The Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) Steering Committee will convene its annual meeting on March 16 through a hybrid modality of in-person and virtual discussions. The committee comprises the heads of education from the 15 Pacific Island countries that administer the region's largest education assessment , PILNA. The committee also includes representatives from the Australian and New Zealand governments, EQAP and a representative from EQAP's technical partner, Australia's Council of Education Research (ACER).
On its agenda this year, the commitee will review the preparatory work for the fourth cycle of PILNA, and will be required to make a few key decisions regarding the PILNA implementation in September this year.
EQAP's large scale assessment team, which leads the PILNA work, has had to conduct virtual trainings for coordinating teams of all countries, except Fiji. The team's report and the work plan for the next phase of implementation will be presented to the steering committee at this meeting.
PILNA was conceived in 2012 in response to increasing concern about Pacific students' poor grasp of fundamental literacy and numeracy skills. EQAP leads the research with the onground support of country teams at the respective education departments or ministries. PILNA is one of several EQAP initiatives aimed at helping to improve children's basic literacy and numeracy skills.