Primary School Enrollment Rates Research Articles

Latino Representation and Education: Pathways to Latino Student Performance

AbstractThe rapid growth of the Latino population in the U.S. over the past 15 years has led to a significant increase in levels of primary and secondary school enrollment rates of Latino children. Research on Latino education has demonstrated the institutional and contextual challenges faced by this increasingly significant group, but studies that link Latino representation and Latino educational performance have neglected to sort out the direct and indirect effects of representation on student achievement. The central assumption in these studies outlines a causal chain running from Latino political representation (school boards), to Latino bureaucratic representation (administrators and teachers), to Latino student performance. This study tests these theoretical assumptions by employing a path analytic model using data from 1,040 Texas school districts for the years 1997–2001 to tease out the direct and indirect effects of Latino representation on Latino student achievement. We find robust evidence of the impact of Latino political representation on Latino educational attainment in Texas, operating via a direct effect on the number of Latino administrators and teachers and an indirect effect on Latino student performance. Additionally, our results demonstrate that descriptive representation becomes substantive representation in the area of education policy for Latinos and that this relationship remains strong over time. These findings underscore the importance of school board elections and school district hiring practices on Latino student performance.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Gender and Employment: A Global Lens on Feminist Analyses and Theorizing of Labor Markets

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Gender and Employment: A Global Lens on Feminist Analyses and Theorizing of Labor Markets

Getting all Girls into School

Since 1960 primary school enrollment rates in the developing world have risen steeply for boys and girls with girls participation converging with that of boys in most countries. Yet UNESCO (2006) recently estimated that 43 million school-age girls are not enrolled in school many more complete fewer than six years of schooling and a gap between boys and girls remains in some countries. This gap is due overwhelmingly to the lag in schooling of socially excluded groups often minority groups that are on the margins of society (see box and table) and in which girls are at a distinct disadvantage relative to boys. Indeed we estimate that approximately 70 percent of these out-of-school girls come from such groups. Where are these out-of-school girls? By far the greatest number are in sub-Saharan Africa (47 percent) and South Asia (25 percent) followed by East Asia and the Pacific (11 percent); the Middle East and North Africa (9 percent); and Latin America and the Caribbean Eastern Europe and Central Asia and North America and Western Europe (all close to 3 percent). However the Latin American and Caribbean region scores highest when the focus is on the percentage of out-of-school girls coming from excluded groups. (excerpt)

Never Too Late to Learn? Investing in Educational Second Chances for Youth

A strong foundation for learning through basic education has rightly been the top priority for developing countries in recent years. These efforts have led to a higher proportion of children entering primary school than ever before. While these successes should be celebrated, too many of these children are entering adolescence poorly prepared for work and life. In many countries, young people who complete primary education are barely able to read a sentence, which means that the quality of education being provided is low. To compound this problem, many drop out of school early, and in some countries, many of those from disadvantaged backgrounds never enter school at all. Should countries be spending their scarce public resources on helping these young people to recover from these false starts? This paper says yes because there can be high economic returns from investing in educational second chances for young people when policies and programs are well designed. In this paper, we present a series of principles on which interventions must be based to be effective. We also discuss the roles that government will need to play to meet the challenges ahead. By many measures, the world has made remarkable progress in improving educational outcomes in developing countries. Primary school enrollment rates in low-income countries other than China and India rose from 50 percent in 1970 to 88 percent in 2000. Including these two countries, an average of over 80 percent of children are now completing primary school (UNICEF 2003). Moreover, the secondary gross enrollment rate has increased by more than 20 percent over the past decade across the world (UNESCO 2004). This strengthening of human capital presents the world with an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty. However, dramatic as these numbers are, many children are still being left behind. This is partly because the progress in enrollment and completion rates has been uneven. Many children in Sub-Saharan Africa never start school. Even in countries where large numbers of children do attend school, early dropouts, high rates of grade repetition, and low-quality education mean that children are entering adolescence poorly prepared for work

Teacher Shortages, Teacher Contracts and Their Impact on Education in Africa

Primary school enrolment rates are very low in francophone Africa. In order to enhance education supply, manycountries have launched large teacher recruitment programmes in recent years, whereby teachers are no longer engaged on civil servant positions, but on the basis of (fixed-term) contracts typically implying considerably lower salaries and a sharply reduced duration of professional training. While this policy has led to a boost of primary enrolment, there is a concern about a loss in the quality of education. In this paper we analyse the impact on educational quality, by estimating nonparametrically the quantile treatment effects for Niger, Togo and Mali, based on very informative data, comparable across these countries. We find that contract teachers do relatively better for low ability children in low grades than for high ability children in higher grades. When positive treatment effects were found, they tended to be more positive at the low to medium quantiles; when negative effects were found they tended to be more pronounced at the high ability quantiles. Hence, overall it seems that contract teachers do a relatively better job for teaching students with learning difficulties than for teaching the ‘more advanced' children. This implies that contract teachers tend to reduce inequalities in student outcomes. At the same time, we also observe clear differences between the countries. We find that, overall, effects are positive in Mali, somewhat mixed in Togo (with positive effects in 2nd and negative effects in 5th grade) and negative in Niger. This ordering is consistent with theoretical expectations derived from a closer examination of the different ways of implementation of the contract teacher programme in the three countries. In Mali and, to some extent, in Togo, the contract teacher system works more through the local communities. This may have led to closer monitoring and more effective hiring of contract teachers. In Niger, the system was changed in a centralized way with all contract teachers being public employees, so that there is no reason to expect much impact on local monitoring. In addition, the extremely fast hiring of huge numbers of contract teachers may also have contributed to relatively poor performance in Niger. These results are expected to be relevant for other sub-Saharan African countries, too, as well as for the design of new contract teacher programmes in the future.

Institutions and Development: The Interaction Between Trade Regime and Political System

This paper argues that an unequal distribution of political power, biased to landed elites and owners of natural resources, in combination with openness to trade is a major obstacle to development of natural resource- or land-abundant economies. We develop a two-sector general equilibrium model and show that in an oligarchic society public investments conducive to industrialization. schooling for example.are typically lower in an open than in a closed economy. Moreover, we find that, under openness to trade, development is faster in a democratic system. We also endogenize the trade regime and demonstrate that in a land-abundant economy the landed elite has an interest to support openness to trade. We present historical evidence for Southern economies in the Americas that is consistent with our theoretical results: Resistance of landed elites to mass education, comparative advantages in primary goods production in the 19th century globalization wave, and low primary school enrollment and literacy rates.

Wage Returns to Schooling in Nigeria

Abstract: In the last two decades, primary and secondary school enrollment rates have declined in Nigeria while enrollment rates in post‐secondary school have increased. This paper estimates from the General Household Survey for Nigeria the private returns to schooling associated with levels of educational attainment for wage and self‐employed workers. The estimates for both men and women are small at primary and secondary levels, 2–4 percent, but are substantial at post‐secondary education level, 10–15 percent. These schooling return estimates may account for the recent trends in enrollments. Thus, increasing public investment to encourage increased attendance in basic education is not justifiable on grounds of private efficiency, unless investments to increase school quality have higher private returns. With high private returns to post‐secondary schooling, students at this level should pay tuition, to recoup more of the public costs of schooling, which may be redistributed to poor families through scholarships.

Variations in rates of primary school access and enrolments in sub-Saharan Africa: a pooled cross-country time series analysis

African nations lag behind in school enrolment rates. This article examines the national characteristics that explain variation in indicators of entry into first grade and primary school enrolment rates. Pooled cross-country time series analysis for the period 1980–1997 for 29 sub-Sahara African nations is used. Overall, the results strongly suggest that the major determinants of both indicators of primary education in sub-Saharan Africa are: government expenditure on education, percent urban population, and West African region. GNP per capita and debt categories are significantly associated with primary enrolment rates, and with first grade entry rates when controlling for year. A country’s level of ethnic diversity has no significant impact on either measure. On the basis of these results we discuss policy implications for governments, and directions for future research.

Raising primary school enrolment in developing countries: The relative importance of supply and demand

Few policies are as universally accepted as raising primary school enrolment in developing countries, but the policy levers for achieving this goal are not straightforward. This paper merges household survey data with detailed school supply characteristics from official sources, in order to estimate the relative impact of demand and supply side determinants of rural primary school enrolment in Mozambique. Policy simulations based on a set of ‘plausible’ interventions show that in rural Mozambique, building more schools or raising adult literacy will have a larger impact on primary school enrolment rates than interventions that raise household income. When relative costs are considered, adult literacy campaigns are nearly 10 times more cost-effective than the income intervention and 1.5 to 2.5 times better than building more schools.

Private Schooling - A Quality Puzzle

Primary school enrollment rates in Pakistan are lower than in other countries at the same level of economic development. The proportion of children reaching grade 5 is about half that in Sri Lanka and China and three-quarter that in India. Nationally, the gross primary school ratio is 74, and 101 for boys and 45 for girls. According to the National Education Policy 1992-2002, the target of literacy rate was set at 70 percent by the year 2002, which was achievable besides other measures, by inviting the private sector into education. Now, overall, private education accounts for about 10-12 percent of gross enrollments. The government of Pakistan has established a goal of universal primary enrollment by the year 2006. In the present study the quality characteristics of private schooling are discussed, i.e. qualitative aspects of schools, physical infrastructure of schools, teachers’ qualification and salaries, and fee, dropout rate, and repletion rate of the students, etc.

The Decline in Primary School Enrolment in Kenya

Since independence in 1963, Kenya has invested substantial resources in the education sector. For almost twenty-five years, these investments and other government policies led to impressive gains in educational access at all levels. However, since the mid- to late 1980s there appears to have been an erosion in educational participation and a reversal of the gains achieved in previous decades. Motivated by this trend, this paper uses temporal, cross-section and pseudo-panel data to assess the plausibility of various factors that may be responsible for the decline in primary school educational enrolment. In particular, we consider the role of school fees, school inputs and curriculum, school availability, the expected benefits of education and the spread of HIV/AIDS. We also try to identify the most effective policy interventions that may be used to prevent further declines in primary school enrolment rates.

Provincial Inequalities in School Enrollments in Turkey

Provincial inequality indexes in school enrollments are computed for the years 1980 and 1994 using primary, middle and high school enrollment rates for the provinces of Turkey. Summary measures of both interprovince and intraprovince inequality are computed for the two years; the former measure is an indicator of inequality across provinces, and the latter measure is an indicator of inequality in access to education within provinces. The purpose is to provide a nearly fifteen-year perspective on provincial inequalities at each level of schooling and also of inequalities across the three levels of schooling in each province. Several main points are noted. First, as expected, inequality in enrollments across provinces was lowest at the primary school level since primary schooling is compulsory. Second, except at the high school level, inequality in enrollments declined between 1980 and 1994. Third, the results indicate higher female enrollment inequalities than those found for total enrollments at all levels of schooling. Fourth, the results for models explaining interprovince changes in enrollment rates indicate convergence at the primary and middle school levels. Fifth, per capita income and degree of rurality of each province are important determinants of intraprovince inequality.

Human capital, investment and growth: Some results from an endogenous growth model

Recent theoretical literature on the sources of economic growth has emphasized the role of human capital as an internal contributing force in the growth process. Empirical results reported in this paper provide support for this theoretical proposition. Cross-country data from 32 developing countries indicate that human capital (as alternatively measured by the primary school enrollment rate or the adult literacy rate) exerts a significant positive impact upon output growth.

Standards of Living in Colonial Korea: Did the Masses Become Worse Off or Better Off Under Japanese Rule?

This article discusses the changing living standards among the Korean masses under Japanese rule. Farm income per household, agricultural real wages, and per capita calorie intake from staple foods declined. On the other hand primary school enrollment, literacy, and survival rates rose, and average stature at least did not decrease. Arguing that literacy rates, survival rates, and average stature are variables more directly related to living conditions than the others, this article concludes that the Korean masses' standards of living rose between colonization and 1940. Still, any summary assessment depends on the weights assigned to different variables.

The Effect of Population Growth upon the Quantity of Education Children Receive: A Comment

Malthusian theory asserts that high population growth in poor countries retards economic development. 2 authors Simon and Pilarski have recently challenged this theory on the basis of their own research; it is their contention that previous studies of population growth and education (1 of the principal modes by which the Malthusian mechanism is assumed to operate) have been flawed. The defect is felt to lie in the assumption of simple rather than partial associations of the 2 variables education and population growth. On the basis of their tightened specifications they have found demographic variables to be nonsignificant in explaining educational expenditures per child once other relevant regressors have been introduced. Similarly little effect of the demographic variable on primary and tertiary school enrollment rates were found although an effect for secondary school enrollment rates was found. On examination of the theoretical framework and the several explanatory variables however the author concludes that a crucial variable which is sure to have a vital bearing on the conclusions reached has been misspecified in the equations. Further the author asserts that a more thorough specification of the tests of the hypothesis (i.e. that high population growth retards educational investment) actually provides additional support for the Malthusian conclusion on educational expenditures despite unpromising initial indications.