The Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE) has effectively concluded a series of three Capacity Building Workshop focused on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG-4).
The initial two workshops catered to participants from Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Sindh, and Balochistan, and they have already been successfully completed, according to a press release issued here on Saturday.
During the closing session, Dr Muhammad Shahid Soroya, the Director-General of PIE, presided over the event and expressed gratitude for UNESCO’s valuable support in organizing the Capacity Building Workshop.
He encouraged participants to provide feedback to enhance future endeavors. Additionally, he shared insights into various projects, initiatives, and interventions, with a specific focus on the Development of Out-of-School Children (OOSC) programs by PIE.
Dr Soroya also highlighted some key accomplishments of PIE in recent months, which included the creation of a comprehensive Training Manual for conducting these workshops.
Furthermore, he mentioned the institute’s significant contributions in providing technical input for the SDG-4 Mid-Term Review and its active participation in LaNA (Learning Assessment of National Accounts).
The School Education Department Punjab played a key role in organizing and supporting the Workshop. Kulsum Saqib, the Special Secretary SED, Government of Punjab, presided over the inaugural session, where she expressed her gratitude to the Ministry of Education Islamabad and UNESCO for conducting this essential training on SDG-4.
The workshop aims to enhance the capacity of EMIS professionals in comprehending, calculating, interpreting, and utilizing data related to SDG-4, thus fostering valuable skills in this domain.
Federal Government has established the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE) as a premier entity of the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training by merging its two sub-ordinate departments Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) and National Education Assessment System (NEAS) to produce quality and reliable qualitative and quantitative education statistics to guide policy, planning, management, and monitoring at various administrative levels.
Efficient planning and policy making, particularly in implementing equity-based targeted interventions throughout Pakistan, have been hindered by the challenge of obtaining reliable and timely data.
The National and Provincial EMISs make significant efforts to generate quality education data to cater to the requirements of policymakers and decision-makers. However, certain gaps and shortcomings in education data persist, posing obstacles to the policy and planning process.
The Provincial/Area EMIS teams face a deficiency in statistical capacities for effectively processing and computing education indicators, particularly concerning SDG-4.
It is of utmost importance to provide Capacity Building opportunities to these teams, focusing on education data standards, methodologies, norms, procedures, and practices. This will empower them to produce high-quality education data.
Strengthening the technical personnel’s skills will play a pivotal role in generating reliable data, enabling the development of evidence-based interventions with significant impact.
Against this background, NEMIS-PIE and UNESCO joined forces to conduct a comprehensive assessment of stakeholders and data-producing agencies.
The main focus was to identify the gaps, needs, and challenges related to data production, analysis and its utilization for effective policy and planning purposes.
The assessment revealed that stakeholders lack the necessary technical skills and capacities to generate high-quality data and indicators. As a result, NEMIS-PIE and UNESCO have collaborated to organize a series of workshops aimed at Capacity Building for Provincial/Area EMISs and Education Managers. These workshops will primarily focus on SDG-4 Data Collection, Analysis, Reporting, and its strategic use for planning and monitoring purposes.
A comprehensive Training Needs Assessment was carried out to evaluate the capabilities of the provincial/area EMIS teams. Based on the assessment findings, a tailored training manual has been created to enhance the knowledge and skills of the EMIS teams in areas such as SDG-4 benchmarking, data collection, analysis, and reporting.
The workshop successfully raised awareness among education managers and policymakers regarding SDG-4 data production and its effective use through advocacy workshops. Throughout the three-day event, participants engaged in hands-on exercises, case studies, and scenario exercises using real-world data.
The training also covered the production of education indicators from diverse sources, such as administrative data, household surveys, monitoring, and censuses.
Moreover, extensive discussions were held on various aspects of data quality, ethics, analysis, and utilization.
During the concluding remarks, Dr Shahid Soroya highlighted the collective efforts of stakeholders in generating high-quality data using standardized methodologies and interpretation.
He expressed optimism that the skills and knowledge acquired during the workshop would be effectively applied and utilized by the participants in their official capacities, leading to the production of quality data and its meaningful integration into policy and planning processes.
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