12 Dec 2016
A Global Offer for Learning: Rewards for Testing and Educational Progress by William Savedoff
By William Savedoff, Centre for Global Development. Developing countries spend $1 trillion annually on education and receive $13 billion in foreign aid, according to a recent report, The Learning Generation: Investing in Education for a Changing World. While that means more children are in school than ever before, this report from the International Commission on... Read More
08 Dec 2016
Education SDG Indicator on Learning Outcomes Gets a Major Upgrade by Luis Benveniste
By Luis Benveniste, World Bank, and Silvia Montoya, UNESCO Institute for Statistics. There has been an important shift in the global measurement of learning. The Inter-Agency Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) has decided to ‘upgrade’ SDG Indicator 4.1.1 on learning outcomes: the proportion of children and young people who achieve at least... Read More
05 Dec 2016
Pakistan’s Educational Foresight and Alignment with the Education SDG by Sajid Ali
By Sajid Ali, Aga Khan University, Pakistan. If SDG-4 does not want to end up with the same fate as EFA or MDGs in Pakistan, it has to privilege local planning and leadership for implementation. The Sindh province of Pakistan prepared a Sindh Education Sector Plan (SESP) after detailed consultations and involvement of all stakeholders... Read More
30 Nov 2016
Is the Meister Vocational High School More Cost-Effective in South Korea? By Kye Woo LEE and Dae Hong KIM
By Kye Woo LEE and Dae Hong KIM, Korea Development Institute (KDI), South Korea, and Hay Kyeong LEE, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. When the 2008 economic crisis occurred, many European governments, which were hit hardest by the crisis, tried to learn from the dual vocational high school programme of Germany, whose graduates had suffered much... Read More
28 Nov 2016
Education, Training and Agenda 2030: What Progress One Year On? By NORRAG
By NORRAG. What has actually transpired globally, regionally and nationally since the education and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were confirmed in the UN General Assembly just over a year ago in September 2015? Following the goal and target agreement for 2030, the question immediately became: ‘What next?’ How would these new targets be achieved?... Read More
21 Nov 2016
How to Reach a Consensus on Reporting Learning Globally by Aaron Benavot
By Aaron Benavot, Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO, Paris. Carrying out national and cross-national learning assessments involves an enormous commitment of time, effort and resources. As such, they are most cost effective when they serve multiple purposes, which might also include providing an input to global monitoring of learning outcomes. Moreover, if these assessments are... Read More
02 Nov 2016
Did EFA Leadership and the Global Monitoring Report Contribute to UNESCO’s Legitimacy during 2000-2015? By D. Brent Edwards Jr
By D. Brent Edwards Jr., University of Hawaii. With regard to its work in education, UNESCO came into the 2000s hoping to address the issues of legitimacy that had beset it in the preceding decades. From the 1970s onward, UNESCO gradually lost stature as the World Bank became more prominent and influential, though UNESCO’s reputation... Read More
24 Oct 2016
Aligning Key Initiatives in Monitoring Learning by Luis Crouch and Silvia Montoya
By Luis Crouch, RTI, and Silvia Montoya, UNESCO Institute for Statistics. In a recent blog on this site, we noted that there is currently a global multiplicity of strong initiatives in generating better data on learning outcomes, oriented at Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). And, that’s only in the area of learning outcomes. If... Read More
10 Oct 2016
Innovative Financing for Education: Interesting Ideas or Actionable in Education 2030? By Saba Saeed
By Saba Saeed, Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA), Pakistan. Despite the fact that education has been slow to embrace innovations compared to the other sectors, such as health and ICT, innovative financing for education has become a buzz phrase nowadays. In 2008, with the eruption of the global financial crisis and the subsequent stagnating aid to education, the... Read More
29 Sep 2016
Why Skills Development? In Asia, a Basic Education is Not Enough Anymore by Sungsup Ra
By Sungsup Ra, Asian Development Bank. In the past three decades, economic growth in Asia has been the envy of the world. This was driven in part by millions of workers who had completed their basic education and who were willing to work for low wages. Asia’s education systems provided hard skills, including technical and... Read More