of 2013: data from 2005 to 2009 will be gradually reported as NUC does not have all these data ready at the moment Need for High level support to the strategy in order to get it institutionalized and sustainable: UIS is requested to include in the communications loop her Excellency Mrs Mariam Y. Katagum Nigeria Ambassador to UNESCO. Other: Mr Obadeyi is retiring in December He will have a replacement at the FEMIS to carry over his responsibility of UIS education data focal point. 4

5 Summary of the workshop evaluation A workshop evaluation questionnaire administered at the end of the workshop helped collect the participants opinions on several aspects of the workshop. 1. The workshop organisation The pre workshop preparation was essential to the success of the workshop. Mrs Rosa Mariamo Jebrayel (UIS Montreal) and Mrs Tewabetch Tamrat (UNESCO Addis Ababa) did a tremendous job in this regard. Graph 1 summarises the participants evaluation concerning the main preparatory aspects of the workshop. Figure 1: Evaluation of the workshop organization on a scale of 10 In general, more than 7 participants in ten ranked the accommodation, documentation, administration, schedule and venue of the workshop between 8 to 10 on a scale of 10 ascending degrees of satisfaction. However, 6% of participants felt that the organisation of the workshop in regard to the venue and the logistic should be ranked less than 5 on the scale of 10 ascending degrees. 2. The workshop sessions 2.1. Workshop overall rating On a scale of 10 ascending degree of satisfaction, all the participants ranked the workshop on scale 6 or above. 84% of the participants ranked their appreciation of the overall workshop on a scale between 8 and 10. The figure 2 summarises the overall rating. 5

6 Figure 2. Overall rating of the workshop on a scale of Achievement of the workshop objectives Figure 3. Achievement of the workshop objectives 2.3. Evaluation on the workshop topics and activities that received participants attention the most Figure 4 presents a list of statements related to the workshop activities and appreciations of the participants on each of them. 6

7 Figure 4. Evaluation on workshop topics 7