Disparities in secondary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion

Members of ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities face barriers to access to education in many countries. In an article on primary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion the presence of such disparities was demonstrated with data from Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. The MICS are nationally representative household surveys supported by UNICEF that collect data on school attendance and other household member characteristics. In the most recent round of MICS surveys, carried out in 2005 and 2006, 17 countries collected data on school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion: Albania, Belize, Gambia, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lao PDR, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Togo, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam.

The school attendance data from the MICS surveys can be used to generate an education parity index that measures relative disparity across different groups of disaggregation, as described in the article on primary school attendance. To calculate the index, the attendance rate of the group with the lowest value is divided by the attendance rate of the group with the highest value. The result is a value between 0 and 1, where 1 means that children from different ethnic, linguistic or religious groups have the same secondary school attendance rate. Values closer to 0 indicate increasing disparity.

As an example, Thailand collected data on school attendance that can be linked to the mother tongue of the household head. The secondary school net attendance rates (NAR) for two groups of children identified in the 2005-06 MICS data are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Secondary school attendance in Thailand

Mother tongue of household head	Secondary NAR (%)
Thai	81.2
Other language	65.8
Total	79.8

Data source: MICS 2005-06.

Among children from households whose head speaks Thai, the secondary NAR is 81.2 percent. Among children from households headed by someone with a different mother tongue, the secondary NAR is 65.8 percent. The secondary school parity index for Thailand is then calculated as follows.

Secondary school parity index	= Lowest secondary NAR / Highest secondary NAR
	= Secondary NAR of speakers of another language /    Secondary NAR of speakers of Thai
	= 65.8 / 81.2
	= 0.81

The parity index is a relative, not an absolute measure of disparity. The value 0.81 means that the secondary NAR of speakers of another language is, relatively speaking, 19 percent below the secondary NAR of Thai speakers. The absolute gap between children from the two groups is 15.4 percent, the difference between 81.2 and 65.8.

The secondary school parity index for all 17 countries with data is shown in Figure 1. The index ranges from a high of 0.98 in Viet Nam to a low of 0.17 in Serbia. The low value for Serbia is explained by extremely low secondary school attendance among the Roma ethnic group. The secondary school NAR for Roma children is 14.8 percent, compared to 85.9 percent for Serbians and 88.6 percent for children from other ethnic groups. In addition to Serbia, six other countries have index values at or below 0.5: Lao PDR, Macedonia, Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Belize, and Montenegro. In these countries, children from the most advantaged ethnic, linguistic or religious group have secondary school net attendance rates that are at least twice as high as the attendance rates of children from the most disadvantaged group. In Viet Nam, Kazakhstan, Albania, and Uzbekistan, on the other hand, disparities in access to secondary education are relatively small.

Figure 1: Secondary school parity index: School attendance by ethnicity, language or religion

Data source: MICS 2005-2006.

The attendance rates used to calculate the secondary school parity index are summarized in Table 2. The table also shows whether the national agencies that implemented a survey chose ethnicity, language or religion to identify minorities. A comparison with data on primary school attendance makes clear that disparities at the secondary level of education are much larger than disparities at the primary level, where the parity index for the same group of countries has a range from 0.59 to 0.99.

Table 2: Disparities in secondary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion

Country	Year	Characteristic	Primary NAR (%)		Parity index
			Min.	Max.
Albania	2005	Religion	77.1	83.7	0.92
Belize	2006	Language	36.9	79.2	0.47
Gambia	2006	Ethnicity	27.5	48.2	0.57
Georgia	2005	Ethnicity	69.0	90.6	0.76
Guinea-Bissau	2006	Language	4.3	13.8	0.31
Guyana	2006	Ethnicity	56.0	81.1	0.69
Kazakhstan	2006	Language	90.8	96.0	0.95
Kyrgyzstan	2006	Language	79.3	92.4	0.86
Lao PDR	2006	Language	10.0	45.6	0.22
Macedonia	2005	Ethnicity	17.4	73.7	0.24
Montenegro	2005	Ethnicity	46.5	92.9	0.50
Serbia	2005	Ethnicity	14.8	88.6	0.17
Sierra Leone	2005	Religion	17.8	24.4	0.73
Thailand	2005-06	Language	65.8	81.2	0.81
Togo	2006	Ethnicity	22.9	53.1	0.43
Uzbekistan	2006	Language	87.1	95.4	0.91
Viet Nam	2006	Ethnicity	93.8	95.7	0.98

Data source: MICS 2005-2006.

Data source

• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), 2005-2006.

Related articles

• Disparities in primary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion
• Caste, ethnicity, and school attendance in Nepal
• Education disparity in South Asia
• Education disparity trends in South Asia

External links

• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
• UNICEF

Friedrich Huebler, 15 March 2009, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/03/elr2.html

Disparities in primary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion

In many parts of the world, members of ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities face barriers to access to education. One example is Nepal, where caste and ethnicity are closely linked to primary and secondary school attendance rates. Because of the importance of this issue, "Minorities and the right to education" was the thematic focus of the first United Nations Forum on Minority Issues, which took place in Geneva on 15 and 16 December 2008.

The presence of disparities in national education systems can be demonstrated with data from Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), nationally representative household surveys that are carried out with the support of UNICEF. The MICS data collection process is explained in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Manual 2005 (UNICEF 2006). MICS surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006 collected data on school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion in the following countries: Albania, Belize, Gambia, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lao PDR, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Togo, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam.

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) defines minorities as "non-dominant ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, who may not necessarily be numerical minorities. ... [These groups] may lack access to political power, face discrimination and human rights abuses, and have 'development' policies imposed upon them" (MRG 2009). The MICS data alone are not sufficient to identify groups that can be considered minorities as defined by MRG because the size of particular groups in relation to the entire population of a country does not indicate whether these groups are discriminated in any way. This article therefore examines differences in school attendance between all ethnic, linguistic or religious groups for which data are available. Disparities between these groups can provide insights into whether any part of a country's population faces discrimination or is otherwise disadvantaged.

With the school attendance data from the MICS surveys it is possible to generate an education parity index that measures relative disparity across different groups of disaggregation, following the methodology developed by Huebler (2008) for data on school attendance by sex, area of residence, and household wealth. The education parity index has a range of 0 to 1, where 1 indicates parity between all groups of disaggregation. This methodology can also be applied to primary school attendance rates by ethnicity, language or religion. To calculate the index, the attendance rate of the group with the lowest value is divided by the attendance rate of the group with the highest value, yielding a value between 0 and 1. The value 1 means that children from different ethnic, linguistic or religious groups have the same primary school attendance rates. Smaller values indicate increasing disparity.

The calculation of the parity index can be illustrated with data from Macedonia. A MICS survey conducted in 2005 collected data on school attendance by ethnic group of the household head. Four ethnic groups are identified in the data and their respective primary school net attendance rates (NAR) are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Primary school attendance in Macedonia

Ethnic group of household head	Primary NAR (%)
Albanian	97.8
Macedonian	97.5
Roma	61.1
Other ethnic group	81.9
Total	94.9

Data source: MICS 2005.

Albanians in Macedonia have the highest primary NAR, 97.8 percent. By contrast, Roma have the lowest NAR, 61.1 percent. In other words, only 6 of 10 Roma children of primary school age are attending primary school. With these values, the primary school parity index for Macedonia can be calculated as follows:

Primary school parity index	= Lowest primary NAR / Highest primary NAR
	= Primary NAR of Roma / Primary NAR of Albanians
	= 61.1 / 97.8
	= 0.62

The value 0.62 means that the attendance rate of the most disadvantaged group, Roma, is 62 percent of the attendance rate of the least disadvantaged group, Albanians. In other words, the primary NAR of Roma is 38 percent below the primary NAR of ethnic Albanians. 38 percent is not the absolute but the relative difference in school attendance because the education parity index is a relative measure of disparity.

Applying the same formula to primary NAR values from other MICS surveys yields the values in Figure 1, which shows the parity index for primary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion. In the 17 countries with data, the parity index ranges from a high of 0.99 in Guyana to a low of 0.59 in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. In Laos, speakers of the Lao language are significantly more likely to attend primary school than speakers of other languages, whose primary school NAR is 41 percent below the NAR of Lao speakers. Similar disparities exist in Togo, where members of the Para-Gourma ethnic group have a much lower primary school attendance rate than members of the Akposso-Akébou group, and in Macedonia.

Uzbekistan and Viet Nam are characterized by the near absence of disparities in primary school attendance between different ethnic, linguistic or religious groups, similar to Guyana. In these countries, the primary NAR of the group with the lowest attendance rate is only 1 or 2 percent below the primary NAR of the group with the highest attendance rate.

Figure 1: Primary school parity index: School attendance by ethnicity, language or religion

Data source: MICS 2005-2006.

The primary school net attendance rates used to calculate the parity index are listed in Table 2. The table also shows whether ethnicity, language or religion were chosen to identify minorities in a country. This choice was made by the national agencies that implemented the survey. Eight countries selected ethnicity, seven countries selected language, and two countries selected religion as the characteristic that best captures minority status.

Table 2: Disparities in primary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion

Country	Year	Characteristic	Primary NAR (%)		Parity index
			Min.	Max.
Albania	2005	Religion	91.3	94.9	0.96
Belize	2006	Language	86.6	100	0.87
Gambia	2006	Ethnicity	53.2	72.9	0.73
Georgia	2005	Ethnicity	86.9	97.5	0.89
Guinea-Bissau	2006	Language	44.9	64.7	0.69
Guyana	2006	Ethnicity	95.7	96.8	0.99
Kazakhstan	2006	Language	95.4	98.9	0.96
Kyrgyzstan	2006	Language	86.7	95.4	0.91
Lao PDR	2006	Language	52.4	88.7	0.59
Macedonia	2005	Ethnicity	61.1	97.8	0.62
Montenegro	2005	Ethnicity	69.4	100	0.69
Serbia	2005	Ethnicity	77.9	100	0.78
Sierra Leone	2005	Religion	68.3	72.3	0.94
Thailand	2005-06	Language	94.8	98.2	0.97
Togo	2006	Ethnicity	55.2	91.1	0.61
Uzbekistan	2006	Language	94.9	96.8	0.98
Viet Nam	2006	Ethnicity	93.8	95.7	0.98

Data source: MICS 2005-2006.

References

• Huebler, Friedrich. 2008. Beyond gender: Measuring disparity in South Asia using an education parity index. Kathmandu: UNICEF.
• Minority Rights Group International (MRG). 2009. Who are minorities?
• United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). 2006. Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey manual 2005: Monitoring the situation of women and children. New York: UNICEF.
  

Data source

• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), 2005-2006.

Related articles

• Disparities in secondary school attendance by ethnicity, language or religion
• Caste, ethnicity, and school attendance in Nepal
• Education disparity in South Asia
• Education disparity trends in South Asia

External links

• United Nations Forum on Minority Issues
• Minority Rights Group International (MRG)
• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
• UNICEF

Friedrich Huebler, 1 March 2009 (edited 15 March 2009), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/03/elr.html

Population structure and children out of school

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest percentage of children out of school. At the same time, the population of most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing and children of primary school age constitute a large and growing share of the population.

The link between the population structure and the number of children out of school is shown in the figures and table below. Data on the share of children of primary school age out of school were obtained from the Childinfo website of UNICEF. The official primary school ages in individual countries from the Data Centre of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics were combined with demographic data from the UN Population Division to calculate the share of children of primary school age in each country's population. In total, data for 177 countries were available. All values are for the year 2007.

In Figure 1, the population of primary school age as a percentage of the total population is plotted along the horizontal axis. At the lower end of the scale are Belarus, Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine. In these countries, children of primary school age account for less than 4 percent of the total population. The countries with the highest share of children of primary school age are located in Sub-Saharan Africa: Uganda (21 percent), Zambia (20 percent), Lesotho, Mozambique, Somalia (19 percent), Malawi, Swaziland, and Tanzania (18 percent).

The share of children out of school is plotted along the vertical axis. For five countries, the available statistics indicate that less than 0.5 percent of children are out of school: Japan, Malaysia, Spain, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan. In eight countries, half or more of all children are not in school: Somalia (77 percent), Chad (64 percent), Niger (62 percent), Liberia (61 percent), Ethiopia (55 percent), Eritrea (54 percent), Burkina Faso (53 percent), and Haiti (50 percent). Except for Haiti and Pakistan, the 20 countries with the highest share of children out of school are located in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The color of the marker for each country in Figure 1 indicates the geographic region according to the grouping used for the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The size of each marker indicates the absolute size of the population of primary school age. The big red circle is the marker for India and the big green circle is the marker for China. Other countries with a large number of children of primary school age are Indonesia in South-Eastern Asia, USA in the developed countries, and Nigeria in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The distribution of the points in Figure 1 shows that countries with a small share of children of primary school age in the total population also tend to have a small percentage of children out of school. By contrast, countries with a relatively large population of primary school age also have a higher percentage of children out of school. This positive correlation between the two variables is confirmed by a linear regression of the percent of children out of school on the percent of children of primary school age and the squared percent of children of primary school age. The predicted share of children out of school is indicated by the dark gray line. The light gray band around the prediction line indicates the 95 percent confidence interval.

Figure 1: Population of primary school age and children out of school by country, 2007

Note: Marker size indicates the number of children of primary school age in a country.
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF, UN Population Division.

For Figure 2, the data from the 177 countries in Figure 1 were combined by MDG region. The share of children of primary school age in a region's population is plotted along the horizontal axis and the share of children out of school along the vertical axis. The colors of the markers are the same as in Figure 1. The regional values, summarized in Table 1, reflect the 177 countries for which data were available.

Figure 2: Population of primary school age and children out of school by MDG region, 2007

Note: Marker size indicates the number of children of primary school age in a region.
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF, UN Population Division.

At the global level, about 10 percent of the population are of primary school age. The regional values range from 4.6 percent in the Commonwealth of Independent States to 16.5 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. The average share of children out of school across the 177 countries with data is 15.5 percent. In six regions, fewer than 10 percent of all children are out of school: Commonwealth of Independent States, developed countries, Eastern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern Africa, and South-Eastern Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has by far the highest share of children out of school, with 36.2 percent, followed by Southern Asia with 20 percent and Oceania with 17.1 percent.

Table 1: Population of primary school age and children out of school by MDG region, 2007

MDG region	Population of primary school age as share of total population (%)	Children of primary school age out of school (%)
Developed countries	6.4	4.6
Commonwealth of Independent States	4.6	6.8
Eastern Asia	7.1	0.8
South-Eastern Asia	10.8	6.5
Oceania	14.5	17.1
Southern Asia	10.8	20.0
Western Asia	12.5	12.5
Northern Africa	11.9	5.9
Sub-Saharan Africa	16.5	36.2
Latin America and the Caribbean	10.3	7.2
World	9.8	15.5

Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF, UN Population Division.

Due to their current population structure and demographic trends, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have to provide schools and teachers for a relatively larger number of children than countries in other regions. The Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015 is therefore more difficult to meet for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa than for countries with a relatively small and constant or shrinking population of primary school age.

Data sources

• Children out of school: UNICEF Childinfo, "Children out of school", January 2009.
• Official primary school age: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008.
• Population structure: UN Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, March 2007.

Related articles

• Regional distribution of children out of school
• Global population of primary school age, 2000-2015
• Universal primary education by 2015: A goal out of reach?
• Official school ages: primary, secondary, and compulsory education
• Millennium Development Goal regions and UNICEF regions
• Official MDG targets and indicators

External links

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics
• UNICEF Childinfo
• UN Population Division
• UN Millennium Development Goals

Friedrich Huebler, 8 February 2009 (edited 9 February 2009), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/02/coos.html

The State of the World's Children 2009

The 2009 edition of The State of the World's Children was released by UNICEF in January. The main theme of this year's report is maternal and newborn health. Women in developing countries are at a much higher risk of dying from complications during pregnancy or delivery than women in developed countries. For example, the lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 7 in Niger and 1 in 17400 in Sweden.

The statistical annex to The State of the World's Children contains tables with national, regional and global data on nutrition, health, HIV and AIDS, education, demography, economy, women, and child protection. In the area of education, the annex lists data for the following indicators:

• Primary school enrollment and attendance rate
• Secondary school enrollment and attendance rate
• Survival rate to the last grade of primary school
• Youth and adult literacy rate

The survival rate to the last grade of primary school replaced the survival rate to grade 5 that was reported in previous years. This change was made to match the official list of Millennium Development Goal indicators, in which the survival rate to grade 5 was replaced by the survival rate to the last grade as a new indicator for MDG 2, universal primary education by 2015.

The publication of The State of the World's Children was accompanied by an update of UNICEF's Childinfo website, where additional data and analysis can be found. For example, the education section of the Childinfo site lists new national estimates for the number of children out of school, among other statistics.

External links

• The State of the World's Children 2009 official website
• Download The State of the World's Children 2009 (PDF, 2.4 MB)
• Childinfo: Monitoring the Situation of Children and Women
• Childinfo education statistics
• UN Millennium Development Goals

Related articles

• The State of the World's Children 2008 by UNICEF
• UNICEF statistical review: Progress for Children
• Official MDG targets and indicators
• Survival rate to the last grade of primary school

Friedrich Huebler, 1 February 2009, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/02/sowc.html

Educational attainment in Brazil since 1920

Brazil is likely to reach the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 94 percent of all children of primary school age (7 to 10 years) were enrolled in primary school in 2005. Data from the 2006 National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD), analyzed in an article on school attendance in Brazil, show that 99 percent of all children between 7 and 10 years were in pre-primary, primary or secondary education.

PNAD data can also be used to demonstrate how the education system in Brazil has expanded over the past decades. The PNAD survey collected information on the highest level of education attended for all persons in the sample. By comparing the highest level of education of persons born in different years it is possible to show the change in school attendance patterns over time. The following graph displays the highest level of education for persons born between 1920 and 2000. Household members born in 2000 were 5 or 6 years old at the time of the survey in 2006.

Highest level of education attended by year of birth, Brazil 1920-2000

Data source: Brazil National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), 2006.

Only 59 percent of all Brazilians born in 1920 ever attended school, and three out of four persons who attended school never went beyond primary education. Primary, secondary and tertiary school attendance rates increased steadily over the following decades. By the 1960s, nine out of ten Brazilians were able to receive a formal education. 91 percent of all persons born in 1960 attended at least primary school, 58 percent in this age group attended at least secondary school, and 14 percent went to a university.

The expansion of the primary education system began to slow down in the 1960s, after it had already reached a high level of coverage, but secondary school attendance rates continued to grow at a rapid pace. Among persons born in 1990, 98 percent attended primary school and 90 percent attended secondary school. Among persons born in 1994, 99 percent attended primary school. The peak value for participation in secondary education is 91 percent for persons born in 1988.

Fewer Brazilians have tertiary education, but almost one fifth of the population born around 1980 had attended a university or other institution of higher education by the time the PNAD survey was conducted in 2006. The peak value for participation in tertiary education is 19 percent for persons born in 1981.

Data sources

• Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD), 2006
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Data Centre, January 2009

Related articles

• School attendance in Brazil
• Educational attainment in India, 1950-2000
• Educational attainment in sub-Saharan Africa
• Trends in primary school enrollment, 1970-2004
• Universal primary education by 2015: A goal out of reach?
• UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2008
• Official MDG targets and indicators

External links

• UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• MDG 2: Universal primary education

Friedrich Huebler, 24 January 2009, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/01/brazil.html