Mioko Saito is a Programme Specialist in the Training and Education Programme Unit and leads the assessment processes as well as gender mainstreaming of teaching/learning materials.

She is an expert in both quantitative and qualitative methods for educational research, in particular in the area of quality of education and gender equality in learning achievement.

She is responsible for the capacity building programme for educational planners in order to conduct qualitative research study to find out the reasons for gender differences in student achievement. At the IIEP she is responsible for courses on “Methodology for projects”, “Quantitative methods for monitoring and evaluating the quality of education”, and “Monitoring and evaluating the gender equality in education”.

She also provides technical support on the conduct of a large-scale educational policy research, especially in the areas of sampling technique, instrument design, field manual development, data validation, data archiving, measurement issues, and linking the research evidence with educational policy and planning, for several of the regional networks, including SACMEQ (Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring the Quality of Education), PASEC (Programme for the Analysis of Education Systems), NEQMAP (Network on Education Quality Monitoring in the Asia-Pacific), and SEAMEO-PLM (Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Primary Learning Metric).

She has also worked in the areas of higher education management, secondary education, and life-long education at the IIEP before commencing the work on the quality of education.

Before joining IIEP in 1992, she served as an Associate Expert in the Science and Technology Education Section at the UNESCO Headquarters. Before joining UNESCO, she was responsible for courses including 'instructional design and development', 'visual literacy' and 'educational media production' at the University of Oklahoma, USA.