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Lucubrate Magazine, Issue 29, July 22th, 2018
Education has always been inextricably linked to development. Quality education decreases poverty, promotes health and provides economic growth. Improving education is the key to creating more sustainable societies.
Photo: Pixaby
The fact that rural children are profoundly affected by hunger and malnutrition has also severely affected their learning ability. As such, food security and primary education should be addressed at the same time to give rural people the capacity to feed themselves and overcome hunger, poverty, and illiteracy. Social protection brings together all efforts for education and food security towards increased effectiveness.
Differences between boys and girls
Girls are more likely than boys to remain excluded entirely from education, despite the efforts and progress made over the past two decades. Around 15 million girls of primary school age will never have the opportunity to learn to read and write in primary school, compared to about 10 million boys. Across sub-Saharan Africa, 9 million girls will never attend school compared to 6 million boys. In total, 34 million children between the ages of 6 and 11 are out of school across the region. One-third of these children will start at a later period, but almost half will remain entirely excluded, with girls facing the most significant barriers. [1]
The gender gap is even wider in Southern Asia, where four out of five out-of-school girls will never enter the formal education system, compared to two out of five out-of-school boys. About 5 million girls compared to 2 million boys are permanently excluded from education. Girls not in school have the highest proportion of early school leavers among all regions with data. [1].
The Global Picture of Education
In 2016, 263 million children, adolescents, and youth were out of school, representing nearly one-fifth of the global population of this age group. The number of children, adolescents, and youth who are excluded from education fell steadily in the decade following 2000, but data show that this progress essentially stopped in recent years; the total number of out-of-school children and youth has declined by little more than 1 million per year since 2012 (see figure under).
Behind these figures, children and youth is being denied the opportunities to get a fair chance to get a decent job, to escape poverty, to support their families, and to develop their communities.
Millennium Development Goal 2
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
The second of the eight development goals launched at the turn of the century called for every child in the world, boys and girls alike, to receive a full course of primary school education by 2015. Progress towards this lone target has been measured by looking at how many children enroll in primary education, how many complete the process, and how many 15- to 24-year-olds can read and write (see figure)
Increase the Number of Qualified Teachers
Increasing primary school enrolment without making provision for improved access to secondary and higher education was a fundamentally flawed strategy. Governments and donors supported the education goal by building and equipping new primary schools, in the process creating a burgeoning generation of young learners. But not enough provision was made for what would happen further down the line. The consequences of this approach are perhaps nowhere more apparent than in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than half of children old enough to be in secondary school are no longer in education, even though the region has recorded the most significant increase in primary school enrolment since the turn of the century. In some cases, buildings and books were emphasized over the more basic aim of improving literacy. Moreover, inadequate resources made it difficult to reduce class sizes, increase the number of qualified teachers, promote better teacher training or enhance academic curricula. Building more schools while neglecting to populate them with enough skilled teachers who were paid on time was not a recipe for success. [2]
Photo: Samer Daboul
Collaboration for Good Education
Over the last 15 years, governments and their partners have shown that political will and concerted efforts can deliver tremendous results – including halving the number of children and adolescents who are out of school. Moreover, most countries are closing in on gender parity at the primary level. Now is the time to redouble our efforts to finish what we started. But we must not stop with primary education. In today’s knowledge-driven economies, access to quality education and the chances for development are two sides of the same coin. That is why we must also set targets for secondary education while improving quality and learning outcomes at all levels. That is what the Sustainable Development Goal on education, which world leaders will adopt this year, aims to do. Governments should work with parent and teacher associations, as well as the private sector and civil society organizations, to find the best and most constructive ways to improve the quality of education. Innovation has to be harnessed, and new partnerships must be forged. [3]
Picture: Artem Bali
From Primary to Secondary Level
Many programmes that target primary and secondary school-age children tend to have a more significant impact on secondary than primary school attendance. To benefit from secondary level curricula, students must possess the necessary skills from previous education stages. Due to the poor quality of the previous schooling or education interruptions, many disadvantaged students enter secondary education with learning deficits that hinder learning, reduce motivation and push them to drop out. More personalized support or counseling can help such students catch up with their more privileged peers and fully participate in secondary schooling.[1]
Picture: Peace Alberto Iteriteka
Can we Jump off the Dropout?
In a report made by UNESCO, they suggest policies and interventions prevent dropout [4]. The report uses data from Sub-Sahara Africa. The report points out that it is clear that the number of children enrolled in school has increased over time. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of children who start primary school is not completing this cycle. There are many factors associated with drop out, some of which belong to the individual, such as poor health or malnutrition and motivation.
Picture: Follow Alice
Others emerge from children’s household situations such as child labor and poverty. School-level factors also play a role in increasing pressures to drop out such as teacher’s absenteeism, school location, and poor quality educational provision. The system of educational requirement at the community level generates conditions that can ultimately impact on the likelihood of children to drop out from school. Therefore, both demand and supply driven factors, are embedded in cultural and contextual realities, which make each circumstance different. Nevertheless, it is possible to make general points about the causes of dropout.
The Report Concludes Following [4]:
- Dropout rates have to be tackled in conjunction with reductions in average in particular at higher grades of primary school.
- Flexible schooling hours and systems, together with multi-grade and multi-age teaching approaches and appropriate language of instruction, can help to reduce dropout rates.
- Providing micro-enterprise support for poor households is necessary for improving school retention.
- Improved child health and nutrition and dealing with the gendered nature of the process of drop out, are essential to improve retention and completion of primary school.
- Although extra resources to tackle drop out at school community level may be useful, given the range of factors – economic, social, health which is likely to interact to impact participation and completion of schooling, a comprehensive sector-wide approach with interconnectivity between relevant government departments would achieve more sustainable impact on eliminating or drastically reducing school dropout.
- There is not one single intervention that will solve the complexity of the process of school dropout. It is essential to take into account the possible externalities of different responses.
- Country-specific research can be instrumental in identifying appropriate policies and interventions.
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References
[1] UNESCO POLICY PAPER 27/ FACT SHEET 37 (2016) [2] The Guardian, 23 Apr 2015, Last modified on 31 May 2017 [3] Børge Brende, World Economic Forum (07 Jul 2015) [4] Ricardo Sabates, Kwame Akyeampong, Jo Westbrook and Frances Hunt: School Dropout: Patterns, Causes, Changes and Policies, UNESCO (2010)
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