"The State of the World's Children 2007" by UNICEF: Gender disparity in primary and secondary school

On 11 December 2006, UNICEF released the 2007 edition of its annual publication The State of the World's Children. This year's report, with the title Women and children: The double dividend of gender equality, looks at the status of women today and discusses how gender equality can help achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The report argues that gender equality produces a double dividend because it benefits both women and children. Healthy, educated and empowered women have healthy, educated and confident children. Through gender equality women can not only live full and productive lives, they can also improve the lives of their children, their families, and the society they are part of.

The State of the World's Children contains detailed statistical tables with data on health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, education, demographics, economy, women, and child protection for each country. In the area of education, the report lists data for the following indicators:

• Literacy
• Primary school enrollment and attendance
• Secondary school enrollment and attendance
• Survival rate to grade 5

Data on primary and secondary school enrollment shows that gender disparity continues to exist in most regions of the world. The graph below compares female and male enrollment rates by expressing the female gross enrollment rate (GER) as a percentage of the male GER. The primary school GER is calculated as follows:

• Primary school gross enrollment rate (GER) = Number of children enrolled in primary school / Number of children of official primary school age

By definition, the GER can exceed 100 percent. This can be the case in countries where many children enter school late or where many children repeat a grade. However, the GER is frequently used to assess a country's education system because it measures the participation of all children, not only those of official primary or secondary school age (see primary school gross and net enrollment). The GER ratio is calculated as follows:

• Female GER as a percent of male GER = 100 * (Female GER / Male GER)

A value of 100 percent means that the enrollment rates of girls and boys are at the same level and that gender parity has been reached. If the ratio is below 100 percent, fewer girls than boys are in school. If the ratio is above 100 percent, more girls than boys are in school. The ratio of female to male enrollment rates is also known as the gender parity index.

Note that the reported values contain no information about the absolute level of school enrollment. It is possible to have gender parity at very low enrollment levels. Take a country where 50 percent of boys and 50 percent of girls attend primary school. Although the country would be far from the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education, there would be gender parity in primary school. For data on absolute enrollment levels refer to an earlier post on primary school enrollment in 2004, with the most recent data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Primary and secondary school gross enrollment ratios: female GER as a percent of male GER, 2000-2005

Data source: UNICEF. 2006. The state of the world's children 2007: Women and children - The double dividend of gender equality. New York: UNICEF. Table 8, page 133.

According to the data reported by UNICEF, only two regions have achieved gender parity in both primary and secondary school: East Asia and the Pacific, and the industrialized countries. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are close to gender parity, with female enrollment rates at 95 to 97 percent of male enrollment rates. Latin America and the Caribbean are close to gender parity in primary school but in secondary school, the female GER far exceeds the male GER (gender parity index 108 percent), which means that more girls than boys continue their education past primary school.

In the Middle East and North Africa, the female GER is at 93 percent of the male GER in primary school and at 90 percent in secondary school. In the three remaining regions, there is a larger drop in the gender parity index from primary to secondary school. In Eastern and Southern Africa, almost as many girls as boys are enrolled in primary school (gender parity index 94 percent) but at the secondary level of education, the female GER is only 85 percent of the male GER. In South Asia, the gender parity index is 91 percent in primary school and 83 percent in secondary school.

In West and Central Africa, girls are furthest behind boys in terms of school enrollment. The gender parity index is 84 percent in primary school and 70 percent in secondary school. In addition, total enrollment rates are lower than in any other region of the world (see primary school enrollment in 2004 and primary school enrollment in 2002/03). Compared to boys and compared to girls in other region, girls from West and Central Africa are least likely to reap the benefits of a formal school education.

External links

• The State of the World's Children 2007 web site
• Download The State of the World's Children 2007 (PDF, 1.8 MB)
• UN Millennium Development Goals

Related articles

• Primary school enrollment in 2004
• Primary school enrollment in 2002/03
• Trends in primary school enrollment, 1970-2004
• Primary school gross and net enrollment

Friedrich Huebler, 24 December 2006, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2006/12/state-of-worlds-children-2007-by-unicef.html

Years of schooling and literacy, part 2

The Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007 assesses individual countries' progress toward the goal of basic education for all children and adults by 2015 with the EFA Development Index (EDI). One component of the EDI is the adult literacy rate. In countries where the adult literacy rate is not available, the EDI is calculated with a proxy measure: the share of the adult population with at least a complete primary education (UNESCO 2006, p. 201, note 2).

A previous article on this site, "Years of schooling and literacy: Can everyone with primary education read and write?", analyzed data on years of schooling and literacy from 26 household surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results showed that most persons who graduated from primary school or attended higher levels of education can indeed be considered literate and that the share of the adult population with at least a complete primary education is therefore a suitable proxy for the adult literacy rate.

The present article extends the analysis from Sub-Saharan Africa to 19 additional countries from Latin America, North Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. The data, collected between 1998 and 2004, is from 15 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) funded by UNICEF, and 4 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The surveys and data collection methods are described in detail in the previous article with literacy data from Sub-Saharan Africa.

For the analysis that follows, household members in each survey dataset were divided into 13 groups according to the highest grade of formal education completed: no formal education, grade 1 completed, grade 2 completed, ..., grade 11 completed, and grade 12 or higher completed. Within each group, the share of literate persons was calculated. The results are plotted in the graphs below.

For the presentation of the results, countries are grouped according to the geographic regions used by UNICEF. The first graph shows data from 5 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. For each country, a line indicates how the percentage of literate persons varies with the completed years of formal education. In Suriname, for example (the orange line in the graph), 17 percent of all persons without formal education are literate, compared to 46 percent of those who completed the first grade, 67 percent of those who completed the second grade, and so on. The number in parentheses behind the name of each country indicates the official length of primary education in years. For example, primary school has six grades in Bolivia and eight grades in the Dominican Republic.

The available data for Latin American and the Caribbean shows that the education systems in this region perform very well in terms of literacy. Literacy rates increase steadily with increasing years of education and by the time children complete primary school, close to 100 percent can read and write.

Years of education and literacy in Latin America and the Caribbean

Data source: 3 DHS and 2 MICS surveys, 1999-2004. - Number after country name indicates official duration of primary education.

The second graphs shows data from 6 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. In contrast to Latin America and the Caribbean, completion of primary school does not guarantee literacy. In Tajikistan, only 87 percent of those with complete primary education can be considered literate. In Azerbaijan and Moldova, literacy rates are 93 to 94 percent after graduation from the last grade of primary school. The low literacy rate among persons with four years of education in Uzbekistan is an outlier caused by a skewed age distribution. This group includes a high share of persons above 60 years of age who left school after completing primary school and who have relatively low literacy levels compared to other groups. In all countries literacy levels are near 100 percent once a person has 8 or more years of education.

Years of education and literacy in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States

Data source: 6 MICS surveys, 2000. - Number after country name indicates official duration of primary education.

The last graph combines 8 countries from 3 UNICEF regions: the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. The results are similar to those for Latin America and the Caribbean. Virtually all children who graduate from primary school can read and write. Even in Iraq, the country with the slowest increase in literacy rates according to the highest grade completed, 99 percent of primary school graduates could read and write (the data for Iraq was collected in 2000, before the current war).

Years of education and literacy in East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa

Data source: 1 DHS and 7 MICS surveys, 1998-2003. - Number after country name indicates official duration of primary education.

To summarize, in most countries completion of primary school provides students with the necessary reading and writing skills. There are exceptions, especially in some former states of the Soviet Union (see above) and in parts of West and Central Africa (see the previous article), where additional years of education are needed to guarantee literacy. In spite of these limitations, the share of the population with at least a complete primary education can be considered a good indicator for the adult literacy rate.

References

• UNESCO. 2006. Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007: Strong foundations - Early childhood care and education. Paris: UNESCO.

Related articles

• Years of schooling and literacy: Can everyone with primary education read and write?
• EFA Development Index: Assessing progress toward Education for All
• Education data from household surveys
• Millennium Development Goal regions and UNICEF regions

External links

• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys
• Demographic and Health Surveys
• Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007

Friedrich Huebler, 7 December 2006, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2006/12/years-of-schooling-and-literacy-part-2.html