Twenty-one master trainers, mostly ICT teachers and school clerks, will lead the roll-out of education data system training to all schools in Tuvalu this year, on behalf of the Education Ministry.
The training is part of an improvement plan for the Tuvalu Education Management Information System (TEMIS), supported by the Pacific Community (SPC), and is expected to significantly improve the collection and use of data for education planning, monitoring and decision making in Tuvalu.
The master trainers recently graduated from a workshop hosted by Tuvalu’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in Funafuti, with technical support from UNICEF and SPC, through its Statistics for Development Division and Educational Quality and Assessment Programme (EQAP).
The workshop was part of the Achieving Education for All in Tuvalu Programme, funded by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with the goal of increasing the statistical literacy, reasoning and thinking of decision makers at the Ministry and in schools.
Tuvalu’s Permanent Secretary, Education, Youth and Sports, Puaita Etuati, said it was important for those in the education sector to build their analytical and planning skills to improve and monitor the quality of education delivered to children in Tuvalu.
“I urge everyone involved to move forward to analyse and interpret the education statistics and indicators that are reported from TEMIS and other sources to help us deliver our roles better, both at the ministry and school levels,” Mrs Etuati said.
Evidence-based planning is required to deliver against national policy priorities articulated in the Tuvalu Education Strategic Plan (TESP III), as well as school-level priorities included in their annual school improvement plans.
With reporting also required for key international and regional educational commitments, such as goal four of the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) and the Pacific Education Development Framework (PEDF), the use of TEMIS – and similar SPC-supported systems in use across the Pacific region – can improve school-based record keeping and stock management, and subsequently raise the quality of data reporting.
“We congratulate Tuvalu’s Education Ministry for acting on the need to use data to drive change and results, and for equipping stakeholders with important knowledge and tools to analyse the performance of education in Tuvalu,” SPC’s Team Leader, Regional Technical Support Facility, Scott Pontifex, said.
“We’re pleased to contribute to building the capacity of education officials, in Tuvalu and around the Pacific region, on the concepts and calculation of their indicators, to enhance evidence-based decision making and their understanding of the relevance of data in educational policy and planning,” Mr Pontifex said.
The recent workshop also covered the importance of managing data across cross-cutting themes, such as disability, gender, education in emergencies, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in schools.
The Tuvalu National Statistics Office was invited to engage with the participants on gender and education, while UNICEF supported with other cross-cutting themes.
Media contact: Scott Pontifex, Team Leader, Regional Technical Support Facility, SPC Statistics for Development Division, [email protected]