Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei is preparing to pro-duce its first Education For All EFA) Assessment country report which will discuss issues to find out whether the country's education system corresponds with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation's (UNESCO) EFA's objectives.

Head of International Affairs Unit of Department of Schools at Ministry of Education (MoE) Hjh Noridah Abdullah said the "report is a commitment carried out by countries under UNESCO.

"We are looking to produce the report for Brunei by next year, as it takes a lot of time to gather information and evaluate."

UNESCO has set six EFA goals as early childhood care and education, universal basic education, life skills and life-long learning, literacy, gender and quality.

The EFA is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youths and adults. By 2015, some of the aspects that need to be achieved include improve all aspects of quality of education and ensure excellence so that recognised and measurable learning outcomes are achieved.

During the opening of the "Capacity Building Workshop on Education For All" yesterday, MoE Director of Schools Hjh Aishah Hj Muhd Husain said that the role of the Brunei Darussalam National Com-mission for UNESCO was set up in 2007 to support and assist in UNESCO activities at both national and international levels.

She said that in the 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report, it was noted that Brunei had significant disparities between gender in the secondary and higher education, where women outnumbered men particularly at tertiary levels.

Hjh Aishah raised a question where were the men at that time, and said these were examples of data and statistics that needed to be compiled in the EFA National Assessment Report.

She urged the participants to work and collaborate together to achieve the goals of the country report.

"This requires the cooperation and collaboration of those not only from MoE, but also from other ministries and agencies," she added.

MoE's Deputy Permanent Secretary (Corporate Services) Hjh Norjum Hj Yusop said: "It is about time Brunei needs to be involved in international surveys and producing reports of our own, not only to showcase our achievements in providing quality education for all, but also to see how we can accomplish further beyond the global targets and goals of the EFA and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)."

She welcomed expertise, ideas and suggestions from participants for the development of the Brunei EFA Assessment Report 2007-2009.

"Based on the report, we then need to formulate recommendations in terms of target-settings for priority target groups, strategies on how to address important issues for attaining the unattainable and for reaching the unreachable," she said.

The five-day workshop will be conducted by MoE officials, with the assistance from UNESCO's Bangkok Assessment, Information Systems, Monitoring and Statistics (AIMS) and UNESCO Institute of Statistics Regional Ad-visor for Asia-Pacific.

A total of 53 participants comprising MoE officers and other government agencies will be expected to expand their capacities of the task force beyond the traditional collection and dissemination of education statistics.

Following the completion of the workshop, the participants are expected to enhance their skills and ability in the process of monitoring, evaluating and assessing the national achievement towards the six afore-mentioned goals, as well as data analysis for evidence-based planning.

The workshop at the Kiulap Plaza Hotel will end on August 15.

-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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