In preparation for the 2025 Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA), sampling officers from around the region convened for the Sub-regional PILNA sampling workshop to build capacity on sampling designs and processes.
The Pacific Community’s (SPC) Educational Quality and Assessment Programme (EQAP) facilitated the weeklong workshop that was attended by Senior Assessment Officers from Fiji, Papua New Guinea , Samoa, and Vanuatu. Due to the technical nature of the content, the workshop was delivered in an interactive and hands-on mode.
“The main objective of this workshop is to build the capacity of the countries to be able to carry out and apply the PILNA sampling processes at the national level. It was also an opportunity to identify and develop a network of national sampling officers dedicated to PILNA sampling,” said EQAP’s Research and Policy Team Leader, Michael Noa.
Noa added that apart from building capacity, the workshop also allowed participants to “confidently take ownership of the PILNA sampling processes in preparation for the 2025 cycle.”
Participating PILNA countries have extreme differences related to geographical and demographic characteristics, education system sizes, and school characteristics, affecting the precision of PILNA sampling standards. These differences have raised the need for more consistency in maintaining the level of comparability of results over subsequent administrations.