FOCUS AREA: DATA & MEASUREMENT




ACCURATE
DATA
UNDERPINS
SUCCESSFUL
POLICIES

   Measurement of education system performance is a cornerstone
   of improving learning.


   WHY IT MATTERS                                                OUR APPROACH
   Education systems need a broad range of high-quality          The World Bank supports the development and use of
   data to monitor and promote student progress and to           data to measure, track, and ultimately improve learning.
   understand the links between inputs, policies, practices,     Through the SABER initiative, the World Bank produces
   and learning. From basic information on teacher               comparative data on education policies, institutions,
   absenteeism to detailed assessment of student learning        and quality of service delivery with the aim of helping
   outcomes and skills acquisition, data makes it possible for   countries systematically strengthen their education
   countries to understand the performance of their education    systems. We continue to invest in developing global
   systems and to identify changes needed in programs            public goods to expand what can and should be tracked
   and policies. Increasingly, countries combine their own       and analyzed, including rubrics for reviewing policies,
   national learning assessments with regular participation in   approaches for measuring managerial capacity, and tools
   a growing range of international, large-scale assessments,    for analyzing student-teacher interactions. The tools we
   such as PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS. Initiatives like the World    create offer open-source access, and we strive to make
   Bank’s Systems Approach for Better Education Results          them adaptable to specific country needs. The data
   (SABER) and Service Delivery Indicators provide countries     feeds into the World Bank’s Human Capital Project, an
   with metrics on the quality of service delivery in schools.   ambitious new approach to focus and drive investments
                                                                 in people to improve lives and build stronger economies.
We support measurement of what students are learning and how school
systems are functioning so countries know what’s going well and what
needs fixing.


OUR PRIORITIES:
1 Expand use of learning assessments                               4 Expand the range of tools to measure the
We provide support for countries to conduct national               quality of service delivery
learning assessments and to participate in international           SABER’s new Service Delivery tools allow country
assessment, like PISA. We do this through our operations           clients to identify what is happening in schools, making
and the READ Trust Fund. We also are supporting new                it possible to identify the resource and service delivery
efforts to measure social-emotional skills of children.            gaps that are hampering learning. The TEACH classroom
                                                                   observation tool assesses whether teachers’ activities
2 Promote the use of evidence in developing and                    in the classroom reflect the pedagogical practices
implementing programs                                              shown to be effective to improve cognitive and social-
The World Bank has expanded the portfolio of education             emotional learning. The In-Service Teacher Training
impact evaluations and systematically applies the evidence         Survey Instrument makes it possible to contrast existing
generated. Through the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund,           in-service teacher training programs with best-practice
we support scientifically rigorous evaluations of the impact       programs.
of programs and policies to improve education and early
childhood development.                                             5 Benchmark policy efforts to improve education
                                                                   policies and service delivery
3 Support the development of Education                             The World Bank is developing a multidimensional
Management Information Systems                                     Education Policy Dashboard to generate data on the
Countries need Education Management Information                    strength of countries’ commitment to basic education,
Systems to collect, store, and analyze data on education           and the quality of policies and service delivery. This will
for use in policy making. We work with countries to develop        enable countries to monitor holistically the quality of
these systems and to ensure proper procedures for gather-          the inputs and processes of their education systems—
ing and using the data.                                            particularly teaching, inputs and infrastructure, prepared
                                                                   learners, and school management, and the policies that
                                                                   govern the education system, such as how teachers are
                                                                   recruited, assessed, and motivated to perform.




       educationgp@worldbank.org    worldbank.org/education    @WBG_Education Human Capital Project #INVESTinPeople