Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality

SACMEQ is a collaborative network of 15 ministries of education, launched in 1995.

Conducting educational policy research that can be used by decision-makers
SACMEQ activities include project design, training, computer-based data analyses, data archive production, and dissemination of research results.

A co-operative structure
SACMEQ's Co-coordinating Center is located within UNESCO's Harare Office. It has a Co-coordinator and operates under the overall guidance of a Management Committee chaired by Zimbabwe's Minister for Education.
Its work has three main features:

• ministries of education define the scope and structure of research and training programmes,
• programmes function as co-operative ventures that are focused on long-term capacity building,
• SACMEQ provides useful and feasible research-based advice on high-priority educational policy issues.

A self-relying funding system
SACMEQ's programme is financed from two sources:

• the SACMEQ Co-coordinating Center supports co-operative activities at the sub-regional level,
• the participating ministries of education support their own within-country activities such as printing, fieldwork, data preparation, project co-ordination, and report preparation.