Webinar - The use of learning assessment data: what have we learnt so far?

04 July 2019

Although the number of countries conducting large-scale national and cross-national learning assessments has significantly increased over the past two decades, the use of learning assessment data in educational policy-making and planning remains limited. In spite of important human and financial investments required to design and conduct learning assessments, the wealth of information that learning assessments produce is often under-utilized. Although much has been published on the importance of learning data for improved policy and practice, a better understanding of why it remains underused is still missing.

A joint UNESCO (UNESCO-IIEP, UNESCO Office in Dakar and UNESCO Education Research and Foresight) and TALENT webinar (in English) will explore the main conclusions from recently published knowledge products that explore some of the issues surrounding the use of learning data.

The webinar will address three main questions:

  1. What are the main facilitators and barriers for the efficient use of learning data?
  2. What are the key elements of a broader conducive environment for the use of learning data?
  3. What are the risks entailed in “misusing” the assessment data?

The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

Date: 10 July 2019
Time: 10.00 - 11.30 EDT / 14.00 – 15.30 UTC / 16.00 – 17.30 CEST

 


Presenters:

  • Ieva Raudonyte, Research and Development Team, UNESCO-IIEP
  • Davide Ruscelli, Teaching and Learning Cluster, UNESCO Office in Dakar
  • Guy Roger Kaba, Education Policy Advisor, Conférence des Ministres de l’Education des Etats et Gouvernements de la Francophonie (CONFEMEN)

Discussant:

  • Maya Prince, Education Research and Foresight Team, UNESCO.
  • The discussion will be moderated by Hugues Moussy, Team Leader, Research and Development, UNESCO-IIEP.

About the speakers:

Ieva Raudonyte is an Associate Research Officer in the IIEP Research and Development team. She contributes to research activities related to the use of learning assessment data and the broader theme of teaching and learning. More specifically, she provides support to the coordination of IIEP’s research programme on the use of learning assessment data in the planning cycle and contributes to IIEP’s Learning Portal activities. Prior to this, Ieva was involved in an IIEP study on the organization and management of teacher careers and a research project on financial decentralization in education. She also participated in the preparation of a distance course on secondary teacher management.

Davide Ruscelli has been working in the teaching and learning cluster of the UNESCO Office in Dakar since November 2017 and he coordinates the TALENT (Teaching and Learning: Educators’ Network for Transformation) Secretariat, a task team of the Regional Coordination Group (RCG4) of SDG4. In this function, he coordinates the implementation of the Strengthening Learning Assessment Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa through TALENT. Prior to joining UNESCO, Davide worked in UNICEF Malawi focusing mainly on education systems strengthening at national and decentralized levels. He has also conducted research on the education system management at the Centre de Recherche Français in Jerusalem.

Guy Roger Kaba is an Education Policy Advisor at CONFEMEN. He taught for several years in high school and at the École Normale Supérieure in Libreville. He is the author of numerous textbooks on high school mathematics and scientific articles on mathematics education. He also worked at the Directorate General of Examinations and Competitions of Gabon as a researcher and was the focal point of the Ministry of Education for the development of an emergency education plan. Since November 2017, he has been the advisor for educational policies in charge of the CONFEMEN Education Quality Observatory and PASEC Technical Advisor in the "Instruments and Investigations" Division. He collaborated on the first report on the quality of education. He currently participates as a focal point of CONFEMEN in the pilot phase of the ANLAS project (Analysis of National Apprenticeship Assessment Systems) in Mauritania led by the Australian Council of Educational Research under the supervision of the Global Partnership for Education.

Maya Prince coordinates research initiatives in the Education Research and Foresight team at UNESCO Headquarters, including the Education Research and Foresight Working Paper series, as well as other publications of global reach. Prior to joining the team at Headquarters in 2016, she spent seven years at the UNESCO Institute for Statistics working on assessment-related initiatives, including on the design and implementation of assessment (Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Progamme); research and advocacy (Learning Metrics Task Force); coordination of data collection activities, and monitoring (UIS Catalogue and Database of Learning Assessment). She also coordinated the publication Understanding What Works in Oral Reading Assessments (UIS, 2016), bringing together more than 50 authors to build consensus on good practices in design, implementation, and use of learning assessment data.