GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION

Proportion of children and young people: (a) in grades 2/3; (b) at the end of primary; and (c) at the end of lower secondary achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in (i) reading and (ii) mathematics, by sex

(a) Minimum proficiency level (MPL) is the benchmark of basic knowledge in a domain (mathematics, reading, etc.) measured through learning assessments. In September 2018, an agreement was reached on a verbal definition of the global minimum proficiency level of reference for each of the areas and domains of Indicator 4.1.1 as described in the document entitled: Minimum Proficiency Levels (MPLs): Outcomes of the consensus building meeting (http://gaml.uis.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MPLs_revised_doc_20190204.docx).

Minimum proficiency levels (MPLs) defined by each learning assessment to ensure comparability across learning assessments; a verbal definition of MPL for each domain and levels between cross-national assessments (CNAs) were established by conducting an analysis of the performance level descriptors, the descriptions of the performance levels to express the knowledge and skills required to achieve each performance level by domain, of cross-national, regional and community-led tests in reading and mathematics. The analysis was led and completed by the UIS and a consensus among experts on the proposed methodology was deemed adequate and pragmatic.

The global MPL definitions for the domains of reading and mathematics are presented here (insert link)

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reading test has six proficiency levels, of which Level 2 is described as the minimum proficiency level. In Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), there are four proficiency levels: Low, Intermediate, High and Advanced. Students reaching the Intermediate benchmark are able to apply basic knowledge in a variety of situations, similar to the idea of minimum proficiency. Currently, there are no common standards validated by the international community or countries. The indicator shows data published by each of the agencies and organizations specialised in cross-national learning assessments.

(a) The number of children and/or young people at the relevant stage of education n in year t achieving at least the pre-defined proficiency level in subject s expressed as a percentage of the number of children and/or young people at stage of education n, in year t, in any proficiency level in subjects.

Harmonize various data sources
To address the challenges posed by the limited capacity of some countries to implement cross- national, regional and national assessments, actions have been taken by the UIS and its partners. The strategies are used according to its level of precision and following a reporting protocol (http://gaml.uis.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/GAML6-WD-2-Protocol-for-reporting-4.1.1_v1.pdf) that includes the national assessments under specific circumstances.

Out-of-school children
In 2016, 263 million children, adolescents and youth were out of school, representing nearly one-fifth of the global population of this age group. 63 million, or 24% of the total, are children of primary school age (typically 6 to 11 years old); 61 million, or 23% of the total, are adolescents of lower secondary school age (typically 12 to 14 years old); and 139 million, or 53% of the total, are youth of upper secondary school age (about 15 to 17 years old). Not all these kids will be permanently outside school, some will re-join the educational system and, eventually, complete late, while some of them will enter late. The quantity varies per country and region and demands some adjustment in the estimate of Indicator 4.1.1. There is currently a discussion on how to implement these adjustments to reflect all the population. In 2017, the UIS proposed to make adjustments using the out-of-school children and the completion rates.(http://uis.unesco.org/en/blog/helping-countries-improve-their-data-out-school-children) and the completion rates.

Learning outcomes from cross-national learning assessment are directly comparable for all countries which participated in the same cross-national learning assessments. However, these outcomes are not comparable across different cross-national learning assessments or with national learning assessments. A level of comparability of learning outcomes across assessments could be achieved by using different methodologies, each with varying standard errors. The period of 2020-2021 will shed light on the standard errors’ size for these methodologies.

The comparability of learning outcomes over time has additional complications, which require, ideally, to design and implement a set of comparable items as anchors in advance. Methodological developments are underway to address comparability of assessments outcomes over time.

While data from many national assessments are available now, every country sets its own standards so the performance levels might not be comparable. One option is to link existing regional assessments based on a common framework. Furthermore, assessments are typically administered within school systems, the current indicators cover only those in school and the proportion of in-school target populations might vary from country to country due to varied out-of-school children populations. Assessing competencies of children and young people who are out of school would require household-based surveys. Assessing children in households is under consideration but may be very costly and difficult to administer and unlikely to be available on the scale needed within the next 3-5 years. Finally, the calculation of this indicator requires specific information on the ages of children participating in assessments to create globally-comparable data. The ages of children reported by the head of the household might not be consistent and reliable so the calculation of the indicator may be even more challenging. Due to the complication in assessing out-of-school children and the main focus on improving education system, the UIS is taking a stepping stone approach. It will concentrate on assessing children in school in the medium term, where much data are available, then develop more coherent implementation plan to assess out-of-school children in the longer term.

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Percentage of a cohort of children or young people aged 3-5 years above the intended age for the last grade of each level of education who have completed that grade.

The intended age for the last grade of each level of education is the age at which pupils would enter the grade if they had started school at the official primary entrance age, had studied full-time and had progressed without repeating or skipping a grade.

For example, if the official age of entry into primary education is 6 years, and if primary education has 6 grades, the intended age for the last grade of primary education is 11 years. In this case, 14-16 years (11 + 3 = 14 and 11 + 5 = 16) would be the reference age group for calculation of the primary completion rate.

The number of persons in the relevant age group who have completed the last grade of a given level of education is divided by the total population (in the survey sample) of the same age group.

The age group 3-5 years above the official age of entry into the last grade for a given level of education was selected for the calculation of the completion rate to allow for some delayed entry or repetition. In countries where entry can occur very late or where repetition is common, some children or adolescents in the age group examined may still attend school and the eventual rate of completion may therefore be underestimated.

The indicator is calculated from household survey data and is subject to time lag in the availability of data. When multiple surveys are available, they may provide conflicting information due to the possible presence of sampling and non-sampling errors in survey data. The Technical Cooperation Group on the Indicators for SDG 4 – Education 2030 (TCG) has requested a refinement of the methodology to model completion rate estimates, following an approach similar to that used for the estimation of child mortality rates. The model would ensure that common challenges with household survey data, such as timeliness and sampling or non-sampling errors are addressed to provide up-to-date and more robust data.

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The recommended measure for SDG 4.2.1 is the Early Childhood Development Index 2030 (ECDI2030) which is a 20-item instrument to measure developmental outcomes among children aged 24 to 59 months in population-based surveys. The indicator derived from the ECDI2030 is the proportion of children aged 24 to 59 months who have achieved the minimum number of milestones expected for their age group, defined as follows:

– Children age 24 to 29 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 7 milestones
– Children age 30 to 35 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 9 milestones
– Children age 36 to 41 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 11 milestones
– Children age 42 to 47 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 13 milestones
– Children age 48 to 59 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 15 milestones

SDG indicator 4.2.1 is intended to capture the multidimensional and holistic nature of early childhood development. For this reason, the indicator is not intended to be disaggregated by domains since development in all areas (health, learning and psychosocial wellbeing) are interconnected and overlapping, particularly among young children. The indicator is intended to produce a single summary score to indicate the proportion of children considered to be developmentally on track.

The domains included in the indicator for SDG indicator 4.2.1 include the following concepts:

Health: gross motor development, fine motor development and self-care
Learning: expressive language, literacy, numeracy, pre-writing, and executive functioning
Psychosocial well-being: emotional skills, social skills, internalizing behavior, and externalizing
behavior

The number of children aged 24 to 59 months who are developmentally on track in health, learning and
psychosocial well-being divided by the total number of children aged 24 to 59 months in the population
multiplied by 100.

SDG 4.2.1 was initially classified as Tier 3 and was upgraded to Tier 2 in 2019; additionally, changes to the indicator were made during the 2020 comprehensive review. In light of this and given that the ECDI2030 was officially released in March 2020, it will take some time for country uptake and implementation of the new measure and for data to become available from a sufficiently large enough number of countries. Therefore, in the meantime, some countries will continue to rely on the use of a proxy indicator (children aged 36-59 months who are developmentally ontrack in at least three of the following four domains: literacy-numeracy, physical, social-emotional and learning) to report on 4.2.1. This proxy indicator has been used for global SDG reporting since 2015 but is not fully aligned with the definition and age group covered by the SDG indicator formulation. When the proxy indicator is used for SDG reporting on 4.2.1 for a country, it will be footnoted as such in the global SDG database.

Click on the button below to explore the data behind this indicator’s proxy; Children aged 36-59 months who are developmentally ontrack in at least three of the following four domains: literacy-numeracy, physical, social-emotional and learning. For more information about this proxy indicator, please see “Comments and Limitations”

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The participation rate in organized learning (one year before the official primary entry age), by sex as defined as the percentage of children in the given age range who participate in one or more organized learning programme, including programmes which offer a combination of education and care. Participation in early childhood and in primary education are both included. The age range will vary by country depending on the official age for entry to primary education.

An organized learning programme is one which consists of a coherent set or sequence of educational activities designed with the intention of achieving pre-determined learning outcomes or the accomplishment of a specific set of educational tasks. Early childhood and primary education programmes are examples of organized learning programmes.

Early childhood and primary education are defined in the 2011 revision of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011). Early childhood education is typically designed with a holistic approach to support children’s early cognitive, physical, social and emotional development and to introduce young children to organized instruction outside the family context. Primary education offers learning and educational activities designed to provide students with fundamental skills in reading, writing and mathematics and establish a solid foundation for learning and understanding core areas of knowledge and personal development. It focuses on learning at a basic level of complexity with little, if any, specialisation.

The official primary entry age is the age at which children are obliged to start primary education according to national legislation or policies. Where more than one age is specified, for example, in different parts of a country, the most common official entry age (i.e. the age at which most children in the country are expected to start primary) is used for the calculation of this indicator at the global level.

The number of children in the relevant age group who participate in an organized learning programme is expressed as a percentage of the total population in the same age range. From household surveys, both enrolments and population are collected at the same time.

Participation in learning programmes in the early years is not full time for many children, meaning that exposure to learning environments outside of the home will vary in intensity. The indicator measures the percentage of children who are exposed to organized learning but not the intensity of the programme, which limits the ability to draw conclusions on the extent to which this target is being achieved. More work is needed to ensure that the definition of learning programmes is consistent across various surveys and defined in a manner that is easily understood by survey respondents, ideally with complementary information collected on the amount of time children spend in learning programmes.

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The percentage of schools by level of education (primary education) with access to the given facility or service

Electricity: Regularly and readily available sources of power (e.g. grid/mains connection, wind, water, solar and fuel-powered generator, etc.) that enable the adequate and sustainable use of ICT infrastructure for educational purposes.

Internet for pedagogical purposes: Internet that is available for enhancing teaching and learning and is accessible by pupils. Internet is defined as a worldwide interconnected computer network, which provides pupils access to a number of communication services including the World Wide Web and carries e-mail, news, entertainment and data files, irrespective of the device used (i.e. not assumed to be only via a computer) and thus can also be accessed by mobile telephone, tablet, PDA, games machine, digital TV etc.). Access can be via a fixed narrowband, fixed broadband, or via mobile network.

Computers for pedagogical use: Use of computers to support course delivery or independent teaching and learning needs. This may include activities using computers or the Internet to meet information needs for research purposes; develop presentations; perform hands-on exercises and experiments; share information; and participate in online discussion forums for educational purposes. A computer is a programmable electronic device that can store, retrieve and process data, as well as share information in a highly-structured manner. It performs high-speed mathematical or logical operations according to a set of instructions or algorithms.

Computers include the following types:
-A desktop computer usually remains fixed in one place; normally the user is placed in front of it, behind the keyboard;
– A laptop computer is small enough to carry and usually enables the same tasks as a desktop computer; it includes notebooks and netbooks but does not include tablets and similar handheld devices; and
– A tablet (or similar handheld computer) is a computer that is integrated into a flat touch screen, operated by touching the screen rather than using a physical keyboard.

Adapted infrastructure is defined as any built environment related to education facilities that are accessible to all users, including those with different types of disability, to be able to gain access to use and exit from them. Accessibility includes ease of independent approach, entry, evacuation and/or use of a building and its services and facilities (such as water and sanitation), by all of the building’s potential users with an assurance of individual health, safety and welfare during the course of those activities.

Adapted materials include learning materials and assistive products that enable students and teachers
with disabilities/functioning limitations to access learning and to participate fully in the school environment.

Accessible learning materials include textbooks, instructional materials, assessments and other materials that are available and provided in appropriate formats such as audio, braille, sign language and simplified formats that can be used by students and teachers with disabilities/functioning limitations.

Basic drinking water is defined as a functional drinking water source (MDG ‘improved’ categories) on or near the premises and water points accessible to all users during school hours.

Basic sanitation facilities are defined as functional sanitation facilities (MDG ‘improved’ categories) separated for males and females on or near the premises.

Basic handwashing facilities are defined as functional handwashing facilities, with soap and water available to all girls and boys.

The number of schools in a given level of education with access to the relevant facilities is expressed as a percentage of all schools at that level of education.

The indicator measures the existence in schools of the given service or facility but not its quality or operational state.

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