Education & Inequality Economics of Education (Honours) Nic Spaull Nicspaull.com 5 May 2015 Overview of todays lecture 1.DEFINITIONS How do we define inequality? 2.SIZE How large are income/education inequalities? 3.DIMENSIONS Unequal access/quality/inputs/outcomes? 4.LINKS What are the links between educ ineq & inc ineq? 5.PERSISTENCE Why is inequality so persistent? 6.CONCLUSIONS What can be done going forward? Education & Inequality: DEFINITIONS How do we define inequality? How does education influence these inequalities? Income inequality? Earnings Inequality of opportunity? Access / life chances Political inequality? Power relationships Social inequality? Class Race Gender Language EDUCATION What do we mean when we say inequality? Unequal access to education? EFA movement, gender equality? Unequal access to quality education? Unequal ability to benefit from quality education? More stringent definition of equality (see Fiske & Ladd, (2004) Equal treatment, equal educational opportunity, educational adequacy) Unequal inputs? Unequal outcomes? Education & Inequality: SIZE How large is income inequality in South Africa? Is it increasing/decreasing over time? Leibbrandt et al 2010 How large are educational inequalities? Quantifying learning deficits in Gr3 Following Muralidharan & Zieleniak (2013) we classify students as performing at the grade- appropriate level if they obtain a mean score of 50% or higher on the full set of Grade 3 level questions. 7 Figure 1: Kernel density of mean Grade 3 performance on Grade 3 level items by quintiles of student socioeconomic status (Systemic Evaluation 2007) (Grade-3-appropriate level) 51% 11% 16% Only the top 16% of grade 3 students are performing at a Grade 3 level Taylor, 2011 NSES question 42 NSES followed about students (266 schools) and tested them in Grade 3 (2007), Grade 4 (2008) and Grade 5 (2009). Grade 3 maths curriculum: Can perform calculations using appropriate symbols to solve problems involving: division of at least 2-digit by 1-digit numbers 9 Even at the end of Grade 5 most (55%+) quintile 1-4 students cannot answer this simple Grade-3-level problem. The powerful notions of ratio, rate and proportion are built upon the simpler concepts of whole number, multiplication and division, fraction and rational number, and are themselves the precursors to the development of yet more complex concepts such as triangle similarity, trigonometry, gradient and calculus (Taylor & Reddi, 2013: 194) (Spaull & Viljoen, forthcoming) 10 Insurmountable learning deficits Spaull & Viljoen, 2015 Figure 10b: South African mathematics learning trajectories by national socioeconomic quintiles using a variable standard deviation for a year of learning (0.28 in grade 3 to 0.2 in grade 8 with interpolated values for in-between grades (Based on NSES 2007/8/9 for grades 3/4/5, SACMEQ 2007 for grade 6 and TIMSS 2011 for grade 9, including 95% confidence interval Dropout between Gr8 and Gr12 Of 100 Gr8 quintile 1 students in 2009, 36 passed matric and 10 qualified for university Of 100 Gr8 quintile 5 students in 2009, 68 passed matric and 39 qualified for university Contrary to what some would like the nation and the public to believe that our results hide inequalities, the facts and evidence show that the two top provinces (Free State and North West) are rural and poor. (Motshekga, 2014) 11 Matric 2014 (relative to Gr 2 in 2004) 12 Numbers Grade 2 (2004) Grade 9 (2011) Grade 12 (2014) Passed (2014) Bachelors (2014) ,000 students drop out before matric 99% do not get a non-matric qualification (Gustafsson, 2011: p11) What happens to them? 50% youth unemployment 13 Numerous correlated dimensions Given the apartheid-era policies, it is unsurprising that the inequalities we see in South Africa can be seen along a number of correlated dimensions, including Language, Geographical location, Socioeconomic status, Race Former department Education & Inequality: DIMENSIONS Language... PIRLS 2006 PIRLS Gr 5 (Shepherd, 2011) prePIRLS 2011 prePIRLS Gr 4 (Howie & Van Staden, 2012) By Gr 3 all children should be able to read, Gr 4 children should be transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn Red sections here show the proportion of children that are completely illiterate in Grade 4, i.e. they cannot read in any language Former department NSES (Taylor, 2011) Taylor, 2011 Socioeconomic status... Average grade 8 science test scores for middle-income countries participating in TIMSS 2011 (+95% confidence intervals around the mean) SACMEQ III (2007) Distribution of student reading scores by quartiles of school socioeconomic status (Spaull, 2013) SACMEQ III (2007)TIMSS Science (2011) Geography/space Yamauchi, 2011 Spatial inequalities Geography becomes critical when access to opportunities is distributed unevenly over space (Yamauchi, 2011) Under apartheid limited movement for non- whites Positive correlation between school quality and school fees, quality education remains concentrated in formerly white, coloured and indian schools where the majority is non- African. Current (de facto / de jure) zoning policies Bimodality indisputable fact 20 PIRLS / TIMSS / SACMEQ / NSES / ANA / Matric by Wealth / Language / Location / Dept Education & Inequality: LINKS We can see that SA is unequal, but what are the generative and propagating mechanisms of that inequality? Spatial segregation & differential physical access to labour- markets Even when individuals do have access to labour-markets many lack the currency (skills) to transact ECD Primary & secondary Tertiary Labour-market Possible to intervene at each stage. When is it best to intervene and how? Taxes? BEE? ECD? Elusive equity Type of education Quality of education Duration of education SA is one of the top 3 most unequal countries in the world Between 78% and 85% of total inequality is explained by wage inequality Wages IQ Motivation Social networks Discrimination Labour Market AttainmentQualityType 23 High SES background + ECD High quality primary school High quality secondary school Low SES background Low quality primary school Low quality secondary schoo l Unequal society High productivity jobs and incomes (17%) Mainly professional, managerial & skilled jobs Requires graduates, good quality matric or good vocational skills Historically mainly white Low productivity jobs & incomes Often manual or low skill jobs Limited or low quality education Minimum wage can exceed productivity University/ FET Type of institution (FET or University) Quality of institution Type of qualification (diploma, degree etc.) Field of study (Engineering, Arts etc.) Vocational training Affirmative action Majority (80%) Some motivated, lucky or talented students make the transition Minority (20%) -Big demand for good schools despite fees -Some scholarships/bursaries QLFS 2014 The impact of SES on reading/maths (SACMEQ III 2007 Gr 6) Spaull, 2013 Almost 40% of SA student reading achievement can be explained by socioeconomic status (31 assets, books, parental education) alone. In South Africa socioeconomic status largely determines outcomes (with a very small number of exceptions see newspapers for those exceptions) Indication of wasted human capital potential (see Schleicher, 2009) Education & Inequality: PERSISTENCE Hereditary poverty Low social mobility Low quality education Distribution of (and control over) productive resources (& inheritance) determine the levels of inequality in society Labour (NB Education) About 80% of total income ineq is explained by wage inequality Capital Inheritance laws/practices Social networks Formal (nepotism/patronage) Informal (in-group discrim) Bartholomeu Diaz Jan van Riebeck French Hugenots 1795 Cape Colony Annexed (British) Apartheid | AD Migrants from E-Africa first farmers in Africa DEMOCRACY HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA IN 5 MINUTES NB Inertia & institutional memory, especially for social institutions like schools and universities Education & Inequality: CONCLUSIONS South Africa is the most unequal country in the world Education is unlike the other areas of social policy in that it has the greatest potential to change the GENERATIVE mechanisms of the income distribution rather than just reallocate some of the wealth once already earned. Education is the generative mechanism that the State has most control over RE policy in that there is the least resistance to reform (compared to changing inheritance laws for example). Without understanding/acknowledging that educational inequality is at the heart of income inequality its nave to think you can change the distribution of income. Questions If not the quality of education, what is the driving force behind income inequality? Demand-side factors > supply-side?! Why is it so difficult to change educational outcomes? (20 years since 1994!) What are the key interactions between education and health/social-security? References & further reading Fiske, E., & Ladd, H. (2004). Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post-apartheid South Africa. Washington: Brookings Institution Press / HSRC Press.Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post-apartheid South Africa. Fleisch, B. (2008). Primary Education in Crisis: Why South African schoolchildren underachieve in reading and mathematics. Cape Town. : Juta & Co.Primary Education in Crisis: Why South African schoolchildren underachieve in reading and mathematics Donalson, A. (1992). Content, Quality and Flexibility: The Economics of Education System Change. Spotlight 5/92. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations.Content, Quality and Flexibility: The Economics of Education System Change Taylor, S., & Yu, D. (2009). The Importance of Socioeconomic Status in Determining Educational Achievement in South Africa. Stellenbosch Economic Working Papers.The Importance of Socioeconomic Status in Determining Educational Achievement in South Africa Van der Berg, S., Burger, C., Burger, R., de Vos, M., du Rand, G., Gustafsson, M., Shepherd, D., Spaull, N., Taylor, S., van Broekhuizen, H., and von Fintel, D. (2011). Low quality education as a poverty trap. Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch, Department of Economics. Research report for the PSPPD project for Presidency.Low quality education as a poverty trap Spaull, N Poverty & Privilege: Primary School Inequality in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development. 33 (2013) pp (WP here)Poverty & Privilege: Primary School Inequality in South Africahere Spaull, N South Africas Education Crisis: The Quality of Education in South Africa Centre for Development and Enterprise.South Africas Education Crisis: The Quality of Education in South Africa