Introduction

This is the fourth submission of the JEMCO 20 Education Indicators Report as per July 2008 as required under the FSM Education Sector Grant in the Compact, as amended, and other resources that provide assistance directly or indirectly to the schools in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). 

The purposes of the JEMCO 20 Indicators Report are to measure the statuses and progress of the schools throughout the FSM and to provide such reports to the stakeholders in the FSM and to the grantor, indicating if JEMCO requirements are met and to use such report to improve decision making on education issues in the nation.

This report covers areas from basic enrollment data to numbers and levels of schools and to student performance skills.  The indicators were revised last year to tailor or fine tune the reporting elements or indicators more appropriately. The report also indicates some concerns over the quality of some of the data from the last report and this year’s, and areas where there is a continuing need to improve the data collection process.

Issues and Potential Solutions

There are still problems with data accuracy, consistency of reporting of data, and coding of data.  While progress has been made in improving data cleaning, the consistency of reporting and coding, meeting deadlines and having data available on States’ websites needs further improvement.

1. Two Education Information Management Systems

There continues to be two distinct education information management systems in practices: Pacific Education Data Management Information System (PEDMS) and the FSM Education Information Management System (EIMS). As the user and owner of the FSM EIMS, the National Department of Education has devised computer based data conversion program which allow for EIMS users to convert PEDMS data to be compatible with the former system.  Training on this conversion program is ongoing and two out of the four states have begun to adapt and use the EIMS data program.

2. Consistency of data reporting

Despite attempts that were made last year to modify the program and software used by the states to report their data and the workshop conducted solely to uniformly format the data collection, there are still the human elements that needed to be resolved immediately. The department is considering a much more drastic measures and recommendations for the states to comply with:

• Incorporate grant conditions into the states’ Education Sector grant which may lead to the withholding of state’s sector grant allotment should the practices of late submission continues;
• Replacement of data specialists at the states;
• Take the issue up to the states higher up leadership; and,
• Recommend to the Congress to mandate stricter sanctions for defiant state.

Other measures maybe considered on a case to case basis.

3. Accuracy and cleanliness of data

The continued lack of accurate population data in the nation renders the data collection effort an almost impossible task at all levels, as the most current population data available dated back to year 2000.  This certainly compromises the credibility of such data collected on student age population and other related data. Workshop on data cleaning techniques was conducted for data specialists and managers, however the experience this year indicated that possibly more trainings are needed or perhaps the blatant disregard for data accuracies still prevails.

4. Training for Data Managers

It was reported last year that workshops were held to train data specialists and managers on improving their data collection systems. However, as revealed in this year report back, there is still strong evidences for the need for more trainings.

5. Early Childhood Education (ECE)

In October of 2005, the former Family Headstart Program was virtually incorporated into the State Departments of Education by provisions of the Compact-SEG fund, thus established the Early Childhood Education Program. The nation still needs to formally establish the Early Childhood Education Program in the nation and further resolve the issue of separate submissions on ECE data reports. Two states still submit this year separate progress reports on ECE.