Abstract
There has been a worldwide growth of interest in the application of large-scale scientific survey research techniques to the study of issues related to improving the quality of education. Many developed countries are now applying these techniques in the form of systematic studies of the conditions of schooling and of student achievement levels. In developing countries, there have been increased efforts to identify ways in which educational planners in Ministries of Education can learn to conduct these kinds of policy research studies. In order to respond to the needs in this area, the International Institute for Educational Planning of UNESCO has been working closely with a number of Ministries in the Southern Africa sub-region to implement long-term strategies for building up the capacity of educational planning units to monitor the quality of their education systems, and to use this information to make informed policy decisions. This paper illustrates the innovative and effective approaches that have been adopted by these initiatives, and suggests that the approaches used could be transferred to educational development and capacity-building projects in other regions of the world.
