JICA Senior Research Fellow Gives Presentation on Case Study of Basic Education in Yemen at UKFIET Conference 2013

The 12th UK Forum for International Education and Training (FIET) International Conference on Education and Development was convened on September 10-12. At the conference focusing on Education and Development Post 2015, JICA Senior Research Fellow Takako Yuki gave a presentation on a case study of basic education in Yemen.

The event, in preparation for the Education for All (EFA) and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015, aimed to define new development frameworks focusing on Post 2015 in the field of education. The conference assembled diverse participants including: British academics and researchers; practitioners from the Department for International Development (DFID) and NGOs; representatives of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), UNESCO, UNICEF, and the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) as aid donors; and participants from Africa and other developing countries.

In the session under the theme of “Evidence and Knowledge: Including All Learners,” Yuki gave a presentation entitled “Quality of Learning and Gender Parity in Access to Basic Education in Yemen.” She pointed out that further improvements must be made in the number and quality of teachers, community participation, and relationship between the local government and schools, in order to narrow the gender disparity in school enrollment in areas where relatively larger number of out-of-school girls live and to avoid the negative relation between increase in access/gender parity and learning achievement. While the analysis was based on a rich store of data, other participants suggested that the analysis should include the influence of female teachers and effects of initial values of gender disparity, and that the study can focus on the relationship between better access to and quality of education rather than gender disparity.

In other sessions related to Post 2015, Yuki gave comments and suggestions: the importance of the role of local administrators and good governance; and the need to develop the availability of BIG data by a wide range of relevant people—local administrators and community members, drawing on the ongoing project of System Assessment and Benchmarking for Education Results (SABER) and the Yemen case study.

The conference started with a plenary session led by Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, Special Advisor of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on Post-2015 Development Planning, which was followed by scores of sessions where specific issues such as indicators and data in light of the High-level Panel Report on the post-2015 development agendas.