The Issue in Brief

As the concern to achieve worldwide literacy developed over the past decades, it became apparent to educators that providing access to and improving the quality of basic education continue to be a major challenge. Furthermore, effective methods of monitoring the quality of the basic education programs already in place are necessary in order to target areas that need improvement in those local basic education systems. By monitoring, we mean the gathering of data during the course of the program to find out if it is proceeding according to plan and to identify areas needing modification to improve the outcomes.

All countries, but especially developing countries, need to maximize the effectiveness of the funds that they spend on education. What children learn, retain, and practice after leaving school has a direct impact on each nation's competencies in basic skills, and likewise has an impact on that nation's ability to compete in the global marketplace. Direction is needed in how to improve and to monitor the quality of basic education on a permanent basis and with this monitoring ability will come improvements in quality.

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The Worldwide Context

The 1990 World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien, Thailand, highlighted the concern for quality in basic education worldwide. Under the sponsorship of the United Nations Development Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, the conference adopted Article 4 of the World Declaration on Education for All, issued in March 1990, which states the following:

Whether or not expanded educational opportunities will translate into meaningful development--for an individual or for society--depends ultimately on whether people actually learn as a result of those opportunities, i.e., whether they incorporate useful knowledge, reasoning ability, skills and values.

The focus of basic education must, therefore, be on actual learning acquisition and outcome, rather than exclusively upon enrolment, continued participation in organized programmes and completion of certification requirements. Active and participatory approaches are particularly valuable in assuring learning acquisition and allowing learners to reach their fullest potential. It is, therefore, necessary to define acceptable levels of learning acquisition for educational programmes and to improve and apply systems of assessing learning achievement.

As a follow-up action to that article from the conference, UNESCO and UNICEF established in September of 1992 the Joint Monitoring Learning Achievement Project, which focuses on helping countries to strengthen or develop their own capacity to monitor, on a continuous basis, the quality of basic education.

To look at an overview of the project, project activities, or project outcomes and implications, click on the corresponding heading.

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