PhD Completion Seminar - Beth Sprunt

Development and validation of a method for disaggregating

Fiji’s Education Management Information System by disability

A new survey instrument, the UNICEF/ Washington Group Child Functioning Module (CFM) is recommended by various United Nations agencies and international disability representative bodies for identifying children with disabilities and disaggregating data for the Sustainable Development.

Beth’s PhD explores the validity of the tool and solutions to overcome its limitations in the context of disaggregating Fiji’s Education Management Information System by disability.

Beth used a diagnostic accuracy study to compare teacher and parent responses to clinical assessments of Fijian primary students in five domains: vision, hearing, musculoskeletal, speech and cognition.

Results focused on sensitivity and specificity of the tool and the implications for the Ministry of Education’s decision about the cut-off level to identify disability. In Fiji, this decision determines which children get funding and which miss out. A nested survey with data on learning and support needs demonstrated the value of additional variables in increasing disability identification accuracy. Beth worked with I.T. programmers to combine these variables with CFM data within algorithms in Fiji’s electronic system, enabling cost-efficiency for eligibility verification processes

SUPERVISORS:

Dr Manjula Marella, Research Fellow, Disability Inclusion for Health and Development Unit

Professor Barbara McPake, Director, Nossal Institute for Global Health