Insight 2: Foster a purpose driven EiE Data Culture
Insight 2 delves into the essence of a purpose-driven approach, emphasizing the pivotal role of centering learners' rights to an education that remains accessible, of quality and ensures their comprehensive wellbeing. By weaving a narrative that intertwines crisis-sensitive planning, a child rights perspective, and the triple nexus concept, this insight unfolds the layers of a holistic EiE data culture. Here below are some key elements to consider when striving to harmonize data practices with the principles of justice, equity, and a steadfast commitment to meeting global obligations in the realm of education in crisis settings.
Uphold the Rights of Learners & Teachers
Utilizing data for crisis-sensitive planning is pivotal in fulfilling global commitments to the right to education. Prioritizing the rights of learners and teachers affected by crises ensures that their involvement in data collection is purposeful, avoiding wastage of their valuable time. Embracing a child rights perspective extends the temporal scope of data processes, ensuring that the needs of learners are addressed comprehensively before, during, and after a crisis.
When we talk about education in emergencies, we automatically shorten the story. EiE has a before, a during, and an after. As long as we are driven by the self-interest of EiE practitioners, we are going to miss the plot. […] I always look at it from a child rights perspective, with the perspective of the longer story.
We don’t want to overuse the time of vulnerable populations. We should be careful and respectful, asking how much data do you want to collect from someone if it’s not going to benefit them individually
Mitigate Extractive Data Collection Practices
The EiE sector frequently adopts an extractive, rather than purpose-driven, approach to data. Much of the collected EiE data is primarily utilized for donor reporting. In contexts with limited capacity and short time available for longitudinal studies and adaptive learning, the scope and coverage of EiE data collection have historically been shaped by donor/partner agendas rather than the actual needs of the system.
Collaborative efforts among stakeholders are essential to ensure ongoing, regular data collection aligned with genuine requirements to understand the priority system-wide educational vulnerabilities and needs, as well as to monitor the effective impact of EiE programs and strategies hopefully to then improve them.
We need to think about collecting data to learn, to develop, to grow, to improve, not collecting data for reporting. We have created the concept of collecting data for reporting to donors, which is problematic.
There is a tendency for partners’ orientation and interests to shape the kind of data they emphasise and want to see included. We need a distinction between indicators that need to be collected on a regular/consistent basis across all contexts versus those that might only apply to certain areas or that only need to be collected as a one-off or via a sample-based assessment or specific survey.
Advocate for a Comprehensive Approach to EiE with a Focus on Crisis-Sensitive Planning
Traditional data collection in Education in Emergencies (EiE) often revolves around surface-level exercises like counting students, teachers, and schools. Unfortunately, a significant portion of this collected data remains unused due to a lack of alignment with the actual needs of stakeholders, hindering the identification of potential barriers to education access, safety, and quality in emergency situations.
By emphasizing a holistic perspective, EiE data should encompass information relevant to preparedness, response, and recovery phases. To truly grasp the impact of EiE, it is imperative to collect and analyze data related to long-term recovery efforts and consider the broader context of the entire population risk prone or affected by crises.
We see the importance of data that are robust, reliable, and frequent. […] In contexts [where] coverage and quality is relatively poor, what data is measuring is very shallow. It ends up being very much a counting exercise. There are challenges in the enabling environment around analysis, management, and use, and conversations tend to stay around collection, and what’s missing is a vision for system resilience. […] This is related to having concrete purpose-driven policies, rather than just collecting data for the sake of data.
We should not be time bound. Disaster responders are typically divorced from risk assessment and risk reduction work that education authorities need to be doing. What I’m interested in is the numerators and denominators. (…) . Even if we reach 10,000 children that was still only 10% of the need. We’re missing the big picture and we’re betraying the children. We are not being honest about the denominators. EiE ends and the story ends. But the story doesn’t actually end. We just packed up and left. We have to look at long-term recovery, which is a whole other dataset.
Harness the Power of the Triple Nexus for Advocacy and Awareness
There is an overall limited understanding of how the emergency-development-peacebuilding nexus can mutually strengthen data systems and vice versa. Establishing a shared language rooted in the concept of the triple nexus is pivotal for overcoming barriers and fortifying system resilience. The introduction of a Crisis and Risk Reduction (CaRR) data lens emerges as a promising tool for advocacy and awareness. This lens provides a comprehensive view of the Education in Emergencies (EiE) process, spanning prevention, recovery, and peacebuilding, thereby bolstering our capacity to address challenges across the entire spectrum.
If MoGEI, (…) is able to bring partners together from humanitarian and development to begin speaking the same language, to move in the same direction, this is something great. If the momentum can continue in that direction, putting the Ministry at the forefront of speaking language of EiE to partners, then we will be working towards institutionalisation of EiE data within the government system.
The bottom line for me is we’re not going to solve this sticky problem until we (A) take an all hazards approach, and (B) take (an approach) that includes both normal development as well as humanitarian response. […] We’ve divided the world and have done a lousy job of populating data at the nexus.