DQAF mission Swaziland 2009

Latest revision as of 13:24, 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, TVET, Non-Formal Institute
   • Central Statistical Office
   • National Examinations Council
   • UNESCO National Commission
   • 1 district: Manzini
3. Report shared with MoET in August 2009.

Positives

1. Values and ethics.
2. Statistical scope, concepts.
3. Well-designed longitudinal EMIS database with error checking
4. MoET questionnaire adequate to generate indicators.
5. Strong, long-standing relationship between CSO and MoET (e.g., CSO provides leadership for and imputes missing date for MoET).

Areas to strengthen

1. Collaboration: CSO and MoET; EMIS & other education sectors (e.g., access to education data in CSO databases).
2. MoET data quality standards are not widely enforced.
3. NSDS should inform revision of Statistics Act (e.g., 1967).
4. EMIS not well resourced; policy not developed & implemented.
5. Staff recruitment / retention issues.
6. Incomplete school registers at all levels, including TVET.
7. Procurement delays.
8. EMIS staff does not have access to EMIS technical documentation.
9. MoET should adopt national standards for collection of age data.
10. Collaboration between EMIS and post-secondary and tertiary sectors is limited
    • EMIS does not process and validate post-secondary and tertiary data.
11. Fragmented data production system.

Recommendations

1. CSO should take leadership role in developing and enforcing quality dimensions for the national statistical system for implementation by line ministries.
2. Data dissemination is delayed significantly by central approval requires to revise or upload recent statistics.
3. To support already-published education indicators, MoET should officially release age-specific release counts.
4. Recruit additional statistical staff at national and regional levels.
5. Develop comprehensive IT retention strategies.
6. Harmonization of EMIS with ISCED (in particular TVET).
7. Ensure publication of education finance data and indicators.
8. Ensure that process underway to formally register all academic institutions (secondary, ECCE) is completed by end 2010.
9. Swaziland government CSO link should contain most recent available data (e.g., most recent data is from 2004 but MoET has 2008 data available).
10. CSO should systematize knowledge transfer for statistical quality (e.g., imputation) to MoET given that the latter maintains EMIS data.
11. Reduce significantly reliance on external consultants for database management.
12. Ensure that regional education officers are consulted (e.g., issues of respondent burden at the school level) in any questionnaire revision.
13. Ensure that the entire statistical production chain is documented and shared (e.g., for new staff)

References

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

See also

• Swaziland country page