Where a programme is financed by external agencies, the fifth option may also involve the issue of ownership and control: should the local agency – whether governmental or non-governmental – be responsible for the samples, or should the financier accept them? Currently, the general policy is to encourage local ownership and control in the interests of promoting capacity-building, although external specialists are often imported to help with the design and analysis (Oxenham, 2008: 112).

Oxenham, J. 2008. Effective literacy programmes: options for policy-makers. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 91. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

Increasing education quality is a central aspect of the new agenda. This costing makes several provisions so that the quality of instruction meets minimum standards to ultimately achieve the desired learning outcomes: a ceiling for pupil/ teacher and pupil/classroom ratios; adequate maintenance of classrooms; competitive teacher salaries to support the recruitment of talented and motivated teachers; and sufficient non-salary expenditure for learning materials and administrative support (UNESCO, 2015: 295).

UNESCO. 2015. Education for All 2000-2015: Achievements and Challenges; EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2015.  Paris: UNESCO. 

There  is very  little difficulty in interpreting  the objective of opening schools in such a way that all children enjoy equal opportunity of access to them.  Indeed it seems to be a basic element of all policies to reduce disparities.  Generally, though, accessibility is defined  solely in terms of  physical  accessibility.  To measure  this we would have to take into account distance, relief, communications, and  the time taken to travel between school and home, bearing  in mind available means of transport.  The problem therefore consists  in determining  the catchment areas of existing schools  in order to identify, on the one hand, the population that lies outside  these catchment areas and is therefore deprived of any education service  for reasons of physical accessibility, and, on the other hand, to estimate, inside the catchment areas  (i.e. in the areas reached by the school system) the proportion of school-age  children  actually managing to find places in the schools (Caillods, et al: 118).

Caillods, F.; Casselli, J. Ta Ngoc Châu; Porte, G. 1983. School mapping and micro-planning in education. Training materials in educational planning, administration and facilities. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

If education systems are fully inclusive, quality education can be extended to all groups as a matter of routine. Bringing this about requires systems-level interventions. Instead of just ‘doing’ child-friendly schools in local communities, CFS models are ‘sold’ as good practice for the entire education system (UNICEF, 2009: 6).

UNICEF. 2009. Child-friendly schools manual. New York: UNICEF.

Citizen-led assessments conducted in East Africa have helped shift the thinking of parents from assuming that learning is the sole responsibility of schools and teachers. It has helped raise awareness that parents have a major role to play in their children’s academic education (UIS, 2016: 41).

UIS. 2016. Understanding what works in oral reading assessments: recommendations from donors, implementers and practitioners. Montreal: UIS.

Governments should take active steps to strengthen teaching in early grades. Teacher education systems need to be reinvigorated to assure the success of such interventions. Pre-service training programmes appear to be paying insufficient attention to the teaching of reading. Courses need to increase the emphasis on effective classroom techniques. In-service training programmes engaging teachers in an interactive way can ensure that knowledge is converted into better classroom practice. Benefits are likely to be most noticeable where training is combined with other interventions, such as improved instructional materials (UNESCO, 2012: 135).

UNESCO. 2012. Youth and Skills: Putting Education to Work, EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012. Paris: UNESCO.

Originally conceived as a way of preventing drop outs through early detection of learning problems in higher education (Cross and Angelo, 1993), CBA has become recognized as a way of improving the overall quality of teaching and learning at all levels. Teacher-administered, informal techniques associated with CBA seek to monitor all aspects of student learning, including the acquisition of knowledge, values, skills, and behaviours in ways that help teachers adjust their teaching to meet the needs of the whole group as well as individual learners (UNESCO, 2009:32-32).

Bernard, J. 2009. Learning counts: An overview of approaches to understanding, assessing and improving the quality of education for all. Paris: UNESCO.

The third variable, the coefficient of efficiency, is obtained by dividing the number of pupil-years normally required to complete the primary cycle by the number of pupil-years actually spent. Thus, higher coefficients indicate greater efficiency, pupils spending on average less time to complete the primary education cycle. Although these data do not show the disparities between urban and rural areas, there appears to be a weak inverse correlation between the efficiency factors and the rurality of a country. In any case, the data do illustrate how pervasive the problem of primary schooling ‘wastage’ is, rural pupils typically spending far too much time in primary education (IIEP and FAO, 2003: 88).

IIEP and FAO. 2003. Education for rural development: towards new policy responses. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

Community schools have been established as a means of providing quality education for children living in small rural hamlets in Egypt, where primary schools were previously non-existent and rural girls were particularly deprived. Modelled after the BRAC experience in Bangladesh, the schools are located in the communities themselves, and hidden costs – from uniforms to school bags are removed. Local ownership is a key feature, with communities donating space, ensuring that children come to class and managing the schools through a local education committee established in each hamlet. Young women with intermediate degrees are recruited locally and trained as facilitators to provide quality education through interactive techniques. And the content of education is made relevant to local needs and interests, including health, environment, agriculture and local history. Graduates from community schools are eligible for exams in government schools at the end of grades 3 and 6 (UNICEF, 2008:91).

UNESCO; UNICEF. 2007. A Human Rights-Based Approach to Education for All: A Framework for the Realization of Children’s Right to Education and Rights within Education. New York: UNICEF.

Provision should be made at the national, regional and international levels for the regular exchange, making use of contemporary information and communication technologies, of information, documentation, and materials obtained from research and development, in particular: (a) publications concerning comparative education, psychological and pedagogical problems affecting general and technical and vocational education, and current trends ;(b) information and documentation concerning curriculum development, methods and materials, study opportunities abroad, and employment opportunities, including human resource requirements, working conditions and social benefits (2002:39).

UNESCO.2002.Records of the General Conference, 31st session, Paris, 15 October to 3 November 2001, v. 1: Resolutions. Paris: UNESCO

Migrant education is a term adopted in countries such as Australia or Germany to refer to the initial strategies responding to the needs of newly-arrived students (Luchtenberg, 2004: 47). It consists of compensatory programmes targeting only migrant students and their perceived deficits, where the long-term objective is the students’ assimilation (Inglis, 2008: 50).

The introduction of competency-based training (CBT): CBT gives more emphasis to trainees’ ability to master specifi c practical tasks or competencies than to the level or type of certifi cation, or length of training, they have received. CBT curricula are developed in accordance with the identifi ed skills needs of the private sector (trade and commercial associations, employer associations, and industry) and delivered through assessed modules of different competencies (King and Palmer, 2010: 72).

If practice in most countries is followed, then the particular age(s) or grade levels(s) selected for a national assessment will fall within the period of compulsory education (most likely at primary-school level); furthermore, students will have been in school long enough foreducation to have had an impact. (Kellaghan and Greaney, 2002: 86).

Kellaghan, Thomas, et Vincent Greaney. Using assessment to improve the quality of education. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 71. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP, 2001.

According to the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005, one way to move towards a relevant, balanced set of aims is to analyse the curriculum in terms of inclusion. An inclusive approach to curriculum policy recognizes that while each learner has multiple needs – even more so in situations of vulnerability and disadvantage – everyone should benefit from a commonly accepted basic level of quality education. This underlines the need for a common core curriculum that is relevant for the learner while being taught according to flexible methods (UNESCO, 2009:19).

UNESCO. 2009. Policy guidelines on inclusion in education. Paris: UNESCO

Cost-effectiveness analysis consists of three steps: (a) The costs of the alternatives must be carefully measured, for example expenditure on teacher salaries, books and learning materials in each type of school; (b) the outcomes or educational effectiveness of the alternatives must be measured, for example by standardized test scores of pupils in each school; finally, (c) costs and effectiveness measures are combined to calculate a cost-effectiveness ratio, for example by dividing the effectiveness of each alternative by its cost to show the unit cost of achieving a particular objective, such as a 1 per cent improvement in pupil achievement. Such a ratio is described in one cost-effectiveness study as "the achievement gain per dollar spent" (Harbison and Hanushek, 1992: 140). The most cost-effective alternative can then be identified - for example the school that produces the greatest improvement in pupil achievement for a given cost or alternatively the school where pupils achieve the required examination results at least cost (Woodhall, 2004: 26).

Cost-benefit analysis (or rate-of-return analysis, which is the type of cost-benefit analysis most frequently applied to education) provides a means of appraising these future benefits in the light of the costs that must be incurred in the present. The purpose of the analysis is to provide a measure of the expected yield of the investment as a guide to rational allocation of resources. Thus any private businessman who is contemplating investing in physical machinery must make a cost-benefit calculation to assess the likely profitability of the investment. In recent years, economists have paid increasing attention to the application of cost-benefit analysis to public investment and sophisticated techniques have been developed for measuring the costs and benefits of, for example, water resource and transport projects. Such projects are clearly analogous to private investments in physical capital and it is not surprising that techniques that are useful to the businessman should also prove useful to governments in making investment decisions (Woodhall, 2004: 24).

Woodhall, Maureen. Cost-benefit analysis in educational planning. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 80. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP, 2004.

It is usually fairly easy to obtain estimates of annual current expenditure on salaries and purchase of materials. It is more difficult to estimate the annual value of buildings and equipment. If the buildings are rented, the annual rent can be used to represent the value of the capital resources used during the year (Woodhall, 2004: 31)

Curriculum is, in the simplest terms, a description of what, why, how and when students should learn. The curriculum is not,of course, an end in itself. Rather, it seeks both to achieve worthwhile and useful learning outcomes for students, and to realize a range of societal demands and government policies. It is in and through the curriculum that key economic, political, social and cultural questions about the aims, purposes, content and processes of education are resolved. The policy statement and technical document that represent the curriculum reflect also a broader political and social agreement about what a society deems of most worth – that which is of sufficient importance to pass on to its children (Stabback, 2016: 8).

Stabback, Philippe. 2016. What makes a quality curriculum? Current and critical issues in the curriculum and learning 2. Geneva: UNESCO-IBE.