ESA

Education Sector Analysis

The Pôle de Dakar is a platform for expertise in education sector analysis, attached to UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Africa. It grew out of the 2000 World Education Forum, to support UNESCO in its mission of following up on Education for All (EFA) in Africa.

Since 2001, the Pôle de Dakar provides economic and financial expertise for African countries and their partners, at all stages in the development and implementation of educational policies. Its chief mission is to support African States technically as they define ‘credible plans for the development of their educational systems,’ focusing on the EFA goals of access, quality, equity and efficiency. The Pôle de Dakar is designed to cover the whole of the African continent, especially sub-Saharan Africa.

UNESCO Africa work:

The main focus of the Pôle de Dakar is economic analysis of educational systems, aimed at enabling decision-makers to make enlightened educational policy choices with regard to collective costs and benefits. All levels and types of education are analysed, and four main aspects are taken into account: funding, expected benefits, social sustainability of reforms, and equity.

The actions of the Pôle de Dakar follow three main thrusts:

1. Helping to analyse and assess education systems, to develop education sector reforms and to measure their impact;

2. Providing capacity building for national teams responsible for educational policy development and implementation;

3. Assisting external technical and financial partners in the development, implementation and monitoring of technical and financial support for African education systems.

UNESCO Africa results:

Direct support for countries in terms of sector diagnoses, financial guidelines, and educational policy development

- Supervising national teams in charge of sector diagnoses

- Providing support through financial simulation models

- Preparation of educational policy arbitration and development of national strategy papers and programming

- Conducting M&E of educational policies in the framework of sector reviews.

Distance Education: the PSGSE degree

- Master’s 1-level distance education provided in collaboration with UCAD

- African executives in charge of education system management and funding

Production of Statistics and Analyses on EFA Follow-up: Regional reports on EFA follow-up in Africa, Thematic studies, Country notes; methodological notes, Summary country data sheets on the principal EFA indicators)

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