Showing posts with label tertiary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tertiary. Show all posts

Monday, April 30, 2012

School attendance among 5- to 24-year-olds in Liberia

An article that was published on this site in July 2011, "School attendance by grade and age in Liberia", shows that overage school attendance is very common in Liberia, mainly due to late entry into the education system. The official primary school age in Liberia is 6 to 11 years according to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). Yet, an analysis of data from a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) from 2007 demonstrates that the vast majority of pupils in primary and secondary school in Liberia are older than the theoretical age for their grade. For example, nearly three quarters of all first-graders in Liberia are at least 3 years older than the official entrance age into primary education (see Figure 1). 24% of all first-graders are 5 or 6 years overage, 14% are 7 or 8 years overage, and 5% are 9 or more years overage. Children in the last group start primary school at age 15 or later.

Figure 1: Age distribution of pupils in primary and secondary education in Liberia, 2007
Graph with data on overage and underage pupils in primary and secondary education in Liberia
Source: Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2007. - Click image to enlarge.

Figure 1 shows the age distribution in the 12 grades of primary and secondary education in Liberia. The same DHS data from 2007 can also be analyzed differently, by single year of age instead of by grade. Figure 2 presents the level and grade attended for the population between 5 and 24 years of age. For each age group, the graph shows the percentage in pre-primary, primary, secondary, and tertiary education. The data for primary and secondary education is further divided into single grades, indicated by shades of blue for the 6 primary grades and shades of green for the 6 secondary grades. In addition, Figure 2 shows how many percent are out of school and for how many percent the level and grade of education attended is missing.

Figure 2: Level and grade of education attended by population 5-24 years in Liberia, 2007
Graph with data on school attendance by age in Liberia
Source: Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2007. - Click image to enlarge.

One surprising finding is the large percentage of children between 5 and 14 years who are in pre-primary education. About half of all 5- to 8-year-olds, 39% of all 9-year-olds, and 28% of all 10-year-olds are in pre-primary education. Even at age 14, nearly 7% are still in preschool. One possible explanation is that parents keep their children in pre-primary education due to lack of access to primary education.

Some children start attending primary education at age 5 or 6 but most children enter late. Even among persons 20 years or older, some are still in the first primary grade. School attendance overall reaches a peak at age 14, when more than 86% are in school, mostly in primary education. Primary school attendance rates are highest among 12- to 15-year-olds; two out of three children in this age group are in primary education. Secondary school attendance reaches a peak at age 19, when 38% are in secondary education; in addition, at least 30% of all 17- and 18-year-olds are in secondary education. Attendance rates for tertiary education are low and do not exceed 2% until age 24, when 4% study at a university or other institution of higher learning.

The percentage of the population that is not in any type of formal education decreases from 44% among 5-year-olds to 13% among 14-year-olds. From age 15, out-of-school rates increase again and among 23- and 24-year-olds in Liberia, 61% and 60%, respectively, are not in school. Lastly, for a small percentage of the DHS sample, the grade and level attended was missing.

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Friedrich Huebler, 30 April 2012, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2012/04/liberia.html
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Saturday, March 31, 2012

World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education

Cover of the UNESCO gender atlasUNESCO and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) have published a new World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education that illustrates the participation of girls and boys in pre-primary, primary, secondary, and tertiary education. The data show that there has been significant progress towards gender parity since the 1970s. Two thirds of all countries have reached gender parity in primary education but at the secondary level of education girls are still lagging behind. In some countries, girls have the advantage with regard to access to and completion of education. At the tertiary level, female students outnumber male students in many high-income countries.

The atlas is divided into eight chapters that contain a total of 28 maps and close to 100 charts and tables:

  1. Increased worldwide demand for quality schooling
  2. Girls’ right to education
  3. Enrolment and gender trends: primary education
  4. Enrolment and gender trends: secondary education
  5. Enrolment and gender trends: tertiary education
  6. Trends in school-life expectancy
  7. Gender trends: adult and youth literacy
  8. How policies affect gender equality in education
An excerpt from Chapter 7 on literacy is shown below. The map (please click the image for a larger view) visualizes adult literacy rates from the database of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Among countries with data, literacy rates are lowest in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The highest adult literacy rates are observed in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. For many developed countries, the adult literacy rate is unknown because these countries have achieved universal primary education and no longer report data on the traditional literate-illiterate dichotomy, focusing instead on the more narrowly defined concept of functional literacy.

The atlas is available in English, French and Spanish. In addition, UNESCO and UIS plan to launch an online e-atlas with interactive maps.

Excerpt from World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education: Map with adult literacy rates
World map with adult literacy rates
Source: UNESCO, 2012, World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education, pages 92-93. - Click image to enlarge.

Reference

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Friedrich Huebler, 31 March 2012, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2012/03/atlas.html
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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Educational attainment in sub-Saharan Africa

The educational attainment of a country's adult population reflects long-run trends in participation in primary, secondary and post-secondary education. Educational attainment is a measure of human capital - the skills and competencies of the population - and thus an indicator of a country's potential for economic growth. Educational attainment is also closely linked to health, political participation, and other indicators of social development.

Compared to other regions, educational attainment in sub-Saharan Africa is relatively low but there are large variations between individual countries. The graph and table below present data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), published in the Global Education Digest 2011. The values for each country indicate which percentage of the population aged 25 years and older completed at least primary, lower secondary, upper secondary, post-secondary, or tertiary education. For example, in Seychelles, 90% of the adult population completed at least primary education, 67% at least lower secondary education, and 44% at least upper secondary education. At the other end of the distribution is Burkina Faso, where only 5% of the adult population completed at least primary education and only 2% at least lower secondary education.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Population 25 years and older by minimum level of education
Graph with educational attainment in sub-Saharan Africa
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Global Education Digest 2011, Table 19. - Click image to enlarge.

Among the 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for which UIS has data, only seven - Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe - have attainment rates for primary education at or above 50%. In the remaining eight countries with data - Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, and Uganda - less than half of the population 25 years and older completed at least primary education. For Benin, the share of the population with completed primary education is unknown because the country reported combined figures for incomplete and complete primary education; 16% of the population attended primary education with or without completing that level (see Global Education Digest 2011, Table 18).

Similar to the attainment rates for primary education, attainment rates for other levels of education also vary widely between individual countries. The proportion of the population that completed at least lower secondary education ranges from 2% in Burkina Faso to 70% in South Africa. For upper secondary education, the attainment rates range from 0.5% in Burkina Faso to 44% in Seychelles. Not more than 0.5% of the adult population completed post-secondary education in Burkina Faso and Malawi, compared to 12% in South Africa. Completed tertiary education is uncommon among the population 25 years and older in sub-Saharan Africa. Only one country, Seychelles, has an attainment rate for tertiary education greater than 3%.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Population 25 years and older by minimum level of education
Country Year Level of education (%)
Primary Lower secondary Upper secondary Post- secondary Tertiary
Benin 2002
 .
 14.3
 .
 2.2
 2.2
Burkina Faso 2007
 5.2
 2.0
 0.5
 0.3
 0.2
Chad 2004
 8.5
 5.5
 .
 3.2
 3.2
Kenya 2010
 59.4
 41.9
 36.3
 6.3
 0.0
Lesotho 2008
 40.9
 20.9
 13.8
 5.4
 1.9
Malawi 1998
 19.8
 8.6
 5.2
 0.5
 0.5
Mali 2006
 18.6
 10.3
 5.5
 1.9
 1.9
Mauritius 2000
 48.9
 38.9
 20.3
 7.9
 2.6
Namibia 2001
 48.5
 27.7
 17.0
 5.3
 2.2
Senegal 2006
 10.7
 7.5
 4.9
 3.2
 0.8
Seychelles 2002
 90.3
 66.8
 44.2
 .
 7.4
South Africa 2009
 76.4
 70.4
 35.7
 11.8
 0.7
Tanzania 2002
 48.9
 6.0
 1.6
 .
 0.9
Uganda 2008
 34.6
 23.4
 8.7
 6.8
 1.8
Zimbabwe 2002
 65.1
 45.9
 10.3
 9.1
 1.5
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Global Education Digest 2011, Table 19.

When interpreting the educational attainment data for sub-Saharan Africa it is necessary to consider that the reported values for some countries are more than a decade old. As younger, more educated cohorts reach age 25, the average attainment rates of the population 25 years and older increase and the situation of some countries is therefore likely to have improved since the year of reporting. In addition, the picture is incomplete because for 30 of the 45 countries in the sub-Saharan Africa region, as defined by UIS, no educational attainment data is available in the UIS Data Centre.

Reference
  • UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2011. Global Education Digest 2011: Comparing Education Statistics Across the World. Montreal: UIS. (Download in PDF format, 7.5 MB)
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Friedrich Huebler, 26 February 2011, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2012/02/ssa.html
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Monday, January 3, 2011

Educational attainment in the United States, 1940-2009

In the United States, the level of education of the adult population has increased steadily since the middle of the 20th century. The share of the population 25 years and over who attended college increased from 10 percent in 1940 to 56 percent in 2009. 30 percent of the population in this age group had completed 4 or more years of college in 2009. The share of the population with only elementary education or no formal schooling fell from 60 percent in 1940 to 6 percent in 2009. High school reached its peak as the most common level of education in the 1970s and 1980s, with a share around 50 percent, but younger cohorts are more likely to continue their education at the post-secondary level.

This increase in educational attainment of the work force has contributed to a strengthening of U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. At the same time, the increased demand for highly skilled workers emphasizes the importance of secondary and higher education for individuals in search of employment.

The trends in years of schooling of the adult U.S. population from 1940 to 2009 are visualized in the figure below. The table that follows lists data for selected years. The data on educational attainment were collected with the Current Population Survey (CPS), a joint survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau that has been conducted since 1940.

Years of school completed by population 25 years and over, 1940-2009
Graph with trends in educational attainment in the United States from 1940 to 2009
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, September 2010

Years of school completed by population 25 years and over, 1940-2009
Years of school Percent of population
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2009
0 to 4 years elementary school 13.5 10.8 8.3 5.3 3.4 2.4 1.6 1.4
5 to 8 years elementary school 46.0 36.1 31.4 22.4 14.1 8.8 5.4 4.1
1 to 3 years high school 15.0 16.9 19.2 17.1 13.9 11.2 8.9 7.9
4 years high school 14.1 20.1 24.6 34.0 36.8 38.4 33.1 31.1
1 to 3 years college 5.4 7.1 8.8 10.2 14.9 17.9 25.4 26.1
4 or more years college 4.6 6.0 7.7 11.0 17.0 21.3 25.6 29.5
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, September 2010

Data source
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Friedrich Huebler, 3 January 2011, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2011/01/usa.html
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