With UNESCO, Yemen is on its way to collect data on education

اليونسكو

2023 - 07 - 27

UNESCO is making extensive efforts to implement a fully operational Education Management and Information System (EMIS) in Yemen, where the education sector has been severely affected by the protracted crisis. Presently, the UNESCO Multisectoral Regional Office in Beirut is making progress in implementing the complex system, with the intention of achieving tangible objectives. According to Marco Pasqualini, an Education Specialist at UNESCO Beirut, the objective is to build upon the accomplishments of previous years. The upcoming target is to establish a comprehensive education census for the entire country of Yemen by 2024-2025, marking the first since the conflict began.

Pasqualini raises the important considerations regarding the path ahead. The focus lies on determining the subsequent steps required to create an education census for the country and effectively managing the Education Management and Information System (EMIS) in the long term. The current priority is to strategically plan the optimal utilization of EMIS, encompassing aspects such as people, regulations, software, hardware, and a well-defined timeline.

In order to elaborate an essential strategy, a team from the Yemeni Ministry of Education convened a series of intensive meetings in Beirut throughout June 2023, under the guidance of UNESCO experts. They are acutely aware that their active participation and the census they are preparing will contribute to understanding the state of education in their country. This understanding will enable policymakers to make well-informed decisions and develop targeted responses, policies, and programmes to enhance the education system in Yemen.

The EMIS project is funded by the Global Partnership for Education, as part of the UNICEF and World Bank “Restoring Education and Learning Project”. It concretizes a strong partnership between the Ministry of Education of Yemen and UNESCO, building on the country’s context and looking towards the future.

“We have a national vision that we’d like to achieve by 2030, affirms Ethan Seif, a UNESCO national expert. For that, we need tools and data which are indispensable, and this is where UNESCO’s support comes as crucial.”

Over the next few months, a series of workshops will address crucial subjects including national policies, revising the questionnaire for data collection, and conducting a pilot exercise, which represents the initial concrete step towards implementing a comprehensive data collection effort across the entire country.

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