In 2015, the United Nations called for a data revolution that would encourage use of multiple sources and enable inclusion of aspects previously neglected in global monitoring, such as equity. In recent years, the GEM Report has focused on ways to make more efficient and effective use of information from multiple survey sources to support SDG 4 monitoring. VIEW, our new website (www.education-estimates.org) is a result of these efforts, consolidating data sources to estimate a consistent time series of the completion rate.
In 2020, the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators approved a UNESCO Institute for Statistics proposal to adopt the primary, lower secondary and upper secondary completion rate as a second global indicator for target 4.1. The proposal anticipated the possibility of a statistical model being needed to address challenges related to using household survey data, such as time lags and inconsistent estimates among sources, but also opportunities such as the ability to build coherent long-term time series and to disaggregate by population groups.
The GEM Report team has developed a model that adapts to education some principles previously used to address the issue of multiple sources for estimation of health indicators, such as child mortality and maternal mortality. The estimates are used to support the UIS in reporting regional and global aggregates for indicator 4.1.2.
VIEW introduces this model and its results for completion rates to help make the approach more accessible to countries. It maps plot differences among countries while graphs highlight the sources that enter into the calculation of national estimates.
In addition to presenting the model results, the purpose of the website is to:
- showcase the challenges of low and late completion many countries are facing; and
- familiarize users with the idea that a model is needed to estimate completion.
To date, estimates of out-of-school rates, which is SDG thematic indicator 4.1.4, and out-of-school numbers reported by the UIS have been based exclusively on administrative enrolment data and UN population estimates. A collaborative project between the GEM Report and the UIS is under way to integrate household survey data into these estimates, triangulate sources, fill gaps in the administrative data and develop a coherent time series. The out-of-school model estimates are scheduled to be added to the VIEW website in March as well.
VIEW www.education-estimates.org sits alongside three other websites run by the GEM Report:
- WIDE www.education-inequalities.org, in partnership with UIS, brings together data from surveys and learning assessments to compare education outcomes between countries, between groups within countries (gender, location, wealth, ethnicity etc.), and over intersecting characteristics.
- SCOPE www.education-progress.org contains interactive data visualisations and commentary to accompany the monitoring part of the GEM Report focusing on five narratives over access, equity, learning, quality and financing; and
- PEER www.education-profiles.org contains country profiles of key policies and laws on specific themes in education to feed into policy dialogue: inclusion, financing for equity, climate change communication and education, and regulation of non-state education provision.
