Improving the use of learning assessment data for educational planning and decision-making: resources and experiences from recent initiatives, 12 March 2020
GPE’S Analysis of National Learning Assessment Systems (ANLAS): A toolkit to improve the use of learning assessment data
GPE Secretariat (Ramya Vivekanandan)/ACER (Dr. Ursula Schwantner)
In this presentation, GPE and ACER will provide an overview of a new resource from GPE, the Analysis of National Learning Assessment Systems (ANLAS) toolkit. The presenters will outline the purpose of the analysis, the country-led, participative process and the tools provided to systematically gather and analyze information about national learning assessment systems, with the aim to inform assessment improvement strategies as part of the wider education sector planning process. Findings and recommendations from the analysis in three GPE partner countries that piloted ANLAS, notably Ethiopia, Mauritania and Vietnam, will be discussed with a focus on how the use of learning assessment data for educational planning and decision-making can be improved.
Use of learning data in the education planning cycle: actual practices and actors’ dynamics
IIEP (Ieva Raudonyte and Hugues Moussy)
IIEP will focus on the preliminary findings of its research project on the Use of Learning Assessment Data in the Education Planning Cycle. The presentation will explain how learning data are used in the education sector analysis, plan preparation as well as monitoring and evaluation activities in studied countries. It will also demonstrate how dynamics among officials in different ministry of education departments and international partners are shaping the observed use of this data. Finally, multiple areas for reflection will be suggested for both national and international actors involved in large-scale learning assessments.
Learning assessments: tools and research. An overview of useful sources
IIEP Learning Portal (Lynne Sergeant)
As the use of learning assessments is increasingly prominent on the international education agenda, the tools, data and research related to their use are also increasing. The webinar will provide an overview of where to find relevant and up-to-date information related to learning assessment data, new resources and global public goods that participants may use for research, practice and policy development.
The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
About the speakers:
Ramya Vivekanandan is Senior Education Specialist and Thematic Lead for Learning Assessment Systems at the GPE Secretariat. In this role, Ramya coordinates GPE’s Assessment for Learning (A4L) initiative, which works to strengthen learning assessment systems and to promote a more holistic measurement of learning. Before joining GPE, Ramya worked for more than five years as a Programme Specialist and Team Leader for Quality of Education at UNESCO's Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education in Bangkok. In this capacity, Ramya established and managed the Network on Education Quality Monitoring in the Asia-Pacific (NEQMAP), a regional network on learning assessment encompassing more than 50 members from almost 30 countries of the Asia-Pacific region. She also worked for nearly six years at UNESCO HQ in Paris, mostly on issues of teacher policy and teacher education and briefly on HIV and education and school health. Prior to joining UNESCO, Ramya held a number of short- and medium-term assignments supporting girls' education and teacher education in Sub-Saharan Africa, including with the Ministry of Pre-University and Civic Education in Guinea, Save the Children US in Malawi and Creative Associates International in Senegal.
Dr Ursula Schwantner is a Senior Research Fellow in the Education Policy and Practice research program at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and an executive member of the ACER Centre for Global Education Monitoring (ACER-GEM). Specialising in large-scale assessment methodology and the conceptualisation of capacity analyses and development for improved learning assessment systems, Ursula led the ACER research team that developed the toolkit for the GPE initiative Analysis of National Learning Assessment Systems (ANLAS). She is a major contributor in ACER’s technical partnership with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics in developing tools, methods and processes for reporting against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in Education (SDG 4) and to strengthen countries’ capacity to monitor learning. Prior to joining ACER in 2014, Ursula was the National Project Manager for OECD/PISA in Austria, and has conducted research on PISA, IEA/PIRLS and TIMSS.
Ieva Raudonyte is an Associate Research Officer in the IIEP Research and Development team. She contributes to research activities related to the use of learning assessment data and the broader theme of teaching and learning. More specifically, she supports the coordination of IIEP’s research programme on the use of learning assessment data in the planning cycle and contributes to IIEP’s Learning Portal activities. Prior to this, Ieva was working on teacher management issues and she was involved in an IIEP study on the organization and management of teacher careers as well as a research project on financial decentralization in education.
Hugues Moussy is head of the IIEP Research and Development team. He is a senior education specialist and educational planner with extensive international experience in large, multi-sector programme design and management. He has previously worked as a quality assurance programme officer in higher education, and in high-level management in the executive authorities of French local governments (departments and cities). He worked and lived in Cameroon for five years, where he was chief of party for the French cooperation and special advisor to the Minister of Basic Education for international cooperation. Hugues headed the human development unit at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was in charge of defining and monitoring the French strategy of aid for development in the education sector, on gender issues, and on international migrations. In 2009 and 2010, he represented France in the GPE Board of Directors. He served as a senior education specialist at the GPE Secretariat from 2011 to 2017.
Lynne Sergeant manages the IIEP Learning Portal. Her work focuses on content curation and development, liaising with external partners and monitoring new education issues and content areas.