The document discusses the role of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and its extended version in monitoring progress on Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education. It provides background on the establishment of the TAG in 2014 to develop indicators for education goals, and the recommendation to expand it to include more member states and civil society. It outlines some of the key areas and issues under discussion by the extended TAG related to developing a balanced set of indicators that are relevant, clearly defined, and have available data sources, including how to measure learning outcomes, equity, access, participation, and education quality.

1. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
The role of TAG and extended TAG
in SDG 4
Silvia Montoya, Director
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
First meeting of the Extended TAG
Paris, July 30-31

2. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Monitoring SDG 4
 The proposed overarching education goal (SDG 4) aims to
ensure equitable and inclusive quality education and lifelong
learning for all by 2030.
 To gain insight on countries’ views and expectations of a
mechanism as well as their needs for ensuring proper
monitoring of the SDG goals.
 To work out the finer details of the indicators ensuring they
are clearly defined, actionable and measurable.
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3. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
A brief history of the TAG
 Established in 2014 by UNESCO chaired by the UIS
 Members included experts from the EFA GMR team, OECD,
UNICEF, the World Bank and UNESCO itself.
 March 2014- May 2015 a proposal for the thematic set of
indicators was developed
 November 2014- January 2015 was held a global consultation on
the proposal.
 May 2015: the proposal was incorporated to the Framework for
Action at the WEF in Incheon, Republic of Korea.
 The WEF recommended the TAG be expanded to include civil
society and a representative number of UNESCO Member States to
further refine the proposal. The extended TAG conducts ongoing
open consultations led by regional leaders. 3

4. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
What did we learn about data and
monitoring?
 Relevance/Consensus Building
 Technical definition:
 Definition
 Communicability
 Policy Relevance
 Data
 Data
 Sources (international, national)
 Availability
 Comparability
 Reliability

5. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Some guidelines for the questions
 Three questions below request a balanced feedback on
different areas of the indicators:
 Thinking about each specific indicator and its individual
capability to provide answers on relevance, alignment and
communicability;
 Making the link between the necessity of measuring what is
politically relevant; and
 Considering the constraints in some areas to have the best
indicators immediately.

6. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Guiding Questions
1. Are the proposed indicators easily understood and
allow a clear narrative regarding measuring the
progress in participation in education?
2. Do the proposed indicators reflect very relevant and
critical policy themes within each of the referenced
targets?
3. Within each target, is there a need to establish a
balance between indicators that are available now but
not very well-aligned versus those that are better
aligned but not as readily available?

7. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Some other areas of concerns
 Should we include temporary placeholders?
 Learning Outcomes. In the absence of a universal comparable
metrics for all countries in the world, should we use temporary
placeholder indicators until consensus is reached on
appropriate alternatives such as
 UIS Index of Learning Outcomes; or
 some other measure of institutional or technical characteristics of the
assessment systems (for instance having an independent planning or
assessment unit in the country or not ).
 Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for pre-primary while the
indicator on participation in all forms of organized learning is
being developed? Or a GER for TVET (in schools and colleges)
while the participation rate of 15-24 y.o. in all TVET is being
developed?
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8. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Some other areas of concerns (2)
 What about the balance between sources?
 Population household-based surveys will allow for more
disaggregation but are more costly, less frequent.
 What about the use of a composite index that
combines processes and outcomes that are under
request by some countries?
 For instance thinking of an indicator of the type of the
Brazilian IDEB, the American AYP, Argentina’s IECEP or
IMESA, Colombian ICSE.
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9. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Next steps – the extended TAG
Target date Activity Purpose
Ongoing Regional consultation
process
Elicit regional views on
existing proposal before
first in-person meeting
30-31July First in-person meeting Present regional views
and next steps
July-September Virtual meetings, as needed Elicit further regional
views on existing proposal
First week of October Second in-person meeting Present proposal
integrating regional views
Related events
1-2 October EFA Steering Committee Review Framework for
Action
6 November UNESCO high-level meeting Adopt the Framework for
Action
End of November Deadline for UNSC inputs IAEG-SDGs to provide
draft indicator framework 9

10. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Key areas:Completion, Access and
Participation
 MAIN POINT: There are some indicators with difficult
interpretation in terms of showing if there is
progress or not (raised by UK initially). More effort to
be done to clarify what the target will be.
 Participation rate in organized learning (24 months – age
of starting primary education).
 GER in tertiary education
 Participation rate in TVET
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11. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Key areas: Completion, Access and
Participation
 Comments on the indicators.
 Questioning the GER for pre-primary education as the
temporary placeholder (UNICEF)
 Questioning the % of children overage: problems to track
age properly but also conceptual problems of the
measure.
 Equity has to be a requisite for selecting indicators (Brazil
strong on this, e.g. of OOSC indicator and disaggregation
by wealth)
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12. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Key areas
 Learning and Skills
 Early grades (MELQ)
 Areas: ICT and Global Citizenship
 Stepping Stones: 3 strands
 Equity
 Disaggregation many context
 Indicator 4.19
 MOIs
 Teacher numbers, deployment, qualifications, motivation
 Class size/PTR, minimum standards and school conditions
 Pupil-computer ratio 12

13. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Key areas
 Stepping stone approach
 How to articulate at the global /regional/country
levels ?
 Interpretation of the indicators (when is good?)
 Need to precise data sources and regional
differences
 Define the criteria of how to prioritize indicators
 The need of costing and to set priorities
 Capacity building and human resources needs are to
be highlighted as part of the investment for having
better data and better data analytics
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14. UNESCOInstituteforStatistics
Thank you!
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
@UNESCOstat
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