In the context of the international commitments assumed by the Republic of Moldova regarding the reporting of statistical data on education expenditures, annually, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) submit the questionnaire „Expenditures on formal education” of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) based on provided data by the Ministry of Finance according to the Statistical Work Programme, approved by the Government.

Taking into account the content and methodology of this questionnaire have been updated, and that the UN member countries, completing of these questionnaires, should be informed on the changes made and supported in the implementation of these adjustments, on 3 November current year, the NBS in collaboration with the UNESCO UIS organized an online workshop with the participation of the NBS specialists in education statistics, representatives of the Ministry of Finance and  Ministry of Education and Research.

At the opening of the workshop, Mrs Aurelia Spataru, Deputy General Director of the NBS, mentioned that:

The UIS questionnaire is intended to collect comparable data on education expenditures at all levels of education, necessary for the calculation of many statistical indicators in education that are used to monitor progress towards regional and global goals on education systems worldwide, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the global Education 2030 Agenda. Moreover, the statistical information from the above-mentioned questionnaire is published in the UIS database and then retrieved and used in the global databases of other international institutions and organizations, such as the World Bank, Eurostat (the statistical office of the European Union), the United Nations and others, to support users and policy producers at the national and international level.

During the workshop, Mr. Said Ould Ahmedou Voffal, head of the Section Education Survey, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, familiarised participants with the used methodology to complete the statistical questionnaire on education expenditures, including country experiences and challenges that may occur during its completion. During the presentation the expert also analysed the indicators calculated on the basis of educational expenditures for our country in comparison with other countries from the region.

At the same time, the NBS specialists shared the experience of the Republic of Moldova in completing of the questionnaire on educational expenditures and the use of financial data.

Some other topics discussed during the workshop were the challenges of ensuring the completion and consistency of the data submitted to the UIS, as well as proposals for improving the module for completing the UIS questionnaire „Education Expenditures”, in order to facilitate the country's reporting of data on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators, in particular the indicator that refers to the ratio of national public budget expenditure on education in total national public budget expenditure.

We inform you that, in the framework of implementation of the Annual Statistical Work Programme, the NBS provides statistical information for about 100 questionnaires completed regularly at the request of international organizations.