During the first half of 2010 members of the SACMEQ Team at the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) in Paris have been involved in various activities such as (a) processing of the merged SACMEQ III Project data files, (b) assisting SACMEQ National Research Coordinators (NRCs) with preliminary data analyses for national reports, (c) conducting classes during the IIEP course on Quantitative Methods for Monitoring the Quality of Education, (d) involvement in international meetings, and (e) strengthening ties with stake holders. Progress has also been made in writing of chapters for the SACMEQ III Project International Report.

Contents:

• SACMEQ III Project data processing
• Country specific data analysis support for NRCs
• Quantitative Methods for Monitoring and Evaluating the Quality of Education Course
• International meetings
• Strengthening ties with stakeholders
• StatPlanet v.2.2 released - Data Mapping and Visualization

The SACMEQ Paris Team has completed merging, weighting, calibration, scoring, imputation, and calculating sampling errors for the SACMEQ III Project using data from all 15 SACMEQ Ministries of Education.

Country specific data analysis support for NRCs

A number of SACMEQ National Research Teams have made considerable progress with preliminary data analyses for their SACMEQ III Project national reports. The SACMEQ Paris Team has been dealing with data analysis queries from NRCs in Botswana, Mozambique, Uganda, South Africa, and Zanzibar. As a result, colleagues in these countries have completed the initial ground work for writing their SACMEQ III Project national reports.

Quantitative Methods for Monitoring and Evaluating the Quality of Education Course

During 12-23 April 2010, members of the SACMEQ Paris Team were heavily involved in teaching this module to participants in the 45th IIEP Advanced Programme in Educational Planning and Management (ATP). The content of the course was similar to the training that SACMEQ NRCs have undergone at different times. SACMEQ training materials and SACMEQ Data Archives were used in many lecture and group work sessions.
Members of the SACMEQ Paris Team also made presentations to visiting groups of students from Leuven Education College, Belgium, and the Université de Picardie Jules Vernes, France.

International meetings

1. SACMEQ co-organized a “Workshop for Research Capacity Development: Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Educational Development”, which was held at Kenyatta University during 3-5 March 2010.
   
   
   
   The workshop was one of the activities conducted within the framework of an international university network known as the Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Educational Development (A-A Dialogue), which is now recognized as a UNESCO UNITWIN programme. In addition to UNESCO, the programme was sponsored by the United Nations University (UNU), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT), and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The main objective of the workshop was to enhance the capacity of member universities in educational research by encompassing such issues as: (i) research and policy formulation; (ii) fund raising for research; (iii) data gathering and processing; (iv) research partnership and collaboration; and (v) university contributions to educational development. The workshop was attended by 60 experts (mainly university professors), from 16 universities in Africa and 13 universities in Asia. Seven African universities in this network are located in SACMEQ countries (Kenyatta University, Kenya; University of Malawi; University of Pretoria, South Africa; University of Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania; Kyambogo University and Makerere University, Uganda; and University of Zambia). SACMEQ was represented by Dr Demus Makuwa, Dr Njora Hungi, and Dr Mioko Saito. They provided insights into SACMEQ’s vast experience in integrating capacity development with high quality educational policy research  with the aim of improving education systems in Southern and Eastern Africa.

2. High Level UNESCO and UNICEF joint meeting on “Strengthening HIV and AIDS Education Sector (EDSEC) Response in Southern Africa”, held at the Quatermain Hotel in Johannesburg during 29 - 30 March 2010.

The meeting was targeted towards within-country HIV and AIDS Task Managers and other Specialists who were responsible for various policy and monitoring and evaluation issues related to the delivery of HIV and AIDS education prevention programmes in the 9 countries with the highest HIV infection rates in Southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
Ms Stephanie Dolata (IIEP/UNESCO) and Prof. Kenneth Ross (SACMEQ) were invited to participate in the meeting by presenting preliminary results and implications of the SACMEQ III Project with respect to HIV and AIDS.

The presentation was extremely successful. The 35 participants, from different organisations (SADC, ESART, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and the World Bank), particularly appreciated an opportunity to discuss the evidence-based research results from SACMEQ countries.

During a break in the meeting, discussions were held with Meshack Moloi (South Africa’s SACMEQ National Research Coordinator) concerning the use of specialized sampling software (IIEPJack) that had been developed at the IIEP for use by SACMEQ.

3. Inter-Agency Task Team on HIV and AIDS (IATT) meeting that was held in New York during 27-28 May 2010
   
   Prof. Kenneth Ross represented SACMEQ at the Inter-Agency Task Team on HIV and AIDS meeting. He made two presentations on the development and application of SACMEQ’s new HIV-AIDS Knowledge Test ( known as the HAKT), and he also participated in a Working Group meeting focused on the improvement of the official UNAIDS Indicator concerned with the knowledge that  young people have about HIV and AIDS.
   
   
4. International Rasch Conference on “Probalistic Models for Measurement in Education, Psychology, Social Science and Health" co-hosted by Copenhagen Business School and the University of Copenhagen, held from 13 to 16 June 2010.

The conference was an opportunity to meet and share research results with world specialists on the Rasch Model. This model is widely used in international large-scale assessments of educational achievement – such as the OECD's PISA Project, the IEA's PIRLS and TIMSS Projects, and also SACMEQ - as it provides a scientific framework for comparing and interpreting the test performances of pupils and teachers across countries and over time. Two papers on the methodologies employed to score the Grade 6 pupils and teachers on the SACMEQ Reading and HIV and AIDS Knowledge scales, proposed by Ms Stephanie Dolata (IIEP/UNESCO) and Dr Mioko Saito (IIEP/UNESCO), were very well received and discussed actively among the 100 participants (including world-leading researchers in this area) from 24 countries.

Link: International Rasch Conference

5. UIS expert meeting on Gender and Education, Montreal, held from 18-19 February 2010S
   
   The objective of this expert meeting was to discuss gender measurement issues of education data in connection with the forthcoming UIS’s publication "Global Education Digest (GED)". Mioko Saito presented her research studies on gender differences on achievement in Reading and Mathematics including previous results SACMEQ II and preliminary results from SACMEQ III.

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Strengthening ties with stakeholders

1. Collaboration with CONFEMEN/PASEC



SACMEQ and PASEC share a common goal of improving the quality of education in Africa, and it could be of interest to both organizations to share resources and expertise. Over the past few months, there have been ongoing consultations between SACMEQ and PASEC regarding closer technical cooperation. As a first concrete step in this process SACMEQ has provided PASEC with access to (i) test items from the SACMEQ Reading and Mathematics tests, and (ii) the full test and administration procedures for the HIV and AIDS Knowledge Test.

Link: Conférence des ministres de l'éducation nationale (CONFEMEN)


2. Cooperation with SADC

Many education authorities from the SADC region believe that closer cooperation between SACMEQ and SADC is indispensible because of common interests that emanate from the broader context of the objectives of the African Union’s (AU) Plan of Action for the Second Decade of Education in Africa (2006-2015), the SADC Regional Implementation Plan on Education and Training, and SACMEQ’s research and capacity development programmes aimed at improving the quality of education. There is a substantial overlap in the countries that are served by both SADC and SACMEQ. Eleven SACMEQ countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) are members of SADC. Ministers of Education from these countries meet annually as SADC Ministers of Education, and biannually as the SACMEQ Assembly of Ministers of Education. The AU upholds the importance of regional socio-economic and political groupings as building blocks in cementing the integration and unity of the continent. It is in light of this that SADC as a regional body is also seen as the “natural home” for SACMEQ in serving member states and realizing the aims and objectives of the AU.

3. Cooperation with ADEA

SACMEQ has long standing relationships with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). SACMEQ has often participated (on invitation) and provided inputs in areas of its specialization at meetings organized by ADEA.

4. Cooperation with FAWE

The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) is spearheading a collaborative project on “Strengthening Gender Research to Improve Girls’ and Women’s Education in Africa” in partnership with the University of Witwatersrand and SACMEQ. SACMEQ is supporting this initiative by making available SACMEQ’s research and training materials, and the SACMEQ Data Archive. Other institutions that are participating in the FAWE gender research initiative are: (i) the Association for Strengthening Higher Education for Women in Africa (ASHEWA), (ii) Conférence des ministres de l’Education des pays ayant le français en partage (CONFEMEN), (iii) Institute of Gender Studies (IGS), Addis Ababa University, and (iv) Laboratoire Genre, Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire, Université Cheikh Anta Diop.  The project is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).