15-11-2018 | Op 15 en november vergadert de Technical Cooperation Group on the Indicators for SDG4-Education 2030 (TCG) in Mexico over de indicatoren om de voortgang op SDG4 te meten. Het is de vierde bijeenkomst sinds de oprichting in 2016.
“In 2030 volgen alle jongens en meisjes volwaardig, gratis en goed onderwijs…” spraken de Verenigde Naties af. Maar wat betekent ‘volwaardig’, hoe gratis is ‘gratis’, en wat is ‘goed’? En hoe meet je dat allemaal? Sinds 2016 houdt de Technical Cooperation Group (TCG) zich met deze vraag bezig. Een platform van deskundigen uit de hele wereld dat de statistische haken en ogen in kaart brengt en daarvoor praktische oplossingen zoekt, opdat alle landen zo goed mogelijk de voortgang op de internationale onderwijsdoelen kunnen meten en de resultaten onderling vergelijkbaar zijn. In november komt de TCG voor de vierde keer samen. De bijeenkomst, net als de TCG zelf, wordt gehost door het Unesco Institute for Statistics (UIS).
Sylvia Montoya (Director UIS) geeft in haar blog ‘Convening for consensus on SDG 4 data een voorbeeld van een discussiepunt: het meten van het aantal kinderen dat niet naar school gaat:
“In September, our data release revealed that there are still around 262 million children, adolescents and youth aged 6 to 17 who are out of school – around one in every five worldwide. In Mexico City, TCG delegates will look at how to factor in the situation of children who are of primary school age but are enrolled in pre-primary education.
These children are currently considered to be out-of-school, according to the methodology used to calculate the totals. A new proposal being presented at the TCG meeting would position them as being in school.
The current methodology dates all the way back to 2005 and was originally proposed by the UIS and UNICEF. At the time, we argued that children of primary school age or older who were enrolled in pre-primary education should be seen as being out of school because the content of pre-primary education was not always appropriate for them and because enrollment data on pre-primary education by age were needed to determine primary age in each country.
Today, however, our database tells us that about 3.4 million of the 64 million children of primary age who are out of primary school across 124 countries worldwide are actually enrolled in pre-primary education. In 34 countries, pre-primary education is seen as part of compulsory education. If these children are counted as being in school, the global number of out-of-school children of primary age falls from just under 64 million to just over 60 million.
Of course, this is no reason to hang out the bunting. The numbers are not large enough to alter the fact that many millions of primary school-age children are not in school – a situation that remains unacceptable in the 21st century. At the same time, however, it is our duty to ensure that every indicator on this crucial challenge is as accurate as possible”.
> Website Technical Cooperation Group
> Lees meer over het meten van SDG4