DQAF mission Lesotho 2009

Latest revision as of 13:18, 15 October 2012

Background

1. Assessment conducted in March 2009 over 7 working days.
2. UIS met with:
   • Ministry of Education and Training (MoET)
   • EMIS/Planning/ Statistics (Primary)
   • IT, TVET, Secondary, ECCED, National Examinations Council
   • 2 districts: Maseru, Berea
   • Lesotho Bureau of Statistics (LBoS)
   • UNESCO National Commission
3. Report shared with Lesotho MoET in July 2009.
4. Final version incorporates feedback.

Positives

1. Legal framework for statistics collection in place.
2. Strong professional and ethical values.
3. Questionnaire methodologies / coverage strongly correspond to international practices.
4. Policy of transparency.
5. National Statistical Development Strategy (NSDS) in place to define statistical production.
6. Decentralisation of EMIS
   • Planning on strengthening statistical capacity at sub-national level
   • Strong collaboration with Ministry of Public Service for human resources services (e.g., training, recruitment, staffing).

Areas to strengthen

1. Insufficient awareness of statistical quality processes (e.g., undocumented data verification procedures).
2. Lack of resources to support statistical function.
3. IT recruitment / retention problems.
4. EMIS understaffing limits staff’s ability to assess quality of data and affects timeliness.
5. Inconsistent collection & limited analysis of ECCE and TVET data (e.g., several years of ECCED and TVET missing).
6. Practice of replacing current year missing data by previous year could lead to erroneous policy impact.
7. Long delays in publication of official population specific age counts.
8. Over-reliance on external contractors limits capacity building (e.g., not possible to revise database without consultant).
9. Limited metadata.
10. Active engagement of school administrators at all levels in the collection and preparation of data to feed the education statistical system.

Recommendations

1. Greater harmonization of statistical policies and standards between LBoS and MoET
2. EMIS should take a greater leadership role in implementing all dimensions of data quality across sectors.
3. EMIS must ensure data integrity and allow school administrators to access MoET website and revise inputted data.
4. Greater focus on a human resources strategy that addresses training, staffing, recruitment and retention.
5. Greater attention to post-secondary data collection including tertiary.
6. Data collection processes and standards, including software need to be documented and disseminated to EMIS staff.
7. Adopt TVET and Secondary education sector data verification support processesa best practice.
8. Encourage linkage between EMIS and National Examination Council to analyze quality of education.

References

1. ↑ A Synthesis of Seven Country Assessments March 2010 - UNESCO SADC

See also

• Lesotho country page