Education and youth employment data sharing in sub-Saharan Africa

Education Data Sharing

Active

This work seeks to understand the ecosystem for knowledge production and use within tertiary education in sub-Saharan Africa. ESSA’s objective for the preliminary phase of this project is to understand how policy-makers, educators, learners and investors in tertiary education use data to make effective decisions about education and employment skills. The longer-term objectives are to set up and curate a sustainable “go-to place” or “go-to network” for impactful knowledge on improving tertiary education and job opportunities or young people (in digital and non-digital means). The knowledge will be used by the networks to influence and change policies and practices.

Entity

Education Sub Saharan Africa Youth organization, civil society, non-governmental, non-profit organization

Technical assistance, expertise and implementation; Policy, advocacy and convening power

Partners

Zizi Afrique
Youth organization, civil society, non-governmental, non-profit organization
Technical assistance, expertise and implementation

Sustainable Development Goals & targets

8.3 Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services
8.5 By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training

Themes

Transitions to the formal economy
Youth in the rural economy
Youth entrepreneurship and self-employment

Achievement At Glance

Building momentum to form a community of practice to increase access to, and use of, data.

Key Highlight On Guiding Principle

Our workshops have included diverse stakeholders that do not normally meet each other, including acadmics, funders, civil-society organisaitions and national statistics offices. All of these stakeholders represent ithe interests of young people and work to improve learning outcomes across Africa.

The aim of the community of practice is to build on what others are doing already and their lessons learned and use this to create a comprehensive map to support the work of the community.

description

ESSA is running a webinar series on ‘Unlocking Data to tell the Story of Education in Africa’. ESSA is undertaking a mapping of available data sets across education based on research published in the African Education Research Database, built as a collaboration between ESSA and the REAL Centre at Cambridge University. This mapping covers early childhood education, primary and secondary and into tertiary.

Openly sharing education data would give decision-makers in sub-Saharan Africa a fuller picture of the state of education in their countries, provide scholars with local knowledge, and support universities to grow local capacity for analysis where primary data collection is often beyond their resources.

ESSA and Zizi Afrique are building a coalition to increase access to education data in Africa, with a particular focus on tertiary education.

This coalition will convene data users: academics, NGOs, policy-makers, national statistics offices and multilateral, to design solutions that fit demand.

These convenings will result in in a mixture of knowledge products, e.g. an analysis paper of data use in articles featured in the African Education Research Database (built by ESSA and REAA Centre at Cambridge University), and practical tools, e.g. adapting the UN's Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) platform for the needs of the education community.

It is anticipated that this process will also inspire collaborations between other partners.

https://essa-africa.org/node/1041
https://twitter.com/ESSA_Africa
https://docs.edtechhub.org/lib/S9MFQ8KB/download/QI4X9SF8/Adam%20et%20al_2020_Unlocking%20Data%20to%20Tell%20the%20Story%20of%20Education%20in%20Africa.pdf
https://essa-africa.org/node/1171

Deliverables and links to SDG targets

Progress: 3 out of 5 knowledge sharing or advocacy tactics on youth employment carried out, including events, campaigns and media items

8.3 Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services

Mapping of current data availability and use, and building a coalition: Leading a webinar series bringing together researchers, students, policymakers and civil society to discuss the evidence they need for impact. Webinar series of 5 workshops with follow-up meeting notes and actions for future commitment to this work.

BY: Dec 2021
Progress: 2 out of 3 knowledge products on youth employment developed

8.3 Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services

The co-creation of tools to increase the visibility and sharing of education data: knowledge products supported by the coalition (e.g. mapping, analysis paper on the African Education Database, and a website/ online tool to increase data access as part of the UN’s HDX platform.

BY: Dec 2021
Progress: 1 out of 6 youth employment stakeholders supported through technical assistance, capacity-building or peer learning

8.3 Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services

Bringing the data into the current ESSA partnerships including working with policymakers across sub-Saharan Africa. Progress at the continental level to drive local partnerships. Using data to understand and highlight the faculty gap. Working with partners to increase visibility and use of data on the transition out of Tertiary education.

BY: Dec 2021

Start

06-Jul-2020

End

31-Dec-2021

USD 100,000

Estimated total value of the commitment

Target: All ages 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-35

Primarily:

Young people in urban areas
Young people in rural areas
Young women
Young men
Youth with disabilities
Specific ethnic groups
Low-income individuals
Non-low income individuals
Young people with low levels of education and/or drop-outs
Graduates of second-level education and students in third-level education or beyond

Challenges faced in implementation

With coronavirus affecting travel, it is challenging to get engagement from policy-makers without face-to-face interactions.

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