Education Data and Statistics Commission (EDS Commission)
Paris, 27-28 February 2025

The 11th EDS Commission meeting provided an overview of progress and next steps on topics including among others: 2025 Comprehensive Review Process; Literacy; Population; School meals; ISCED review panel; Greening education; Handbook on household surveys; SDG indicator 4.3.3; Joint modeling for completion and out-of-school rates; Out-of-school rates in protracted crises; Learning; Teachers; and the Benchmarking process. The meeting ended with the launch of the LASER report National Education Statistical Capacity Assessment: Global Analysis Based on a Maturity Model and the dashboard Global mapping of teachers' requirement policies.

 

For more information,

Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML)
Paris, 25-26 February 2025
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The 11th GAML meeting advanced the global learning measurement agenda by discussing recent developments and pending challenges related to SDG indicator 4.1.1, with a particular emphasis on SDG 4.1.1a; Eligibility criteria for learning assessments; Standard-setting; Item difficulty; Benchmarks for precursor skills; MPL blueprint; Context questionnaires; Item library; Virtual fund and vetting mechanism; and buyers' guide. The meeting included presentations from international agencies, regional organizations, and countries.

please visit the EDSC and GAML meeting page.

United Nations Statistical Commission
New York, 4-7 March 2025

The 56th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission brought together global experts to discuss critical topics, including the draft System of National Accounts (SNA) 2025, the review of the 2020 round of population and housing censuses, progress on data and indicators for the 2030 Agenda, environmental-economic accounting, and food security statistics. These discussions will shape the future of global data collection and analysis, ensuring better-informed policies.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) presented a report addressing three areas: (a) national benchmarks for education; (b) model estimates for out-of-school and completion rates; and (c) the Conference on Education Data and Statistics.

Check the documents page for more details.

 

Explore the UIS Data Browser

The UIS Data Browser is a comprehensive platform for policymakers, researchers, and developers to access internationally comparable data on education, science, and culture.

With a user-friendly interface, the platform enables users to view and download customized datasets, explore metadata and documentation, and utilize advanced visualization tools. Users can filter indica- tors by country or region, create charts to analyze trends, and easily share insights with others.

The UIS offered training sessions on data extraction from its browser using the web Application Programming Interface (API). For more information, explore the concept note and visit the API training webpage.

 

World Education Statistics 2024

The UIS has launched World Education Statistics 2024, marking the beginning of a new annual publication series. This publication highlights progress across various SDG 4 targets, including primary and secondary education, early childhood education, vocational and higher education, workforce skills, gender parity, literacy, and more. It also features tables presenting available data for all countries from 2015 to 2024.

An accompanying interactive app allows users to explore UIS data on a global map, making it easy to search and visualize all indicators.

 

Technical Advisory Group on SDG indicator 4.1.1

The UIS convened a TAG of experts to refine the eligibility criteria that assessments should meet for reporting on SDG 4.1.1, with emphasis on SDG 4.1.1.a (early grades) given its downgrade from Tier I to Tier II during the IAEG/SDG meeting in October 2023.

For more information, refer to this page: TAG on SDG 4.1.1a.

The first TAG meeting (4-6 March 2024) reviewed the Criteria for Eligibility of a learning assessment to report on SDG 4.1.1, a document last updated on 9 December 2024. The second TAG meeting (14-16 May 2024) reviewed the evidence from the analysis of existing databases and discussed benchmark-setting.

Webinars on 'Reshaping the ecosystem for learning assessments'

The UIS organized two webinars on learning assessments to describe the progress made in measuring learning and the ongoing efforts to solve the issues still hampering countries from reporting on SDG indicator 4.1.1 (10 and 16 September 2024).

The first webinar focused on institutional innovations including an overview of the overall architecture of the assessments’ ecosystem and the rationale for its improvement and discussed a proposed virtual fund and a vetting mechanism for assessments.

The second webinar introduced a proposed buyer's guide aimed at promoting countries’ free and informed choice of learning assessments. The guide provides countries with information on options and costs to help them – as well as the assisting donors - decide what assessment they need.

Publications

SDG 4 Scorecard progress report on national benchmarks: focus on teachers


The SDG 4 Scorecard shows countries’ efforts towards achieving their 2025 and 2030 national benchmarks, which represent their intended contributions to the achievement of SDG 4. Progress towards national targets is insufficient: countries are making good progress in Internet connectivity at school and teacher qualifications, but progress on the 6 other benchmark indicators is not on course.

Download the scorecard
English | French | Spanish | Arabic

SDG 4 scorecard: progress report on national benchmarks on school internet connectivity


This brochure presents a summary of the findings from the second global assessment of progress towards the eighth benchmark indicator which corresponds to SDG global indicator 4.a.1 and was introduced after the Transforming Education Summit: school internet connectivity.

Download the School Internet connectivity Scorecard  English

SDG 4 Scorecard progress report on national benchmarks in Africa


The SDG 4 Scorecard for Africa is a summary of the findings from the 2nd global assessment of country progress towards benchmarks since 2015. Overall, 72% of African countries have set national SDG 4 benchmarks for at least one indicator.

Download the Africa scorecard  English | French | Spanish

SDG 4 Scorecard progress report on national benchmarks in the Commonwealth


This brochure presents a summary of the findings from the second global assessment of progress towards the benchmarks among the Commonwealth countries since 2015. Overall, 84% of Commonwealth countries have set national SDG 4 benchmarks for at least one indicator.

Download the Commonwealth scorecard  English

SDG 4 Scorecard progress report on national benchmarks in asia and the pacific


This brochure presents a summary for Asia and the Pacific of the findings from the second global assessment of country progress towards the benchmarks. In addition, it presents country progress towards the benchmarks set at the sub-regional level.

Download the Asia and the Pacific Scorecard  English

Education Finance Watch

The Education Finance Watch (EFW ) is a collaborative effort between the World Bank (WB), the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The EFW aims to provide an analysis of trends, patterns, and issues in education financing around the world using various sources of education, economic, and financial data from the WB, UIS, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The latest 2024 Education Finance Watch (EFW) report shows that during the last decade, total education spending by governments, households and donors globally has increased steadily. However, this rise has not led to major increases in allocations per child, especially in poorer countries with growing populations. Globally, total education spending per child has either decreased or stagnated.

Download the EFW2024