education in the commonwealth(final[i])

7/31/2019 Education in the Commonwealth(Final[i])

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EDUCATION IN THE COMMONWEALTHTowards and Beyond The InTernaTIonally agreed goals

T Mf | Mk B


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i

Education in the Commonwealth

owards and Beyond the Internationally Agreed Goals

rey Meneee and Mark Bray

Report Commissioned or the 18th Conerence o CommonwealthEducation Ministers (CCEM) in Mauritius, 28-31 August 2012, basedaround the theme Education in the Commonwealth: Bridging the Gap

as we Accelerate owards Achieing Internationally Agreed Goals


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iii

About the Authors

rey Meneee is a member o the Comparatie Education Research Centre (CERC) atthe Uniersity o Hong Kong. He has been ailiated with the uniersity since begin-ning a Master o Education there in 2007. His work has ocused on adult education,tertiary education, and teacher training in both the public and priate sector in anumber o countries. He has also worked as a legislatie chairman and adiser ora uniersity goernance body. His research areas include sustainable deelopment,ciil society issues in deelopment, policy analysis, and complex adaptie systemsanalysis.

E-mail: [email protected]

Mark Bray is UNESCO Chair Proessor in Comparatie Education and Directoro the Comparatie Education Research Centre (CERC) at the Uniersity o HongKong. He has worked at that uniersity since 1986, prior to which he taught in sec-ondary schools in Kenya and Nigeria and at the Uniersities o Edinburgh, PapuaNew Guinea and London. Between 2006 and 2010 he took leae rom the Uniersityo Hong Kong to hold the post o Director o UNESCOs International Institute orEducational Planning (IIEP) in Paris. He has written extensiely in the ields o

comparatie education and administration and inancing o education.

E-mail: [email protected]


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i Education in the Commonwealth

Contents

About the Authors iiiAcronyms and Abbreiations ii

Foreword iii

HE GOALS AND HEIR ACCOMPANYINGFRAMEWORKS 1

Te Education or All Goals 1Te Millennium Deelopment Goals 3

MEASUREMENS AND MONIORING 5

Enrolment 5Literacy 9Lie Skills 10Gender Equity 10Comparatie Units o Analysis 11Forecasts 12

SAUS AND RENDS IN HECOMMONWE ALH BY GOAL 17

Zones o Exclusion 19Pre-Primary Enrolment 21Primary Enrolment 27Adult Literacy 38Gender Parity in Enrolment 42Quality 51

ADvANCED ECONOMY C OMMONWEALHCOUNRIES 60

Australia 76Canada 78Cyprus 80Malta 82New Zealand 84

Singapore 86United Kingdom 88


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AFRICAN COMMONWEALH COUNRIES 90Botswana 106

Cameroon 108Te Gambia 110Ghana 112Kenya 114Lesotho 116Malawi 118Mauritius 120Mozambique 122

Namibia 124Nigeria 126Rwanda 128Seychelles 130Sierra Leone 132South Arica 134Swaziland 136Uganda 138United Republic oanzania 140Zambia 142

ASIAN COMMONWEALH COUNRIES 144Bangladesh 160Brunei Darussalam 162India 164

Malaysia 166Maldies 168Pakistan 170Sri Lanka 172

CARIBBEAN COMMONWEALH COUNRIES 174Antigua and Barbuda 190

Te Bahamas 192

Barbados 194Belize 196Dominica 198


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i Education in the Commonwealth

Grenada 200Guyana 202Jamaica 204Saint Kitts and Neis 206

Saint Lucia 208Saint vincent and the Grenadines 210rinidad and obago 212

PACIFIC COMMONWE ALH COUN RIES 214Kiribati 230Nauru 232Papua New Guinea 234

Samoa 236Solomon Islands 238onga 240ualu 242vanuatu 244

REFERENCES 246


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ii

CCEM

ECCEEFAGERGDPGPIHDI

ISCED

MDGNERPISA

SACMEQ

UISUN

UNESCO

Conerence o Commonwealth

Education MinistersEarly Childhood Care and EducationEducation or AllGross Enrolment RatioGross Domestic ProductGender Parity IndexHuman Deelopment Index

International Standard Classiication oEducationMillennium Deelopment GoalNet Enrolment RateProgramme or International StudentAssessmentSouthern and Eastern Arica

Consortium or Monitoring EducationalQualityUNESCO Institute or StatisticsUnited NationsUnited Nations Educational, Culturaland Scientiic Organization

Acronyms and Abbreviations


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iii Education in the Commonwealth

Foreword

he irst eer comprehensie report on the progress made by Commonwealthcountries in achieing the Millennium Deelopment Goals (MDGs) inEducation and the Dakar Education or All (EFA) Goals was produced

and presented at 16th Conerence o Commonwealth Education Ministers(CCEM) held in 2006, in Cape own, South Arica. On the occasion, Ministersdirected the Secretariat to proide regular reports o Commonwealth progresson achieing the MDGs in education and Education or All Goals, and to giepriority to member countries at risk o not achieing MDG targets by 2015.

he present report is issued in the context o the 18th CCEM which takesplace three years beore the inal account o MDGs in Education and EFAgoals in 2015. In this regard, the report proides a timely reminder on theprogress and achieements to date, analysis o the current adancement,emerging trends and gaps. he report urther identiies strategies andmechanisms that can be applied towards the achieement o the goals andensure momentum o acceleration, as proclaimed by the theme o the 18thConerence o Commonwealth Education Ministers.

According to the report, despite the signiicant improement recorded byindiidual countries in relation to the EFA and MDGs targets, 23.3 millionprimary-aged children are still out o school in the Commonwealth. Aricahas the largest share o out o school primary-aged children with 14.7 million

ollowed by Asia with 8.3 million. he our large population states (India,Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh) account or 79.9% o the 23.3 millionprimary-aged children out o school in the Commonwealth.

he progress o member countries in meeting the goals is assessed in a dynamicmanner. In addition to tracking documented progress, this report buildsorecasts and identiies useul ways o showing anticipated progress. heseidentiied mechanisms will be critical in assisting countries to determineeorts and resources that they need to deploy in order to accelerate andsustain achieements.

he perormance o countries against the achieement o uniersal primaryeducation and gender equality shows a mixed picture. Some o the remarkableimproements oer the recent years occurred in countries which were at risko not achieing uniersal primary education. Kenya and Mozambique werepart o this group and based on the most recent data are orecast to achieeuniersal primary education by 2015. Howeer, countries such as Namibia,Malawi, and Lesotho are projected to hae a decrease in net enrolment ratesby 2015, i speciic measures are not taken to accelerate achieement.

Much o the Caribbean is at risk o not just meeting the EFA Goal 2/MDG 2,but also o sliding backwards. In Asia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India couldlose gender equity status by 2015 i current trends are not modiied.


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ix

Based on the most recent statistics aailable, the median primary enrolmentrate in the Paciic Commonwealth countries is 97.1. his median is orecastto decrease slightly to 96.5 in 2015; howeer this should be iewed withcaution as three out o eight Paciic Commonwealth countries are short o

data necessary or a 2015 orecast.

he luctuation o enrolment rates as recorded in Arica, Asia, Caribbeanand Paciic regions, suggests that countries are exposed to a dual challenge intheir eorts to reach the goals: striing to attain the goals and sustaining theirachieements.

he report presents the Adanced Economy region a cluster that aggregatescountries rom dierent geographic regions sharing deelopment eatureswhich are statistically similar and comparable. As measured by net enrolmentrate, the median o this region is 99.0 and orecast to increase slightly to 99.3 in2015. Canada, Cyprus, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom hae essentiallyuniersal enrolments. Malta is the only Adanced Economy country in whichuniersal primary enrolment by 2015 looks unlikely.

As the international community and countries moe towards the end o theEFA and MDGs period, and engage in a consultatie process through whichthe content and scope o the post-2015 will be deined, the report on theperormance o Commonwealth countries in achieing the internationally

agreed goals is timely and proides basis to support indiidual countries andglobal assessment.

he global and regional perspectie complemented by country analysis,makes the report a aluable policy and planning tool or member countries,deelopment partners and stakeholders committed to supporting educationin the Commonwealth.

I commend this report to you as essential reading in the lead-up to the18th Conerence o Commonwealth Education Ministers in August 2012 inMauritius.

Dr. Sylia J. AnieDirectorSocial ransormation Programmes Diision

Commonwealth Secretariat


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x Education in the Commonwealth


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2 Education in the Commonwealth

Education For All Goals Set in

Dakar (2000)

Goal 1:Expanding and improingcomprehensie early childhood careand education, especially or themost ulnerable and disadantagedchildren

Goal 2: Ensuring that by 2015 allchildren, particularly girls, children

in diicult circumstances and thosebelonging to ethnic minorities haeaccess to and complete, ree andcompulsory primary education ogood quality

Goal 3: Ensuring that the learningneeds o all young people and adultsare met through equitable access toappropriate learning and lie-skills

programmes

Goal 4:Achieing a 50 per centimproement in leels o adultliteracy by 2015, especially orwomen, and equitable access to basicand continuing education or alladults

Goal 5: Eliminating gender dispari-

ties in primary and secondary educa-tion by 2005 and achieing genderequality in education by 2015, with aocus on ensuring girls ull and equalaccess to and achieement in basiceducation o good quality

Goal 6: Improing all aspects o thequality o education and ensuringexcellence o all, so that recognised

and measurable learning outcomesare achieed by all, especially inliteracy, numeracy and essential lieskills

Countries were inited to set their own targets during the 1990s or:expanded early childhood care and deelopmental actiities; uniersalprimary education; improed learning achieement;reduced adult illiteracy rates; expanded trainingor youth and adults; and increased acquisition byindiiduals and amilies o the knowledge, skillsand alues required or better liing and sound andsustainable deelopment (WCEFA 1990a: 53). hegreatest prominence was gien to the second o these,o which the wording in ull orm was:

Uniersal access to, and completion o, primaryeducation (or whateer higher leel o educationis considered as basic) by the year 2000;

en years later, the ollow-up World Education Forumwas conened in Dakar, Senegal. he 164 nationaldelegations again included most Commonwealthcountries and were accompanied by representatieso international bodies including the Common-wealth Secretariat (WEF 2000). he delegates notedprogress in some domains but shortalls in others.

hey renewed commitment to the EFA ideal, and setsix speciic goals which are the principal ocus o thisreport. hree o the goals set the target date o 2015,with Goal 5 haing an additional target date o 2005.

he principal ealuations o progress towards theEFA goals hae been the annual/biennial EFA GlobalMonitoring Reports produced by UNESCO. Eachreport has had a statistical appendix, in addition to

which the main text has ocused on a particular themeas ollows:

2002: Education or All - Is the world ontrack?

2003/4: Gender and Education or All 2005: he Quality Imperatie 2006: Literacy or Lie 2007: Early Childhood Care and Education

2008: Education or All by 2015 Will WeMake It? 2009: Oercoming Inequality why goern-

ance matters


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3The Goals and Their Accompanying Frameworks

Millennium Development

Goals

Goal 1:Eradicate extremepoerty and hunger

Goal 2: Achiee uniersal

primary education

arget: Ensure that all boys andgirls complete primary school.

Goal 3:Promote gender equalityand empower women

arget: Eliminate gender dispar-ities in primary and secondaryeducation preerably by 2005,and at all leels by 2015.

Goal 4:Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improe maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIv/AIDS,malaria and other diseases

Goal 7:Ensure enironmentalsustainability

Goal 8:Deelop a GlobalPartnership or Deelopment

2010: Reaching the Marginalized 2011: he Hidden Crisis Armed Conlict and

Education 2012: Skills Deelopment (in preparation)

he mid-term reiew pointed out that the Goal 5 target o gender-parityby 2005 had already been missed (UNESCO 2007: 12). Only 59 o the181 countries with data had no gender disparities in both primary andsecondary education. Most o these countries already had gender parity

in 1999, and only three countries had eliminated genderdisparities between 1999 and 2005. More positiely, thereport noted ery signiicant progress in both primaryand lower secondary school enrolments, especially orgirls, in some o the countries and regions that had acedthe greatest challenges in 2000. he quality o educa-tion was increasingly seen as a perasie issue, and bothearly childhood care and education (ECCE) and learningopportunities or youth and adults, including in literacy,had suered rom continued neglect by national goern-ments and the international community.

Further updates are aailable not only through the EFAGlobal Monitoring Reports but also through websitesincluding that o the UNESCO Institute or Statis-tics (www.uis.unesco.org). hey indicate signiicantachieements since the EFA goals were set in 2000, buta strong need or persistence. Details on achieementsand shortalls will be eident in the sections o thisreport that ollow.

Te Millennium Development Goals

he MDGs were also set in 2000, emerging rom aUnited Nations General Assembly meeting rom 6to 8 September. he eight MDGs are listed in the box onpage 3. he two most pertinent to the education sectorare MDGs 2 and 3. Speciic targets were deeloped oreach goal, and those or MDGs 2 and 3 are indicated inthe box.

Comparison o the MDGs and the EFA goals showscomplementaries and oerlaps. MDG2 corresponds tothe EFA Goal 2, though without mention o quality oro compulsion and ree proision o education. MDG3


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doetails with the EFA Goal 5, though again without mention o quality.Oerall, the EFA goals are broader than the MDGs.

Just as UNESCO has published a set o regular EFA Global MonitoringReports, the United Nations has published a set o annual reports

ocusing on the MDGs (e.g. United Nations 2005, 2011). In addition,the United Nations has hosted arious high-leel eents to maintaincommitment and ocus on the MDGs. For example, the 2010 Plenary oMeeting o the General Assembly led to a resolution entitled Keepingthe Promise: United to Achiee the Millennium Deelopment Goals(United Nations 2010).


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5Measurements and Monitoring

Measurements andMonitoringEectie monitoring o progress towards the goals requires eectie

measurement. his is easier or some goals than or others. Consider-able progress has been made since 2000 both in deining appropriatemeasures and in collecting data to it the required categories. Howeer,some ambiguities and shortcomings remain. his section commenceswith remarks on the basic statistics beore turning to matters o inter-pretation.

Almost all statistics in this book that make it to charts come romUNESCO Institute or Statistics (UIS). In a ew exceptions, statistics are

taken rom other sources. Exceptions, as much as possible, are speci-ied in the text. Primarily the exceptions come rom StatPlanet, whichin turn pulls data rom the World Bank. Most Recent Statistic is acommon term ound throughout the book. In general, most statisticsare or 2009 or 2010.

Enrolment

Discussion on the measurement o progress towards the interna-

tionally agreed education goals should start with the premise thatthe ideas coneyed in the goals are easier to understand and agree onthan they are to design statistical measures or. We all might know whatproide ree and compulsory education or all means, but there areno easy ways to measure its progress as either a single measurement oreen a dozen. All o the statistical metrics used in this book are at bestaluable proxy measurements.

EFA Goal 2, or instance, is to proide ree and compulsory primary

education or all. hree separate goals are packed inside this: thatprimary education be ree, that primary education be compulsory, andthat eery child be gien this ree and compulsory primary education.In practice, compulsory and ree education is commonly neither. In


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many instances, central goernments pass laws declaring tuition to beree but do so as an ununded mandate. his is to say the laws are passedwithout additional public unding to make up or the lost tuition ees.Schools then oset their inancial loss through other means, such asbook and uniorm ees. Other barriers, like access to aordable trans-

port to school, keep een more students out. Neither schools nor parentsare punished or these missing children. hus simply checking whetheror not laws and regulations demanding ree and compulsory educationexist is o questionable worth. Detailed national and sub-national leelresearch to explore the ull actual costs o primary education to pooramilies is necessary to gain a ull picture.

Because o these diiculties, most discourse ocuses on the easier tomeasure primary education or all part o the sentence rather thanthe ree and compulsory. Howeer, een this wording is problematic.Measurement o progress towards the MDGs and EFA objecties isoten done with simple enrolment rates. hese indicators are the ocuso MDG2 and EFA Goal 2, and underlie MDG3 and most o the otherEFA Goals. But who are the all in EFA Goal 2? Are they all primaryschool-aged children or also teenagers and pre-teens that were deniedaccess earlier in lie? Monitoring reports commonly reer to both:

Gross Enrolment Ratios (GERs): the total number o childrenenrolled in (pre-) school as a proportion o the number ochildren in the releant oicial age group, and

Net Enrolment Rates (NERs): the number o children enrolledwho are actually in the releant oicial age group, i.e. excludingchildren who are younger or older.

o understand the dierence between these two metrics, it is useul tothink o a rural illage with a new primary school where limited options

existed beore. he total number o primary school-age children in thisillage is 100, which becomes the denominator or both the gross enrol-ment ratio and net enrolment rate. Were 120 children to begin takingcourses in this school (i.e., enrol) the GER would be 120. his meansthat the metric only expects that 100 students should be there, but 120are enrolled. We would assume that the additional students are oer-age,either because o a lack o prior access or because they are repeatinggrades.

Were only hal o those students in the new illage primary school ooicial primary school age, which usually ranges rom between theages o six and 12, the gross enrolment ratio would remain 120 but thenet enrolment rate would be 60. It is worth noting that both net enrol-


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ment rates and gross enrolment ratios capture repeating students, whichmeans that o those 60 primary-aged students, many might be repeatinggrades. I grade repetitions increased, the net enrolment rate would alsoincrease. o correct or this, a metric called Adjusted Net EnrolmentRate was deised to count only those students enrolled in the intended

grade or their age. he diiculty in accurately measuring a statistic likethis, described below, means that many Commonwealth countries haeno estimated adjusted net enrolment rates.

It is urther worth noting that both net enrolment rates and gross enrol-ment ratios capture only the most basic measurement o participation.Neither capture attendance, or instance. A illustratie example is thatUganda has a lower net enrolment rate than anzanias (90.9 ersus 98.0),but Ugandas net attendance rate is 85.6 ersus anzanias 80.6. his ismeant not to comparatiely judge the perormance o either Ugandaor anzania, but to say that educational participation requires a morecomplex analysis than enrolment statistics alone proide.

Gross enrolment ratios should be iewed in such a way that the closerto 100 a system is, the healthier it is. A system with a gross enrolmentratio below 100 has potential students not enrolled at the leel o educa-tion being measured, while a system with a rate oer 100 has studentsenrolled who are not at the intended age. hus, a high gross enrolmentratio can mask a low net enrolment rate measuring how many studentsare progressing through the system as intended.

hese obserations show that the tools aailable to measure an idea likeeducation or all seem to cast nets either too widely or too narrowly,either counting students who arguably should not be counted or ignoringthem to ocus exclusiely on whether or not children are receiing educa-tion at a pre-ordained appropriate age. Yet goal achieement needs to be

measured i it is to be an eectie policy tool. It is important to use asingle metric where moement either up or down means that the systemis objectiely better or worse than it was beore. Ideally an educationor all metric should hae a maximum score o 100, representing the100% o all.

A country (or proince, district, etc.) may appear to hae uniersalprimary education because o a 100 score as measured by the grossenrolment ratio, but may actually be ar rom the goal as measured by

the net enrolment rate. Unless the number o grade-leel repeaters isgrowing, an increase in net enrolment rate is unambiguously a positiedeelopment. An increase in gross enrolment, howeer, paints a morecomplex picture o enrolment patterns. It is worth noting that many o


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the countries with the highest gross enrolment ratios in the Common-wealth are the countries urthest rom reaching other internationallyagreed goals.

Consequently, net enrolment rates are preerred indicators in this book

when the data are aailable. Broadly rephrased, it means that childrenreceie primary education and adolescents receie secondary education.A primary net enrolment close to 100 indicates that children are moingthrough an education system in a way that would more easily allow orprogression at the next leel. A child enrolled at the intended age orprimary school is more likely to moe on to secondary school, just asstudents enrolled at the intended age o secondary school will hae lessdiiculty moing on to a tertiary institution than students who repeatgrades or miss seeral years o schooling.

Neertheless, there is still alue in measuring and monitoring grossenrolment ratios. For a country whose education system is expandingwhen little existed beore, a high gross enrolment ratio might indicatethat students are taking adantage o educational opportunities thatwere not aailable at the intended age o enrolment. An example is enrol-ment in Indias secondary education system, where the net enrolmentrate is 25.8 and the gross enrolment ratio is 60.2. his indicates that

while only a quarter o youth are on a conentional secondary educationtrack, more than twice as many are participating in secondary educa-tion in some orm. India should be applauded or haing programmesthat reach out to youth who otherwise might be dropouts, while at thesame time acknowledging that much work remains to raise net enrol-ment rates. So while the aims o this book lead to a preerence or netenrolment rates, a holistic approach to ealuating and understandingeducation systems would include analysis o both net enrolment ratesand gross enrolment ratios.

Net enrolment rates require accurate inormation not only on thenumbers o children enrolled but also on the number o children oparticular age groups in the population. he latter igure may be partic-ularly diicult to estimate precisely, gien that censuses are usuallyconducted at inrequent interals and themseles commonly encounterprocedural challenges.Going urther, een the statistical reporting on enrolments may not

be easy. First they rely on schools proiding complete and accuratenumbers and second, they are based on the assumption that once a childis enrolled in school then the child actually attends. In practice, childrenmay attend only intermittently or drop out altogether at some point ater


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the reported enrolment date.Going urther still, een i children are enrolled in school and do attend,it cannot always be assumed that they learn a lot. For a ariety o reasons,children may not pay attention in class and the quality and their instruc-tion may leae much to be desired. Some communities suer rom

high rates o teacher absenteeism, rom teachers who are less than ullycompetent, and rom lack o books and other learning materials. Forthese reasons, EFA Goals 1, 2 and 6 speciically include ocus on thequality o proision. UNESCOs EFA Global Monitoring Report hasnoted two deinitions o quality. he irst ocuses on learners cognitiedeelopment and uses measures o success with which systems achieesuch cognitie deelopment as an indicator o quality. he second,which is more diicult to assess and compare across countries, is therole o education in nurturing creatie and emotional deelopment andin promoting alues and attitudes o responsible citizenship (UNESCO2004: 17).A secondary indicator or EFA Goal 2 is primary completion rate, whichis represented in this book by the proxy indicator Gross Intake Rateto the Last Grade o Primary. his is deined as the total number onew entrants in the last grade o primary education, regardless o age,expressed as a percentage o the population o the theoretical entrance

age to the last grade (UNESCO Institute or Statistics, 2005; p. 17).Caution should be taken with this number or the same reason gienaboe or gross enrolment ratios. For isual ease and clarity o purpose,Gross Intake Rate to the Last Grade o Primary is labelled as PrimaryCompletion Rate in the book.

Literacy

EFA Goal 4, about literacy, is also diicult to measure. On this theme,

the EFA Global Monitoring Report noted our discrete understandings(UNESCO 2005: 148):

Literacy as an autonomous set o skills Literacy as applied, practised and situated Literacy as a learning process Literacy as text

Een the irst o these, which is the most common understanding insoar

as it relates to skills o reading and writing, encounters challenges indeinition and measurement, particularly when comparing across erydierent categories o languages such as Arabic and Chinese. Analystsmay not agree on the interals in measurements o literacy or on the


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instruments or securing those measurements.

his book attempts to assess goal progress by irst calculating the goalitsel, which is oten a diicult task. Many Commonwealth countries haeno 2000 literacy data aailable. When multiple data points are aailable,

the 2000 data are estimated rom the same linear regressions used toconstruct 2015 orecasts. he illiteracy rate is then cut by hal and addedto the literacy rate as the goal. hus, i a countrys 2000 literacy rate is 70,the illiteracy rate is 30, so the country must increase literacy/decreaseilliteracy by 15 percentage points (which has a dierent meaning thansaying by 15 percent). In some situations, only one data point is aail-able or a country. For the sake o haing a goal, one is constructed romthe aailable data. his means that some countries are ascribed goals oryears other than 2000. his will be shown in the report cards.

Lie Skills

EFA Goal 3 is also challenging to measure. King (2011: 1) pointed outthat much o the ocus o the 2010 EFA Global Monitoring Report underthis heading (see UNESCO 2010, e.g. p.6) was about technical andocational skills rather than lie skills. his emphasis has been carriedthrough to the 2012 report (UNESCO 2012, in press). Indeed technical

and ocational skills are important and they can perhaps be measuredmore easily than lie skills insoar as they emerge rom ormal institu-tions that parallel schools and uniersities. Howeer, the goal itsel isbroader than technical and ocational skills.With this in mind, the book omits Goal 3 rom the report cards due to thelack o common, comparable, or widely collected statistical indicators.Een where such indicators do exist, it is diicult to use them in isolationor subjectie judgment. hough nonormal educational opportunities

should be expanded, sometimes nonormal programmes are proidedat the expense o ormal educational opportunities or the same popula-tion groups. As Nordteit (2005) obseres, many nonormal educationprogrammes are poor education or poor citizens. hus while educa-tion systems can and should proide nonormal methods or outreachwhen appropriate, the conentional wisdom and message o the rest othe EFA discourse prioritizes the deelopment and expansion o theormal school system.

Gender Equity

Another report card indicator is the Gender Parity Index, which is calcu-


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lated by diiding emale enrolment by male enrolment. his createsa number such that gender equality equals one, and alling aboe orbelow one represents under-enrolment by either gender. Conention-ally, this has been presented as a bar chart, which makes it look likehigher numbers are better. his is because conentional wisdom has

been that boys are almost always oer-represented in education systemto the detriment o girls, especially in lower income countries. But,like gross enrolment, higher numbers are not always better and signiyproblems ater they pass the desired goal. In many countries, or exampleSeychelles and New Zealand, boys are not competing academically aswell as girls. hus, or better isual understanding, this book sets theX axis at one so that bars jut out on either let or right depending onwhich gender is oer-represented. In regional country comparisons theY axis is used.

Comparative Units o AnalysisOn the country report card pages, this book proides comparatieindicators alongside eery statistic. One comparatie indicator measuresprogress throughout groups o Commonwealth countries at speciicdeelopmental leels as measured through the Human DeelopmentIndex (HDI) o the United Nations Deelopment Programme (UNDP).

he UNDP (2012) describes the HDI as a new way o measuring deel-opment by combining indicators o lie expectancy, educational attain-ment and income into a composite human deelopment index. heHDI aims to relect what is oten colloquially called standard o liingor quality o lie. It is oten used as a substitute to purely economicindicators like Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP/pc) to measure

Illustration 1: How the Human Development Index is created.


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deelopment. he UNDP claims (2012) that, the breakthrough or theHDI was the creation o a single statistic which was to sere as a rameo reerence or both social and economic deelopment.All but two Commonwealth countries (Nauru and ualu) hae recent

indiidual HDI scores that can be seen on the let-hand report card page,beneath the national lag. Nauru and ualu hae had HDI scores, butthe most recent was 1998 or both. With ew exceptions, this book cutsrecent data collection o at 2000. he scores are then grouped intoour categories o human deelopment used by the UNDP: very High,High, Medium, and Low. he medians o the scores or all the countrieswithin each HDI grouping allow comparison o the net enrolment rate oBotswana, or instance, with the aggregate median progress o countriessuch as India and Kiribati. A wider oeriew and statistical breakdowno Commonwealth countries o enrolment, literacy, and gender parityindicators can be seen in the ollowing chapter.he second comparatie indicator proided on the report cards is aregional median. he regions were careully selected or comparability,and dier rom most other Commonwealth regional clusters. Includedare our strictly geographic regions: Arica, Asia, the Caribbean, andthe Paciic. Alongside them is an Adanced Economy region, a term

and grouping taken rom the International Monetary Fund (IMF).his region represents what is oten described as the non-geographicglobal North, which contrasts with the non-geographic global Southo Asia, Arica, and South and Central America. It remoes Australiaand New Zealand rom a Paciic clustering, and Singapore rom an Asiaclustering. hus Singapore is compared with more deelopmentallycomparable countries, and the Asian sample becomes more statisticallysimilar.

Medians were speciically chosen as the aggregate indicator so thatapproximately hal the countries would be aboe, and hal would bebelow. Using medians also allows smoothing out some o the outlyingstatistical behaiour. In practice, this controls or lower-perormingcountries, since most medians are higher than means.

Forecasts

In addition to tracking documented progress, this book presents

orecasts. he orecasts are useul in two ways. First, many o the mostrecent igures date back to 2009 which was the year o the KualaLumpur Conerence o Commonwealth Education Ministers which also


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addressed the MDGs and EFA goals. Second is that a single numberhides a great deal o moement, usually in a positie direction. Lookingat 2009 data in 2012 to estimate the likelihood o achieing a 2015 goalis likely to paint a picture that is more pessimistic than reality. Proidinga orecast is a useul way o showing that moement as it relates to the

goal achieement.he orecasts are made using a linear regression expressed with theequation a+bx. he symbol b represents the slope o the regressionline, or how steep the line o best it is with the indicator oer time.It is a calculation o how ast an indicator such as net enrolment rateis alling or rising. he symbol a represents the intercept point, herethe year 2015 when both the internationally agreed EFA and MDGgoals are supposed to hae been reached. he symbol x represents theariable being measured, such as adult literacy or net enrolment. A morecomplete equation is:

wo orecasts are made: one long and one short. he long orecastbuilds a slope rom data reaching back to about 2000, while the short

orecast uses data going back to 2005, i.e. one decade beore the goal.he past two decades hae brought rapid educational expansion inmany countries. he orecasts are weighted 70/30, such that the long-term trend is weighted as 70% o the total and the short-term trend isweighted as 30%. his is because it becomes increasingly diicult toreach marginalized populations the closer a system gets to uniersalenrolment. Moing an NER rom 70% to 80% in 10 years is easier thanmoing rom 80% to 90%, and signiicantly easier than 95% to 100%.

As an example o the weighted orecast system, the pre-primary NERor Mauritius was 70.8% in 2000, 86.0% in 2005, and 88.8% in 2010 (thelatest statistic aailable). he long orecast is 99.1% or 2015, while theshort orecast is 90.9%. he weighting system incorporates some othe long-term stability and momentum rom the long orecast, whiledampening it with the loss o momentum seen in the short orecast, bycombining the two as 96.7%. Where no short orecast is aailable, thelong orecast is used.

he orecasts are o course only as reliable as the quality o data aailable.In cases o strong doubt, some orecasts hae been remoed. For example,there are only two aailable statistics or Pakistans pre-primary NER:36.0% in 2003 and 40.1% in 2004. Such a substantial moement oer


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two years would gie an 80.6% NER i extrapolated out to 2015. Whilethe momentum might hae been sustained, there is insuicient statis-tical stability rom which to orecast such an increase with accuracy. Assuch, orecasts like this hae been remoed rom charts and rom bothregional and human deelopment leel medians.

When iewing the orecasts, readers should bear in mind two consid-erations. he irst is the dierence between accuracy and precision. heorecasts are accurate in that they show a general historical trajectorywith the best inormation aailable. Much like weather orecasting, it ismuch easier to predict whether tomorrow will be hotter or colder thantoday (accuracy) than to predict tomorrows high and low temperature(precision). Adding to the accuracy and statistical stability is that theUNESCO Institute or Statistics (UIS) updates its historical enrolmentand literacy estimates based on constantly reised demographic data.For instance, a 2010 census o adults can help recalibrate demographicestimates rom the early 2000s. Howeer, this accuracy should not bemistaken or precision. Many o the numbers needed or accurate assess-ment o the extent to which the 2015 goals hae been reached will not bepublished until 2017 or ater.

o see what the equation looks like in practice, the longitudinal enrol-

ment and gender parity charts in Chapter 4 can be compared. hosecharts present the means o regional scores or each year, by region andHDI leel. here is a certain statistical instability because data or manycountries are not reported eery year. he calculations are based on anaggregate o means oer 10 years, rom which a line o best it moingout to 2015 can be constructed. A straight line built by the oerallmoement can be created out what otherwise looks like chaotic data.his system proides isual insights into the possibilities and limita-tions o this sort o inormation. It is clear when looking at those charts

that the linear regression is accurate at a macroscopic leel because thatdoes indeed appear to be the trend. Howeer, it is almost certainly notprecise.Another consideration is that multiple ariables would need to be actoredin to make more precise orecasts. Demographic data, or instance, arenot computed as part o the linear regression. Some countries haespare capacity in schools ater the passing o a boom generation. heopposite is more common in many Arican countries, where een ast

growing education systems hae diiculty keeping pace with astergrowth o student-aged populations. Other challenges concern highlycorrelated actors such as the economic trends. Around the world, higheconomic growth has correlated with massiication o education at all


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leels, though it is oten diicult to identiy causes and eects. hus, theorecasts come with the qualiier, gien the same background social,economic, and demographic trends. In some cases, like the earlier-cited Pakistan pre-primary NER, it is intuitiely clear that the samebackground trends are likely to be temporary in nature and that there

was not enough data to capture more accurate background trends.

Longitudinal Charts

he subtitle o this book is towards and beyond the internationallyagreed goals. One way to show goal progress is through presentingthe orecasts described aboe. While the orecasts are useul, they arestatic numbers and it is up to the reader to iner moements betweenyears. Consequently, longitudinal charts using the same mathematicsas orecasts hae been employed. hey are used to show moementin clusters like HDI and region, instead o as regional charts showingindiidual country progress.

he basic model is that data are set up rom 2000 to 2009, then tied toa 2012 orecast, and then gien a linear orecast line out to 2015. hedata in question are medians o regions and HDI groupings. One o thechallenges with constructing these charts is missing historical data. For

that reason, the year-to-year data trends can appear ery jumpy. Apolynomial regression is applied to show the oerall historical path andtrajectory o the data.

he working assumption is that, in aggregate, abnormalities cancel eachother out and show a general trend. Put another way, or these charts tobe alid points o data, it would hae to be assumed that whether or nota country has data or a year is random that high-scoring countriesdo not oer-represent low-scoring countries or ice ersa. his can be

compared to lipping a coin. I a coin is lipped a hundred times, oneshould not expect the pattern to be heads, then tails, and then back toheads or each lip. here will be long stretches o ie or een 10 headsin a row. What matters is the longer-term statistical trend, such thatlipping a coin 100 times should produce 50 heads and 50 tails. hemore the coin is lipped, the closer to 50/50 the distribution becomesbut also the more likely that atypical clusters appear. Data collection oenrolment statistics took o ater the Dakar declaration in 2000, butrecent years are still being computed or most countries. hus, this book

uses the largest possible sample size possible to date to construct theselongitudinal charts.


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Box and Whisker Charts

hroughout the next chapter, box and whisker charts are presentedto show ranges o data within countries. In these charts, three numbersare gien high, median, and low. he charts show how indicators aredistributed in each country grouping. he high represents the highestscore in the grouping, and low the lowest score or each region. With thegender parity index a high score is not necessarily desirable.

Individual Country Report Card Data

he great diersity o demographic, economic, and deelopmentaldierences in Commonwealth oten makes cross-country comparison

diicult. For this reason, data hae been proided in the let-hand barbelow lags on indiidual country report card pages. he data includepopulation, population growth rate, percentage o the population belowthe age o 14, GDP/per capita, an inequality metric called a Gini coei-cient, the HDI score, and the amount o public educational spending asa percentage o GDP. All data or this sidebar hae been taken rom theCIA World Factbook.


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17Status and Trends in the Commonwealth by Goal

Status and rends in theCommonwealth by GoalAlthough the internationally agreed goals will not all be reachedthroughout the Commonwealth, major accomplishments haebeen achieed. anzania, or example, had a primary net enrolment rateo 53.1 in 2000 but today is close to uniersal enrolment according toUIS statistics. And the pre-primary net enrolment rate in Antigua andBarbuda rose rom 40.1 in 2000 to 70.1 in 2008. Maintenance o thatpace would take the net enrolment rate to 94.0 in 2015. It usually takestremendous political will and dedication to raise enrolment rates somuch in such a short period. As Lewin (2008) pointed out, the pace oexpansion o educational access in deeloping countries ar exceeds thehistorical record o the richest, most deeloped countries. he interna-

tionally agreed goals demanded or many countries in 15 years what tooka generation in the United Kingdom and Australia. his is somethingto be lauded but should also temper expectations. So while some mightconsider that India, or instance, might objectiely hae ailed to meetits EFA/MDG primary enrolment goal, its education system expandedrom haing less than eight in 10 children enrolled in primary school in2000 to haing oer nine o eery 10 children in school in 2010. his islikely tens o millions o children who otherwise might not hae beenenrolled.

A more nuanced ersion o success in achieing the internation-ally agreed goals would include assessment o momentum. As muchas possible, this book gies readers the ability to ealuate momentumthrough 2015 orecasts or longitudinal charts. Both the intensity anddirection o momentum towards (or away rom) goals will be objectso inquiry through this chapter, indiidual report cards and regionalanalysis.

In this connection it is oten useul to disaggregate the causes omomentum with a dierences o dierences method. An example isthe critique o the published results o the Millennium villages Project(Clemens and Demombynes, 2010). his project was launched in 10


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Arican countries as a set o deelopment demonstration sites in whichmany o the best practices in educational, agriculture, economic, publichealth, and social deelopment could be applied. A 2012 study showedrapid increases in the multiple indicators that had been targeted.Howeer, neighbouring illages without the interentions competed ery

well with and on some indicators had een stronger progress thanthe aid-unded illages. he question then arises whether educationalaccess is increasing in low and medium human deelopment countriesbecause it is demanded rom the bottom up by parents, communities,and goernments or because o the goals agreed upon and assisted byinternational institutions. Put a dierent way, the loor is rising, suchthat the poorest in most countries hae become wealthier, healthier, andbetter educated. he median GDP per capita in the Low HDI Common-wealth countries has increased by 78% since 2000, rom US$940 to anestimated US$1,682 in 2012 in current prices. his is the oundation orsustainable, sel-generated growth in educational access. It would seemthat deelopment begets deelopment.

At a Commonwealth-wide leel it is diicult to tell how much themomentum towards the goals is caused by external ariables such asoreign aid and policy directed at goal achieement, rather than bottom-up ariables such as economic growth and rural-urban migration.

People and goernments commonly inest in more education as theirpurchasing power increases, and cities proide more educational oppor-tunities than rural areas. Countries with the most rapidly improingdeelopment indicators and the highest rates o urbanization also haethe most rapidly increasing GDP per capita. At the same time, countrieswith already high incomes may lose momentum and hae a downwardtrajectory in enrolment growth.

hese bottom-up correlating ariables should not be seen as the only

means o achieing educational access, and not eery country in theCommonwealth can realistically expect high GDP per capita througheconomic growth. Yet all citizens hae a right to equitable, aordable,quality basic education or their children, and opportunities or adultsthrough non-ormal education. o say that urbanization is correlatedwith higher enrolment should not be taken as an excuse to concen-trate educational resources in cities at the expense o harder-to-reachrural areas. Families should not be expected to abandon the country-side to ind basic education or their children. Nonetheless, this is what

many amilies are doing because educational resources are concentratedin urban areas. Enrolment rates naturally rise when people lie nearschools.


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0

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articipating

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Zone 2

Primary Drop Outs

Primary Grades

Zone 1

Never

Enrol

Lower Secondary Grades

Zone 5 Drop Outs

Zone 6 At Risk

Zone ONo

Pre-

School

CREATE

Zones of Inclusion and

Exclusion

www.create-rpc.org

Access

No

Access

No

Access

No

Access

At Risk

Secure Enrolment, Attendance and Achievement

Zones o Exclusion

One helpul analysis o the challenges to achieement o EFA has beenpresented by Lewin (2008). He has ocused on Zones o vulner-ability and the arious spaces where children are included, excluded orat risk (p. 48). Lewin identiies clear and meaningul units o analysisor educational planners and policy makers to identiy and then reachchildren in need.

he irst zone o exclusion is the most releant to the spirit o theEFA Goal 2. Children in this zone o exclusion lie in low populationdensity areas and/or extreme poerty. Since conentional approachesto schooling are diicult to use eectiely or such groups, alternatie

approaches are needed. Students caught in this irst zone are cut o romalmost all subsequent educational leels. hese children mostly lie inlow and medium human deelopment (HDI) countries.

he second zone o exclusion is less isible but may hae larger numbers.It coers children that drop out with incomplete primary schoolingbelow the ormal age o employment. he best measures or this zoneare primary completion rates, comparing the Gross Intake Rate with theEnrolment Rate in the Last Grade o Primary. Using this metric, it may

be estimated that, as a median or Arican Commonwealth Countries, atleast 12% o students all into the second zone o exclusion.

he irst and second zones o exclusion are mainly ound at the lower

Illustration 2: Lewins (2007) Zones o Exclusion


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end o human deelopment in the Commonwealth. Among the knownout-o-school children o primary age in Commonwealth countries,82.6% are in Low HDI countries while another 16.2% are in MediumHDI countries. very High and High HDI Countries account or just 1.2%o known out o school primary-aged children in the Commonwealth.

Geographically, 99% o known out o school primary-aged children inthe Commonwealth are in Asia and Arica (35.7% and 63.5% respec-tiely). Further, 58% o out o school primary-aged children are in ourlarge population countries Nigeria, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.

he third zone o exclusion is harder still to measure. It encompasseschildren who are enrolled in school but not learning suiciently toeither gain basic skills or adance to the next leel. Such children may besilently excluded i their attendance is irregular, i their achieement istoo low to be able to ollow the curriculum, or i they are discriminatedagainst or socio-cultural reasons (Lewin, 2008: 49). hey are typiiedby low attendance and achieement, and by a high risk o droppingout. Lewin estimates that in some countries roughly hal o all enrolledstudents are in this category. Numbers are highest in early leels oprimary and reduce as courses become increasingly diicult, expensesescalate, and at-risk students drop out.

he ourth zone o exclusion comprises the students who make itthrough primary education but who or reasons o perormance orpoerty are excluded rom secondary education. Lewin obsered (2008:50) that this exclusion is important or EFA, since transition rates intosecondary aect demand or primary schooling, primary teacher supplydepends on secondary graduates, and gender equity at the secondaryleel is an MDG. Seeral countries in the Commonwealth, particularlyat the high and medium human deelopment leel, hae low secondaryenrolment numbers in proportion to primary enrolment successes.

he ith zone o exclusion is similar to the second zone in primaryeducation, in that it coers students who ail to progress to the end othe secondary cycle. Lewin noted (p. 20) that, the reasons or drop-outinclude poor perormance, aordability and loss o interest, and thatdemand to remain in school may weaken as a result o high opportu-nity costs where work is aailable. he sixth zone, in turn, mirrors theprimary-ocused third zone.


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Pre-Primary EnrolmentEFA Goal 1Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care andeducation, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantagedchildren

From one perspectie, EFA Goal 1 may be considered among othe easiest to achiee since it does not set a ixed score or eerycountry and instead just aims or expansion and improement. hisreport ocuses on the long-term trajectory rather than simply askingwhether there is more pre-primary enrolment today than there was in2000. hus, it asks whether pre-primary access has increased oer time,and by how much. he percentage o trained teachers can be used as

one proxy indicator to oerall commitment to increasing quality. hescarcity o data makes it impossible to measure the second hal o thegoal, especially or most ulnerable and disadantaged children, ora signiicant number o countries.

Pre-primary enrolment is deined by UIS as educational programmesbetween the ages o zero and six. his deinition ollows the rameworko the International Standard Classiication o Education (ISCED).Because pre-primary is deined by what it is not [primary], it encom-

passes all the ormal education that is receied prior to ISCED leel 1. Itis urther deined by the ISCED (UNESCO 1997) as:

...usually school-based or otherwise institutionalized in a contextorganised or a group o children (e.g. centre-based, community-based, home- based). ISCED leel 0 excludes purely amily-basedarrangements that may be purposeul but are not organized in aprogramme (e.g. inormal learning by children rom their parents,other relaties or riends). Dierent types o kindergartens might

or might not it under the pre-primary umbrella.

As measured by net enrolment rates, the Adanced Economy Common-wealth group leads the way with a median o 74.1. Within the samegrouping, the highest is 95.0 in Malta and the lowest is 50.6 in Australia.A common theme in pre-primary indicators is that small states dobetter, in general, than larger states with spread out populations (suchas Australia). his picture is complicated by the gross enrolment ratioor the group being (as is also typical) higher than the net, bringing

Australias enrolment igure up to 80.9. he lowest gross enrolmentratio in this group is in Canada, at 71.1. he rather large dierence isprobably explained by the act that unlike primary enrolments patterns,pre-primary enrolment usually occurs later closer to the inal age.


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LongitudinalPre-PrimaryNetEnrolmentBy

CommonwealthRegion

Asia

Caribbean

AdvancedEconomy

African

94.9688.76

92.2395.71

66.31

74.14

22.68

57.89

68.22

40.91

50.61

9.23

13.37

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010

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CommonwealthRegion

Asia

Carribean

AdvancedEconomy

Pacific

Sub-SaharanAfrica

111.21

96.66

113.92 112.97105.18

80.98

29.91

53.84

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59.84

71.07

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CommonwealthbyHumanDevelopmentLevel

VeryHighHDI

HighHDI

MediumHDI

LowHDI

95.71 93.97 92.23

40.10

74.1468.22

37.78

21.80

50.61

21.1013.31

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VeryHighHDI

HighHDI

MediumHDI

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61.00

84.5880.89

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29.40

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Kindergarten repeaters are oten not stigmatized with the same sense oacademic ailure that accompanies repeating a leel o primary school.

Continuing with medians, Arica has the lowest median pre-primaryenrolment by both gross and net measurements at 29.9 and 22.7 respec-

tiely. he Adanced Economies and Caribbean share ery similar grossenrolment ratio medians o 81.0 and 80.9. In net enrolment rate, theCaribbean is a ew points lower than the Adanced Economies 68.2.Below the Caribbean is Asia at 57.9 and the Paciic at 40.9.

Despite high scores, pre-primary enrolment does not appear to beconsistently expanding in the Adanced Economies. his group ocountries, in aggregate, is trending upwards slightly in net enrolmentrate such that the median net enrolment rate can be expected to be 83.2in 2015. While this is higher than the most recent statistic, this appearsto be a recoery back to higher enrolment patterns seen earlier in theearly 2000s. hough historical data are scarce or most regions, it wouldappear that Asias net enrolment rate is alling while the others are rising.

Most Commonwealth regions show a rise in gross enrolment ratio. heCaribbean is expected to hae the highest median gross enrolment ratioin 2015 at 99.6, ollowed by the Adanced Economies at 88, Asia at 79,

the Paciic at 69, and Arica at 39. Asia and the Caribbean hae thestrongest growth momentum, while Arica appears to be leelling outater earlier growth. By net enrolment rate orecasts, the Caribbean leadsat 80, ollowed by Adanced Economies at 78, Asia at 61, the Paciic at46, and Arica at 27.

hough the data aailable is limited, it would appear that the AsianCommonwealth region might be ailing to meet EFA Goal 1 as measuredby net enrolment rate. his picture is complicated by rising gross enrol-

ment ratios. here is not enough net enrolment rate data rom whichto either orecast or ollow the trends in the Paciic, but gross enrol-ment ratio shows ery little momentum ater a rise in the early 2000s.Enrolments might hae either lattened or continued rising and are nowalling. It is diicult to know which happened without more completedata.viewed through the lens o human deelopment, the very High HDICommonwealth countries are expanding gross enrolment ratio but at a

pace only slightly aster than Low HDI Commonwealth countries. Withthe exception o High HDI countries being higher than very High HDIcountries, 2015 gross enrolment ratio orecasts ollow the order o their

HDI leel highest-to-lowest


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Primary Enrolment

EFA Goal 2

Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children indifficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, haveaccess to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education ofgood quality.

MDG Goal 2Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, willbe able to complete a full course of primary schooling

o delineate the dierences between pre-primary and primary in

terms other than age, the ICSED deines the curricular boundaryas coinciding with the transition point in an education system wheresystematic teaching and learning in reading, writing and mathematicsbegins (UNESCO 1997). his includes kindergarten in some systemsbut not others. he ICSED states that:

Age is typically the only entry requirement at this leel. Te customaryor legal age o entry is usually neither younger than 5 years nor olderthan 7 years. Most programmes at this leel last 6 years, although their

duration ranges between our and seen years. Primary educationtypically lasts until age 10 to 12.

Chapter 2 has noted deinitional dierences between net enrolmentrate and gross enrolment ratio. It is worth repeating that enrolmentnumbers are more names in a book than children in seats, as it doesntmeasure attendance ater initial enrolment. Further, net enrolment ratesare considered a superior judgement o how successul a country is inachieing EFA Goal 2 and MDG 2 compared to gross enrolment ratios.

his is qualiied by saying gross enrolment ratios are not wrong oruseless, and that they still measure something important. Howeer,gross enrolment ratios are not proxy indicators or uniersal enrolment.With regards to these goals, a high number is not necessarily a desiredoutcome though a low number usually signiies low perormance. hemost challenged school systems oten hae either the lowest or thehighest gross enrolment ratios in the Commonwealth.

In under-perorming education systems, a high gross enrolment ratio

is certainly better than a low gross enrolment ratio, but a alling grossenrolment ratio accompanied by rising net enrolment rate oten showsthat a school system is moing to a state where students are progressingthrough the primary system at age-appropriate leels.


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African

Asia

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Pacific

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99.8 98.7 97.1 98.798.7 93.7

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Bangladesh

3.5%

Pakistan

5,100,000

26.6%

SolomonIslands

0.1%

Cameroon

0.9%

TheGambia

0.4%

Kenya

5.2%

Lesotho

0.5%Malawi

0.3%Mozambique

2.5%

Nigeria

10,500,000

54.8%

Rwanda0.1%

Uganda3.2%

Tanzania

0.7%

Zambia

1.0%

Distribu(onofOutofSchoolPrimary-AgedChildreninLow

HDICommonwealthCountries

India

2,300,000

60.5%

Maldives

0.03%

SriLanka

2.7%

Guyana

0.5%

Samoa

0.04%

Vanuatu

0.01%

Botswana

1.0%

Ghana

15.1%

Namibia

1.4%

SouthAfrica

18.0%

Swaziland

0.8%

Distribu(onofOutofSchoolPrimary-AgedChildreninMedium

HDICommonwealthCountries


45/261


uniersal primary enrolment as measured by UIS and deined by theICSED. Eery country is to some degree, in deicit. his might in part bebecause o a too strict deinition o enrolment. For instance, it is likelythat home-schooled students in the Adanced Economy grouping arenot being counted as enrolled when in act they are receiing a legally-

alid orm o education. Net enrolment rates are also based on popula-tion projections that are subject to error. Finally, at least some o the lastew percentiles missing beore ull enrolment in the Adanced Econo-mies and very High HDI countries are simply out o school youthcomparable to their counterparts in Low HDI countries. Many o thesepeople are part o socio-economically marginalized groups and/or liingin remote, low population density areas. In some settings, many o thenon-enrolled are migrants or reugees liing in the shadows o societyand araid to enrol children in school because they wish to remainhidden and mobile.

he internationally agreed goals are undamentally compacts betweengoernments and intergoernmental organizations rather than people.hus one interpretation o EFA Goal 2 and MDG 2 is that goern-ments should hae the institutional capacity or uniersal enrolment.his would mean that they hae the schools, seats, teachers, inancialresources, and (enorced) laws to educate eery child in their countries

regardless o gender, socio-economic or legal status, geographic isola-tion or ethnic background.

Only three countries in the Commonwealth Canada, New Zealandand the United Kingdom hae net enrolment rates oer 99. It mightbe that reaching a net enrolment rate o 97 or 98 could be considered tobe as close to uniersal enrolment as can be expected that the institu-tion has grown into a complete system, een i it does not hae uniersalenrolment. But attention should again be called to children in diicult

circumstances. Going rom a net enrolment rate o 98 to 99.5 mighttake as much energy, resources, and time as it took to go rom 90 to 97.

he Commonwealth countries that are already past a net enrolmentrate o 97 include Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Rwanda,Cyprus, vanuatu, anzania, the Bahamas, Kiribati, and Australia. By2015 the list may include Solomon Islands, Mozambique, Kenya, Belize,and rinidad and obago. hus by 2015, 15 Commonwealth countriesare likely to be near uniersal enrolment (or at least hae the institu-

tional capacity or uniersal enrolment), which is a growth o 50% romthe 10 countries in the most recent statistics aailable.

his progress is taken in large part rom the next tier o countries, those


46/261


he Commonwealth countries that are already past a net enrolmentrate o 97 include Australia, Canada, Cyprus, the United Kingdom,New Zealand, Rwanda, anzania, the Bahamas, Kiribati, onga, andvanuatu. By 2015 the list may include Solomon Islands, Mozambique,

Kenya, Belize, and rinidad and obago. hus by 2015, 13 Common-wealth countries are likely to be near uniersal enrolment (or at leasthae the institutional capacity or uniersal enrolment).

his progress is taken in large part rom the next tier o countries, thosewith net enrolment rates ranging rom 93.0 to 96.9. Below that is a largedegree o stability in lower brackets, with the bottom bracket swelling.his means that while many Commonwealth countries are doing better,some are getting worse. he number o countries with net enrolmentrates below 75 goes rom our with most recent statistics to seen in the2015 orecast. Saint Kitts & Neis, Jamaica, Uganda, and Guyana join thelist rom higher brackets. Also included in countries unlikely to achieeEFA Goal 2/MDG 2 (in ascending order rom net enrolment rate) areAntigua & Barbuda, South Arica, Namibia, Kiribati, Saint Lucia, Malta,Ghana, Grenada, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Botswana, Dominica, Saint

able 1: Primary Net Enrolment Rate (Most Recent)

Net

Enrolment

100 - 97 96 - 93 92 - 87 86 - 81 80 - 60 No Data

Advanced

Economy

AustraliaCanadaCyprusNew ZealandUnited Kingdom

Malta Singapore

Africa RwandaTanzania

MalawiMauritiusSeychelles

CameroonMozambiqueUgandaZambia

BotswanaGhanaKenyaNamibiaSouth Africa

Swaziland

LesothoGambiaNigeria

SierraLeone

Asia MaldiesMalaysiaSri Lanka

BangladeshIndia

Pakistan Brunei

Caribbean The Bahamas BarbadosBelizeDominica

Saint vincent &Grenadines

Trinidad & Tobago

Saint LuciaGrenada

Antigua & BarbudaSaint Kitts & NeisJamaica

Guyana

Pacifc KiribatiTongavanuatu

Samoa Solomon Islands NauruPapua NewGuinea

Tualu


47/261


vincent and the Grenadines, Malaysia, and Swaziland.

With only one exception in the HDI leel groupings, medians arehigher than the mean (the halway point between the highest and lowestnumber). his means that, in general, most school systems in a grouping

are more similar to the highest perorming school systems than thelowest or the middle space between the two.

Comparing most recent statistics and 2015 orecast by region, thereappears to be a stalling o progress in most regions and rapid progressin others. Commonwealth Aricas median rises by 5.2 to 93.5 in the2015 orecast, rom 88.2 with the most recent numbers to date. Progressis otherwise stalled in the Adanced Economies, the Paciic, and Carib-bean Commonwealth regions with median growth rates between themost recent statistic and 2015 all less than 0.5. he median net enrol-ment rate drops in Asia by 1.7, rom 93.1 to 91.5.

Approximately the same picture emerges with gross enrolment ratios.Howeer, there is more progress within the Adanced Economies,double the growth in enrolment in Arica as compared to net enrol-

Net

Enrolment

100 - 97 96 - 93 92 - 87 86 - 81 80 or

Less

No Data

Advanced

Economy

AustraliaCyprusNew ZealandUnited Kingdom

Malta CanadaSingapore

Arica anzaniaMozambiqueZambia

CameroonMalawiMauritius

BotswanaSwaziland

GhanaKenyaNamibiaSouth Arica

LesothoNigeriahe GambiaUganda

Rwanda

SierraLeone

Asia India Maldies BangladeshMalaysiaSri Lanka

Pakistan Brunei

Caribbean Belizehe Bahamas

rinidad &obago

Barbados BarbadosDominicaGrenada


Antigua &BarbudaSaint Lucia

GuyanaJamaica

Saint Kitts &Neis

Paciic Solomon Islandsonga

Samoa

vanuatu

Kiribati Nauru

PapuaNewGuinea

ualuvanuatu

able 2: Primary Net Enrolment Rate (2015 Forecast)


48/261


ment rate, and decreases in the Paciic and Caribbean where net enrol-ment rate shows only minor growth. his would seem to relect thatprimary enrolment patterns are normalizing in the small states suchthat there are ewer oer-age children in the system while the percentageo children reached at the appropriate age group has been increasing

slightly. Aricas 10 point expansion in gross enrolment ratio, doublethe expansion rate o net enrolment, could indicate that more childrenare taking adantage o educational proision that did not exist beore.It could also be the residual momentum o oer-age children beingenrolled in high numbers in Aricas primary education system. What itdoes mean is that more children are engaged in the primary educationsystem than beore, though they might not be progressing to urthergrades as much as they should. A rising gross enrolment ratio is gener-ally acceptable when the net enrolment rate also increases, and withArica it has increased dramatically oer the past decade.

With most recent statistics, the lowest high score is Medium HDIcountries at -2.9 points rom 100; and Low HDI and High HDI are tiedat -1.3. One remarkable change is that in each HDI leel grouping thelowest score becomes lower. he lowest score in Low HDI drops rom37.9 to 41.2 points away rom 100, while the lowest score in MediumHDI countries drops rom -19.4 to 31.8, and -18.0 to -25.1 in High HDI

countries, and rom 11.1 to 11.7 in very High HDI countries. Howeer,these low-end orecasts should be treated with caution since they repre-sent a general trajectory more than a precise projection. As was discussedin Chapter 2, many o these statistical trends are non-linear, but linear

Asia

8,300,000

35.7%

Caribbean

0.4%

AdvancedEconomy

0.3%Pacific

0.1%

Africa

14,800,000

63.5%

Distribu(onofOutOfSchoolPrimary-AgedChildrenin

theCommonwealthbyRegion


49/261


regressions are used because o their ubiquity in statistical analysis.hese low orecasts should be seen more as warnings than predictions.

he medians sink slightly between the most recent statistic and 2015orecast in Asia and the Caribbean Commonwealth countries. Asia, the

Paciic, and the Caribbean regions seemed trapped by the diiculties osustaining high net enrolment rates, as they all stall in the low- to mid-90s in net enrolment rate. As has been repeated oten in this book, thelast 10 percent is the most diicult.One inal, yet ery important, way o iewing EFA Goal 2 is to lookat the numbers hidden behind the enrolment rates. Among the morechallenging methodological aspects o a book like this are the massiedemographic dierences between the Commonwealth countries. heCommonwealth has some o the largest population dierences on Earthwith the second, sixth, seenth, and ninth most populous countries(India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Bangladesh) sitting alongside the secondand third smallest populations o any soereign country (ualu andNauru). he our most populous Commonwealth countries contain onein ie people alie on the planet today.

What this means in practice is that a net enrolment rate o 80 in a Paciicisland country means ar ewer out o school children than a similarscore in one o the larger states. his is not to say that raising net enrol-ments in smaller states is less important, but that raising them in largepopulation states impacts substantially more people.

VeryHighHDI

0.3% HighHDI0.9%

MediumHDI

3,800,000

16.2%

LowHDI

19,200,000

82.6%

Distribu(onofOutOfSchoolPrimary-AgedChildreninthe

CommonwealthByHumanDevelopment


50/261


he our large population states account or 79.9% o the 23.3 millionprimary-aged children out o school in the Commonwealth. Nigeriahas the largest share o out o school primary-aged children in theCommonwealth with 10.5 million, or 45.25%. Pakistan accounts or

the second largest share, at 22.0% o the total with 5.1 million childrenout o primary school. India accounts or 9.8% with 2.3 million out oschool primary school-aged children, and Bangladesh 2.9% or 679,000out o school children.

here are other useul groupings through which to look at the problemo out-o-school children. By Commonwealth region, Arica has 14.8million primary-aged children out o school, which accounts or 63.5% oall Commonwealth children out o school, and Asia 35.7% or 8.3 million.he Adanced Economies, Caribbean, and Paciic regions togetheraccount or less than 1% o the total known out o school children in theCommonwealth, but together still hae 175,000 primary-aged childrenout o school.

Looking at the issue through the lens o human deelopment groupings,19.2 million (82.6%) primary-aged children out o school are in LowHDI countries. Another 16.2% are in Medium HDI Commonwealth

countries, which represents 3.8 million children. Finally, there are215,000 out-o-school children in High HDI countries and oer 72,624in very High HDI countries, but together these represent only 1.2% othe total.

Adult Literacy

EFA Goal 4

Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by

2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and contin-uing education for all adults

Ealuating literacy progress depends in part rom the perspectie. Forclarity purposes, statistics are presented backwards as distancesrom goals. his is particularly useul or literacy goals since they aredierent or eery country. An 80% adult literacy rate, or instance,would be a major success or Bangladesh and Pakistan but a ailure ormost other Commonwealth countries.

It is worth noting just how dierent these goals are or dierentcountries. A 50 percent improement in literacy is better stated as a


51/261


reduction by hal. his means that or Australia a 0.5% increase wouldbe suicient to achiee Goal 4. Bangladesh, by contrast, would need toenrol and successully teach almost hal o its adult population in literacyprogrammes. Like many o the other goals, countries like Bangladeshwith a lot o momentum in reducing illiteracy rates should be applauded

instead o criticized or ailure.

he scores presented in ables 3 and 4 are calculations o the EFA Goalor each country minus its most recent statistic (able 4) or the its 2000data (able 3). hus two countries with ery dierent literacy ratesmight show the same gap between those numbers and the (dierent)goals, which the chart in able 4 helps illustrate. Similarly, countrieswith similar or the same literacy rate might hae a ery dierent scoreas measured by the distance to a goal.

Poorer countries in the Commonwealth hae done substantially moreto address these issues than wealthier countries. Both the Low HDI andthe Medium HDI Commonwealth median distance closed by aproxi-mately three percentage points (2.9 and 3.2) between the most recentstatistic and the 2015 orecast. very High HDI and High HDI Common-wealth gap medians rose by just oer one point, to 1.1 and 1.6. hatsaid, the median or very High HDI Commonwealth countries is statis-tically insigniicant, as only three o the nine countries had enoughhistorical data or the 2015 orecast. HDI grouping highest scores roseat the same pace as the medians. he loor, i.e. the lowest scores ineach grouping, was also raised signiicantly, especially in High HDIand Low HDI Commonwealth countries. Both had increases o oer sixpercentage points between the most recent statistic and 2015 with theirlowest perorming countries, though all human deelopment groupingsshow a rise.

viewed rom the perspectie o Commonwealth regional groupings,similar patterns emerge. Arica, Asia, and the Pacic are set to close theirmedian gap scores by 3.3, 3.3, and 2.1 percentage points respectiely. Boththe Caribbean and Adanced Economies seemed stalled at about hal thatrate o progress, with 1.7 and 1.3 percentage points respectiely. Howeer,there are not as many 2015 orecasts or either the Caribbean or AdancedEconomy groupings.

According to the most recent statistics, no Commonwealth country has

yet reached EFA Goal 4. Neertheless, there has still been considerableprogress and the most recent data is generally six years beore 2015 (2009).With net enrolment rates it was easy to say that 97-98 was about as goodcould reasonably be expected gien the perormance rom the richest, most


52/261


% Change inIlliteracy

1% or Less 1.1% to 3% 3.1% to 5% 5.1% - 10% 10% or More No Data

Advanced

Economy

Australia

CanadaNew ZealandUnited Kingdom

Cyprus Malta

Singapore

Arica NamibiaSeychellesSwaziland

KenyaLesothoMauritiusNamibiaSouth AricaSwaziland

BotswanaCameroonGhanaMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaRwandaSierra Leoneanzania

he GambiaUgandaZambia

Asia Maldies Sri LankaBrunei

Malaysia BangladeshIndiaPakistan

Caribbean Antigua & BarbudaBarbadosrinidad & obago

he BahamasDominicaGrenadaSt Kitts &Neis

GuyanaSaint Lucia

Jamaica Belize Saint vincent & Grenadines

Paciic ongaSamoa

SolomonIslands

Papua NewGuinea

vanuatu

KiribatiNauruualu

able 3: Percentage Drop in Adult Illiteracy Rate (2000-2015) Necessary to Reach EFA Goal 4

Asia

383,800,000

83.1%

Caribbean

0.1%

Advanced

Economy

0.05%

Pacific

0.4%

Africa

75,700,000

16.4%

Distribu(onofIlliterateAdultsintheCommonwealthby

Region


53/261


% Distance

From EFA

Goal

1% or Less 1.1% to 3% 3.1% to 5% 5.1% to10%

Greaterthan 10%

No Data

Advanced

Economy

AustraliaCyprus

SingaporeCanadaNew ZealandUnited Kingdom

Malta

Arica KenyaSwazilandLesothoNamibiaMauritiusSouth AricaSeychelles

BotswanaMalawi

CameroonGhanaMozambiqueNigeriaRwandaSierra Leoneanzaniahe Gambia

UgandaZambia

Asia MaldiesBrunei

Malaysia IndiaSri Lanka

Bangladesh

Pakistan

Caribbean Antigua &BarbudaBarbados

rinidad &obago

St Kitts & NeisGrenada

Dominicahe Bahamas

JamaicaGuyanaSaint Lucia

Belize Saint vincent & Grenadines

Paciic ongaSamoavanuatu Solomon

IslandsPapua NewGuinea

ualuNauru


Kiribati

able 4: Most Recent Statistic and Proximity to EFA Goal 4

VeryHighHDI

0.05%

HighHDI

0.4%

MediumHDI

297,900,000

64.5%

LowHDI

161,800,000

35.0%

Distribu(onofIlliterateAdultsintheCommonwealthBy

HumanDevelopment


54/261


economically deeloped countries in the Commonwealth. It is increasinglydicult to do this with literacy because many o the goals inole increaseso one percent or less. Countries in this category include Barbados, onga,Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Antigua and Barbuda,Samoa, and rinidad and obago. Expanding that list to include countries

with a goal o expansion o 3% or less would include Saint Kitts and Neis,Maldies, Cyprus, Grenada, the Bahamas, and Dominica.

Tis means that nine Commonwealth countries hae goals o 1% or less,another six hae goals between 1.1 and 3.0%, and nine countries hae goalsbetween 3.1 and 5.0%. Tus, 44% o the Commonwealth with data aailableonly need to shrink their adult illiteracy rate by 5% to reach Goal 4. wenty-e countries are le, then, with targets aboe a reduction by 5%. Teirta

education in the commonwealth(final[i])

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