Across the region, governments are striving to improve the quality of education which would ripple into improving the social and economic livelihoods of the Pacific people.
However, how do we measure the success of the Pacific’s commitment towards its children?
The answer is data! Through collection of quality data at the national and regional level, Pacific Island countries are not only able to measure their national educational progress, but also feed into the global Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) indicators that focus on education.
To ensure that the Pacific voices are heard at the global level, the Pacific Community’s (SPC) Team Leader for Education Data, Tawaqa Naisoro, represented the region at the 2024 Conference on Education Data and Statistics earlier this year. This conference was organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris, France.
SPC’s Education Data team works with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) to collect education data from 15 Pacific Island countries and generate the biannual Status of Pacific Education Report (SOPER), which captures critical information on factors affecting performance of Pacific students.
By linking SOPER with SDG 4, Naisoro explained that “We are able to look at the bigger picture on how data is going to be used for international reporting against the SDG 4 goals, its use by those at the decision-making level and those who are not education data experts but acknowledge it as being useful for research and bringing about impact on various social, health and economic issues”.
More specifically, SPC works on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 associated targets, including 4.3, 4.4, 4.6 and 4.c, which strive to provide children and youth with a nurturing environment for the full realisation of their rights and capabilities.
The conference was a platform for education statisticians from all over the world to discuss and reach consensus on questions related to measuring progress towards SDG 4 with the aim to strengthen collaboration, “to establish a stronger international community of practice for education”.
Naisoro highlighted this conference for the regional organisation as a platform to “Learn from good things that are taking place regarding data and statistics in other countries and regions.”
He also added that the importance of being part of the conference was that “at the same time, we use what is being learnt to contextualise by assessing on what can work best in Pacific Island systems.”
Apart from monitoring SDG 4 indicators, Naisoro informed global education experts about the region’s own Pacific Regional Education Framework, widely known as PacREF, and its goals and objectives to improve the quality of education across the blue Pacific continent.
“Apart from supporting countries in filling of the UIS questionnaires, SPC organises annual regional and subregional capacity building workshops and individual country missions that are conducted face to face and virtually when there is an immediate need,” Naisoro explained.
SPC is currently working with 15 Pacific Island countries to source data that will be used to produce for the next SOPER. The regional report will be tabled for endorsement at the Conference of Pacific Education Ministers in early 2025.
