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January 2004, Vol. 10, No. 1 Education At least 37 million young people aged 10–14 in sub-Saharan Africa will not complete primary school, according to a recent analysis conducted by Population Council researchers. That number is nearly twice the total population of children aged 10–14 in the United States, virtually all of whom complete primary school. Moreover, nearly 21 million children in this age range in sub-Saharan Africa have never attended school. In April 2000, at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, sub-Saharan African governments, along with others from around the world, recommitted themselves to achieving “Education for All” by 2015. Reaching this milestone by 2000 had previously been stated by the United Nations as one of its Millennium Development Goals. The Population Council assessment, conducted by demographers Cynthia B. Lloyd and Paul C. Hewett, suggests that meeting this target will be difficult. Much needed are an international commitment to a greater level of resources, better tools for monitoring educational progress at the country level, and a focus on reaching the poorest families. Consistent and comparable data The UNESCO net primary enrollment ratio is based on first-day enrollments as reported by schools to their national ministries of education. These numbers are divided by United Nations estimates of the population for the year and ages in question. In many countries, financial support to schools is directly related to levels of enrollment. Therefore, local education offices have substantial motivation to inflate these numbers. Furthermore, children who formally enroll may not attend school regularly and therefore, while officially counted as participating in school, do not actually attend. Lloyd and Hewett recommend consulting an alternative data source, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), from which net attendance rates can be derived. These rates are likely to provide a more realistic picture of participation in primary school in sub-Saharan Africa. Information in the DHS is collected through interviews with individuals in their homes and is highly representative of the total population of sub-Saharan Africa. The questionnaires provide comparable data on the educational participation and attainment of household members in many developing countries. Findings The investigators also compared DHS and UNESCO data on grade four completion. To derive this figure, UNESCO determines the ratio of the number of children enrolled in grade five relative to the number enrolled in grade one four years earlier. This measure does not account for grade repetition or temporary withdrawal, however. An alternative measure from the DHS that does not have these limitations is the percent of 15–19-year-olds who have completed four or more years among those who have ever entered school. Lloyd and Hewett found that, by and large, DHS estimates of the number of children who complete grade four are higher for both boys and girls than are the UNESCO estimates. “We suspect this is because the DHS measure is not time bound and includes students who take more than four years to complete grade four,” they write. “In our opinion, the DHS data provide an alternative and potentially more accurate portrayal of past educational achievement and current challenges than trends derived from the UNESCO data.” DHS data For boys, the percent completing primary school is estimated to have risen in sub- Saharan Africa from roughly 46 percent in the late 1960s to about 57 percent in the late 1990s. Most of the improvement occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Over the same period of time, girls’ primary school completion rate rose from a much lower base, around 26 percent, to 53 percent. As with boys, the pace of progress has largely slowed in the last 20 years. These trends, however, have closed the education gender gap considerably. Grade four completion rates are slightly higher than primary completion rates for both boys and girls. This discrepancy indicates an attrition rate between the end of grade four and the end of primary school of roughly 10 percentage points. There has also been a small recent decline in grade four completion rates for boys, a trend that may point to future erosion in boys’ schooling. These long-term trends mirror economic and political developments in the region as a whole. In the 1960s and 1970s, strong economic growth allowed for impressive educational expenditures. In the 1980s, however, stagnating economies, political unrest, and rapid population growth conspired to curtail these investments. One result of these cuts has been the assessment of schooling fees in many countries. Thus, poorer families may be less able to send their children to school. Unlike the UNESCO data, the DHS data allow investigation of the effect of wealth on schooling. This investigation shows that while the gender gap is narrowing, a large schooling gap exists between the poorest and wealthiest households. “Our research highlights the numerous gaps that still need to be addressed to reach the Education for All goals. Creating new strategies to address these challenges will require adequate data. The data now being collected by UNESCO may not provide all the information necessary, particularly for developing programs to help the poorest parents and their children,” states Lloyd. Source See Also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
