Zimbabwe. SACMEQ collected its latest round of data in 14 countries in East and Southern Africa from 2012-2014. These include Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe. SACMEQ was designed and scaled to be comparable to past rounds. We include microdata from prior rounds, and estimates from reports for the latest round of SACMEQ since the microdata are pending.

_PASEC_ **.** The “Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Éducatifs” (PASEC, or “Programme of Analysis of Education Systems”) was launched by the Conference of Ministers of Education of French-Speaking Countries (CONFEMEN). These surveys are conducted in French-speaking countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in primary school (grades 2 and 5) in math and French. Each round includes 10 countries. PASEC I occurred from 1996 to 2003; PASEC II from 2004 to 2010 and PASEC III was conducted in 2014. Of note, PASEC has not always been conducted simultaneously across countries and participation has varied considerably since 1994.<sup>12</sup> The most recent PASEC in 2014 uses Item Response Theory (IRT). Ten countries participated, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Senegal and Togo. We include these countries using available microdata. Madagascar also participated in 2015 and was scaled to the PASEC 2014 round. We include Madagascar in our database using estimates from reports. To this end, inclusion of the recent PASEC data adds countries as well as enhances the quality of data from Sub-Saharan Africa. This marks significant improvement over past data sets. To provide a link to past PASEC rounds, which used classical test theory, we create an inter-temporal comparison using a linking function derived based on Togo, which participated in all rounds of PASEC. However, given that PASEC did not conduct intertemporal scaling calibration directly, intertemporal comparisons for PASEC should be analyzed with this caveat in mind.

_LLECE_ **.** The Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education (LLECE) was formed in 1994 and is coordinated by the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Assessments conducted by the LLECE focus on achievement in reading and mathematics in primary school. The first round was conducted in 1998 across grades 3 and 4 in 13 countries. These countries include: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. The second round of the LLECE survey was initiated in 2006 in the same countries as LLECE I. In round two, called the Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (SERCE), pupils were tested in grade 3 and grade 6. The Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE), was done in 2013 across grades 3 and 6 and included 15 Latin American and Caribbean countries. We only include SERCE and TERCE data in this database, since these assessments are most similar and cover comparable grades.

# _C. The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA)_

> 12 The following is a list of participating countries in chronological order: Djibouti (1994), Congo (1994), Mali (1995), Central African Republic (1995), Senegal (1996), Burkina Faso (1996), Cameroon (1996), Côte d'Ivoire (1996), Madagascar (1997), Guinea (2000), Togo (2001), Mali (2001), Niger (2001), Chad (2004), Mauritania (2004), Guinea (2004), Benin (2005), Cameroon (2005), Madagascar (2006), Mauritius (2006), Republic of Congo (2007), Senegal (2007), Burkina Faso (2007), Burundi (2009), Côte d’Ivoire (2009), Comoros (2009), Lebanon (2009), Togo (2010), Democratic Republic of Congo (2010), and Chad (2010). Additional countries took a slightly different test between 2010 and 2011 (Lao PDR, Mali, Cambodia and Vietnam).

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