National survey on Monitoring Learning Achievements in Tajikistan

21 July 2002

The Study “Monitoring Learning Achievements and Problems on Non-attendance and Dropouts in Primary Schools of Tajikistan” has been conducted at the initiative of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Tajikistan with financial, consultative, and technical assistance of Regional Office of UNESCO in Almaty and the UNICEF Office in Tajikistan.
The aims of the study were to define the scale of the problems and achievements of the Education system in Tajikistan, to assess the level of knowledge that children obtain in primary school, to find what influences the quality of knowledge, and in addition to expose the problems of children who do not attend schools, and to review the measures undertaken to return children to schools.

MLA study does not only evaluate the level of students’ knowledge, aside from the monitoring of learning achievements of school students, it includes evaluation of teachers work, evaluation of school curriculum, textbooks, school management, attitudes of parents toward the education of their children and their participation in the process of education, etc.

The Education Fund of Tajikistan was the main implementer/executor of this project. Direct consultative and methodological assistance in the implementation the study and analysis of the results has been rendered by the international consultant of UNESCO – NGO “Center for Public Opinion Studies and Forecast”.

For the survey stratified casual sampling was used. The total sample consisted of 80 schools, which is 2,3% of the total aggregate. We can compare this with Kazakhstan where 1,8% of schools were covered and with Kyrgyzstan having a coverage of 8%. Each region was represented in the proportion to the total number of schools. The schools of the Republic were stratified by districts, place (urban or rural) and by the language of teaching (Tajik, Russian, Uzbek). In each area the casual sampling method identified the polling sites. The developed sampling design was negotiated and approved by the Ministry of Education. But by the time of the beginning of survey, the Ministry of Education replaced 16% of schools in the sampling - due to their inaccessibility - by other typical schools as determined by the experts of the Ministry. Due to the same reason, instead of 80 schools chosen by the sampling, only 67 schools were covered in the survey, i.e. 84% of the original sample size and 1,9% of the total aggregate.

Permanent link: http://en.unesco.kz/national-survey-on-monitoring-learning-achievements-in-tajikistan