14th Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) Regional Steering Committee Meeting
The field trial of the current cycle of the comparative survey of core skills at 5th grade level of Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics 2024 (SEA-PLM), was completed in 2023. Our elite project manager Grace DeLee coordinated the translation and linguistic quality control activities for the seven participating countries: Lao PDR, Viet Nam, Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Timor Leste and Malaysia. The countries are now preparing for the Main Survey (MS) and the 14th Regional Steering Committee (RCS) Meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia offered an opportunity to take stock of what was achieved so far, of the challenges involved, and of the next steps before the MS.
Grace had participated in workshops in Ho Chi Minh City in November 2022 and in Seoul in December 2023, but we couldn’t make it in-person to this RCS Meeting, but we were honoured to be granted the opportunity to participate remotely. Our presentation highlighted a unique feature of UNICEF-SEA-PLM: countries could choose between producing their national version by means of a double translation and reconciliation procedure, in which case cApStAn performed the verification, or to ask cApStAn to produce their national version, which the national experts would then review. Grace reported on the very high overall quality of the instruments obtained, regardless of the approach selected. One of the strong capacity-building components in this project was to empower national teams who chose to translate/adapt themselves by providing training and support to use a free and open source translation editor, OmegaT for a double translation procedure.
For the MS, cApStAn will be responsible for the correct and consistent implementation of Field Trial to Main Survey updates and changes requested by the national centres of the participating countries. The timelines will be tight, as the first countries will already collect data in April 2024.
cApStAn thanks the organisers of the 14th SEA-PLM Regional Steering Committee Meeting for the kind invitation and for the flawless technical organisation. We very much look forward to supporting countries in finalising their Main Survey instruments.
Illustration: group photo of the Excellencies, Dignitaries and Honourable Education Representatives from the SEA-PLM countries and of the remote presenters.
Excerpt from the presentation given by Grace DeLee and Steve Dept
Translation Achievements
Ways Forward for cApStAn with SEA-PLM