The Monitoring Learning Achievement Project of UNESCO and UNICEF was begun in 1992 with the goal of providing policymakers and implementors of basic education and literacy programs with the necessary conceptual and analytical tools to monitor the quality of their own programs from the local perspective. A model was set up designating the three essential domains of basic learning competencies that should be mastered: literacy, numeracy, and life skills. The project was innovative in that it was the first time that the mastery of "life skills" was considered as important as the more traditional literacy and numeracy skills. In addition to the actual data collection and processing, its analysis necessitated the learning of new statistical tools and methods. A full description of this can be found in Chinapah's Handbook on Monitoring Learning Achievement, Towards Capacity Building (1997).

National Instruments: Tests

Criterion-reference test measured a common core of basic competencies (life skills, literacy, numeracy), while information regarding key scholastic and environmental factors were gathered using questionnaires. UNESCO experts developed a series of prototype questions and the individual countries they adapted them to their own particular socio-cultural contexts. The result of this was a common core of questions with additional country-specific ones.

Life skills were investigated in three major areas: health/hygiene/nutrition, everyday life, and social and natural environment. Some sample questions are as follows:

• The doctor goes to the school to vaccinate the children. Why is it important to be vaccinated? (1) to grow more quickly, (b) to avoid catching certain serious illness, (c) to be more intelligent, or (d) to cure certain serious illnesses. (question from Jordan)
• You are walking with a friend. Suddenly a storm breaks out. What do you do? (a) you wait under a tree, (b) you go home, (c) you continue walking, or (d) you avoid walking under electrical lines. (question from Jordan)
• To have a lot of millet, Ousmane's father: (a) doesn't remove the weeds, (b) doesn't chase away the animals, (c) fertilizes his field, or (d) I don't know. (question from Mali)

Literacy was investigated by examining two general categories: reading/reading comprehension and writing/written expression. Tests used both multiple choice and "guided" writing exercises to assess the children in these two areas. Some sample items are the following:

• Here is some information for taking vitamin tablets: Dosage: Adults--18 years and older, one tablet per day; Children--1 to 17 years, 1/2 tablet per day; Each tablet contains vitamins A, B, C, and D; Made by LAPROPHAN, Casablanca, Morocco; Date of manufacture--1 June 1992; Date for use--before 30 June 1995. How many tablets per day should a person 18 years or older take? (a) half a tablet, (b) one tablet, or (c) two tablets. (question from Morocco)
• Examples of "guided" writing exercises:
  1. Question: At what time do you do your homework?
  Answer:_____________________________.
  2. Question: What do you do when you come home from school?
  Answer: __________________________________. (question from Jordan)

The literacy tests administered in the MLA Project are highly culture specific and differentiated, since different languages require different linguistic skills. Furthermore, multiple languages call for widely varying linguistic skills. For example, Arabic and Chinese literacy tests focus less on grammar and spelling than other languages such as French and English. In some countries, more than one language is widely used for tests. For this reason, Mauritius administered two literacy tests to every child (English, the official language, and French, another important language in the country). In Lebanon, children were tested in Arabic, French, and English. The specifics of these skill tests varied considerably from country to country though the general structure was the same. To test reading, all countries presented a text and then asked multiple-choice questions about the content. However, Jordan also gave a number of sentences and asked the pupil to arrange them in the proper order to best reflect the meaning of the given text. China asked pupils to find the sentence that best expressed the main idea within a given text.

Numeracy was a particularly important domain because it reflected a child's capacity for logical thinking and abstraction. Not only was simple arithmetic examined, but also problem solving. In the 5 original pilot countries, the main testing areas were mathematical language, arithmetic, measurement, geometry, and problem solving. Some sample questions are as follows:

• Do the following multiplication and check the correct response: 173 x 52 = ________. (a) 8,996, (b) 5,856, (c) 225, or (d) 121. (question from Morocco)
• To buy vegetables, mother gives the shopkeeper one 500 franc note and three 100 franc coins. How much did she spend in all? (question from Mali)

National Instruments: Questionnaires

The questionnaires were designed primarily to collect descriptive and factual information about the school and home learning environments (home, personal, school, and classroom) that might affect the learning performance of the target groups of students. Four sets of questionnaires were suggested: those for pupils, parents, class teachers, and schools. The researchers had the following recommendations for questionnaires:

• Keep them as short as possible, asking only the necessary information
• Collect only information that cannot be collected more easily and accurately using some other source (like existing school statistics, teacher and pupil records, etc.)
• Keep in mind the questions' relevance to the country's specific context and needs