Strengthening national capacities in education data and statistics for evidence-based policy-making, planning and monitoring of SDG 4

The SDG 4 monitoring framework has given the central responsibility of monitoring to Member States for tracking their country's progress towards achieving SDG 4. Member States are responsible for developing their monitoring systems, as well as developing indicators and data collection mechanisms to ensure that quality data is available for timely planning and developing appropriate policies. Global and regional education data depend on the country's capacity for producing the data, the data coverage, and its availability for analysis and practical application. The data production at the country level should be relevant for the country’s policymaking and planning and to assessing the progress. Conversely, a lack of data can hamper policymaking and planning at the country level.

Many countries face issues that arise from fragmented education data, a circumstance which creates obstacles to compiling data for the various subsectors of education. Household data is also a key data source monitoring for SDG 4, but the coverage and frequencies of household surveys are limited, and they are not used for planning or monitoring purposes to the extent they could be.

There is also lack of large-scale learning assessment data, which inadvertently causes difficulty in monitoring learning outcomes. Other challenges are insufficient capacities in data-processing skills, understanding the methodologies and data definitions, and interpreting the data, all of which can hinder the full use of data to identify key areas needing attention.

UNESCO Bangkok and UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) are jointly conducting a series of training workshop for government officials from Asia with the purposes to:

• Familiarise officials with UIS tools and methodologies, including International Standard Classification for Education (ISCED) for producing quality data, statistics, and indicators for SDG 4 monitoring, particularly focusing on benchmark indicators;
• Discuss and share experiences on strengthening education data systems in improving education data in the countries;
• Undertake data analysis that supports policy-relevant information;
• Review the SDG 4 benchmark process and key challenges for their use in monitoring policy and data gaps; and
• Discuss the processes of the national SDG 4 Midterm Reviews (MTR) in using national benchmark indicators.

The trainings are held in subregional settings for East and Southeast, South, and Central Asia from October to the beginning of December 2022.

The trainings are in-person and by invitation only.

The materials used in the workshops can be found attached below.