The Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) Steering Committee will convene its annual meeting over two days through virtual mode. The committee's main task this year is to review the preparatory work for the fourth cycle of PILNA and to make key decisions regarding its implementation in September this year.
EQAP's large scale assessment team, which leads the PILNA work, has had to conduct virtual trainings for coordinating teams of all countries, except Fiji. The team's report and the work plan for the next phase of implementation will be presented to the steering committee at this meeting.
The committee is made up of Pacific heads of education from the 15 Pacific Island countries that administer PILNA, representatives from the Australian and New Zealand governments, a representative from Australia's Council of Education Research (ACER) and the Pacific Community.
PILNA was conceived in 2012 in response to increasing concern about Pacific students' poor grasp of fundamental literacy and numeracy skills. EQAP leads the research with the onground support of country teams at the respective education departments or ministries.
PILNA is one of several EQAP initiatives aimed at helping to improve children's basic literacy and numeracy skills.