Introducing a new online tool: Profiles Enhancing Reviews in Education (PEER)

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FN PEER HORIZONTAL Background RGBYesterday, along with the launch of the 2020 GEM Report on inclusion and education, we also launched a new website, PEER, to support the monitoring of national education laws and policies. It provides systematic, comprehensive information on laws and policies for every country in the world and is meant to support policy dialogue and peer learning.

The first set of country profiles cover inclusion and education, the theme of the 2020 GEM Report. Thanks to the work the team did coding the information obtained from laws, policies, strategies and plans, new indicators on inclusion and education fed into the 2020 GEM Report.

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PEER is the third online tool the GEM Report has produced as new global public goods in education, along with:

In producing PEER, the aim is to motivate national policy dialogue and regional peer learning on issues key to SDG 4. The profilescomprehensive provision respond to countries’ interest in exchanging comparable, up-to-date education system information to enrich their perspectives on solutions to challenges. The profiles can also facilitate monitoring of policy trends, and thus are central to the research for our annual GEM Reports.

PEER covers all countries except those of the European Union and selected neighbouring countries, whose education laws and policies are available in the European Commission’s Eurydice network descriptions of national education systems.

How the profiles on inclusion and education were put together

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The first country profiles on PEER elaborate on the 2020 GEM Report theme of inclusion and education. The profiles were primarily prepared through desk review, complemented for selected federal countries by commissioned research to add subnational examples. The Global Campaign for Education contributed information on inclusion in selected countries.

Countries were invited, through their delegation at UNESCO and through participation in international meetings on education, to review, update and validate the information. When validation has happened, this is indicated on the profile. Countries are encouraged to continue providing comments and recommending revisions to help ensure a comprehensive, up-to-date, accurate and relevant overview of laws and policies on inclusion and education.

The current profiles compile information in seven areas:

  1. Definitions
  2. School organization
  3. Laws, plans, policies and programmes
  4. Governance
  5. Learning environments
  6. Teachers and support personnel
  7. Monitoring and reporting

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Building on an analysis of this qualitative information, selected indicators were built to identify and summarize patterns in country approaches to inclusion and education.

Country overview pages provide links to further education system information resources on selected themes.

Looking ahead

Future profiles will cover other themes central to SDG 4. The team is already building up countries’ profiles on education financing laws and policies targeting disadvantaged groups. These profiles will review education financing mechanisms, as well as social policies and programmes providing resources to schools, students and households. We hope that this will provide qualitative evidence on a thematic indicator of SDG target 4.5 on equity.

In addition, work is also underway on a systematic mapping of national approaches to the regulation of non-state education providers, the theme of the 2021 GEM Report.  The GEM Report is seeking national, regional and international partners to help develop PEER and ensure that it remains relevant for their needs. Get in touch if you are keen to participate.

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