My guide to integrating Stata and external text editors has been updated. I added a new section with supported editors. So far, six editors are listed: EmEditor, Hidemaru, jEdit, TextPad, Vim, and WinEdt.
If you know of other editors that work with the AutoIt scripts described in the guide, please leave a comment below or send a message to fhuebler@gmail.com so that I can update the list of supported editors.
Friedrich Huebler, 22 June 2006 (edited 29 June 2006), Creative Commons License
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
Blog categories
Starting today, all articles on this blog are organized into categories that are listed in the sidebar. This should make it easier for readers to find articles that interest them. Blogger, the host of my blog, is a powerful and flexible service but one feature is missing: it offers no way to organize posts by category. To find an article on India, for example, readers of this blog had to do a search or browse the archives. [Update December 2006: Blogger has introduced label management. See below for more information.]
Recently I discovered that blog categories can be implemented with the help of del.icio.us, a social bookmarking service. An article on Blogger Tips and Tricks describes an easy method to add categories to a blog. The steps are summarized below, for a detailed description please read the article Creating categories step-by-step.
The tag roll code by del.icio.us creates links in colors that vary with the number of articles within each category. I had selected black for all links on the tag roll customization page. This yields a code that contains the part color=000000-000000, where 000000 stands for black (see this RGB color palette). The first number is the color of categories with the smallest number of articles, the second number the color of categories with the highest number of articles. I changed this part to color=114488-114488, which makes all links appear in blue. I have not found a way to underline the links or to change the font of the categories so that they match the rest of my blog.
Update 27 December 2006: Blogger introduced label management to a new beta version of its blogging service in October 2006 (read the announcement on Blogger Buzz). After the new version of Blogger was launched on 19 December 2006 (announcement on Blogger Buzz) I began using the new label feature for my posts. Blogger labels are now listed under each post. Clicking on a label leads to a page containing all posts with the particular label (example: all posts labeled "India"). However, I continue to list the del.icio.us tag roll in the side bar of my blog because it offers certain advantages. The main advantage of the del.icio.us tag roll is that it brings up a comprehensive list of all articles in a certain category, showing only the title and tags (example: all posts tagged "India"). I find this list easier to navigate than a page with complete articles. On the other hand, Blogger labels make it easy to combine all posts on a particular topic on a single page for printing or archiving. To be consistent, I use the same keywords to label articles in Blogger and del.icio.us.
Friedrich Huebler, 29 May 2006 (edited 27 March 2007), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2006/05/blog-categories.html
Recently I discovered that blog categories can be implemented with the help of del.icio.us, a social bookmarking service. An article on Blogger Tips and Tricks describes an easy method to add categories to a blog. The steps are summarized below, for a detailed description please read the article Creating categories step-by-step.
- Create a del.icio.us account that will be used only for your blog.
- Add a del.icio.us bookmarklet or extension to your browser.
- Log in with the new del.icio.us account name.
- Bookmark all individual entries from your blog, or at least the most important ones. The tags are the categories that will be listed in the blog sidebar. In contrast to the guide at Blogger Tips and Tricks, I suggest starting with the oldest posts because this ensures that del.icio.us lists the newest posts first, similar to how they appear in your blog. I accomplished this by going to the monthly archives (beginning with the oldest posts), calling up the individual post pages by clicking on the date stamp at the bottom of each article, and tagging each page with del.icio.us.
- Go to the help section on the del.icio.us site and select the Tag Rolls section under Blog Integration.
- Customize the appearance of the tag list and copy the code at the bottom of the tag rolls page.
- Log in to your Blogger account and paste the code to the sidebar section of the template.
- Save the template and republish the blog.
The tag roll code by del.icio.us creates links in colors that vary with the number of articles within each category. I had selected black for all links on the tag roll customization page. This yields a code that contains the part color=000000-000000, where 000000 stands for black (see this RGB color palette). The first number is the color of categories with the smallest number of articles, the second number the color of categories with the highest number of articles. I changed this part to color=114488-114488, which makes all links appear in blue. I have not found a way to underline the links or to change the font of the categories so that they match the rest of my blog.
Update 27 December 2006: Blogger introduced label management to a new beta version of its blogging service in October 2006 (read the announcement on Blogger Buzz). After the new version of Blogger was launched on 19 December 2006 (announcement on Blogger Buzz) I began using the new label feature for my posts. Blogger labels are now listed under each post. Clicking on a label leads to a page containing all posts with the particular label (example: all posts labeled "India"). However, I continue to list the del.icio.us tag roll in the side bar of my blog because it offers certain advantages. The main advantage of the del.icio.us tag roll is that it brings up a comprehensive list of all articles in a certain category, showing only the title and tags (example: all posts tagged "India"). I find this list easier to navigate than a page with complete articles. On the other hand, Blogger labels make it easy to combine all posts on a particular topic on a single page for printing or archiving. To be consistent, I use the same keywords to label articles in Blogger and del.icio.us.
Friedrich Huebler, 29 May 2006 (edited 27 March 2007), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2006/05/blog-categories.html
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Secondary school attendance in Bolivia
Bolivia is one of UNICEF's 25 priority countries for girls' education. The primary school net attendance rate (NAR) is 76.4 percent, according to results of a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) from 2003/04. This means that three out of four children of primary school age are in primary school.
Fewer children continue their education at the secondary level. Overall, the secondary school NAR is 56.3 percent according to the DHS, but attendance rates are much higher in urban areas and among the richest households (see the graph below). In the richest 20 percent of all households, 79.9 percent of all children of secondary school age are in secondary school. In urban areas of Bolivia, the secondary school NAR is 67.9 percent. The lowest attendance rate, 27.9 percent, is observed among the poorest 20 percent of all households. In other words, more than seven out of ten children from the poorest households do not attend secondary school. In rural areas the secondary NAR is 37.2 percent.
Secondary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
Data source: Bolivia 2003/04 DHS.
In Bolivia overall, there is gender parity at the secondary level of education. The gender parity index (GPI), the ratio of the female to the male NAR, is 0.98, as shown in the following table. In primary school, gender parity exists regardless of the area of residence and the level of household wealth, but this is not the case at the secondary level of education. In rural areas and among the poorest households, boys are much more likely to attend secondary school than boys. The GPI in rural areas is 0.81 and among the poorest 20 percent of all households it is as low as 0.66, which means that for every three boys only two girls are in secondary school. To reach the Millennium Development Goal of gender parity at all levels of education, it is necessary to bring more girls from poor and rural households into school.
Secondary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
GPI: gender parity index. - Data source: Bolivia 2003/04 DHS.
Related articles
Fewer children continue their education at the secondary level. Overall, the secondary school NAR is 56.3 percent according to the DHS, but attendance rates are much higher in urban areas and among the richest households (see the graph below). In the richest 20 percent of all households, 79.9 percent of all children of secondary school age are in secondary school. In urban areas of Bolivia, the secondary school NAR is 67.9 percent. The lowest attendance rate, 27.9 percent, is observed among the poorest 20 percent of all households. In other words, more than seven out of ten children from the poorest households do not attend secondary school. In rural areas the secondary NAR is 37.2 percent.
Secondary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
Data source: Bolivia 2003/04 DHS.
In Bolivia overall, there is gender parity at the secondary level of education. The gender parity index (GPI), the ratio of the female to the male NAR, is 0.98, as shown in the following table. In primary school, gender parity exists regardless of the area of residence and the level of household wealth, but this is not the case at the secondary level of education. In rural areas and among the poorest households, boys are much more likely to attend secondary school than boys. The GPI in rural areas is 0.81 and among the poorest 20 percent of all households it is as low as 0.66, which means that for every three boys only two girls are in secondary school. To reach the Millennium Development Goal of gender parity at all levels of education, it is necessary to bring more girls from poor and rural households into school.
Secondary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
| Total NAR (%) | Male NAR (%) | Female NAR (%) | Difference male- female | GPI female/ male | |
| Urban | 67.9 | 67.0 | 68.7 | -1.7 | 1.03 |
| Rural | 37.2 | 41.1 | 33.1 | 8.0 | 0.81 |
| Richest 20% | 79.9 | 80.6 | 79.3 | 1.3 | 0.98 |
| Poorest 20% | 27.9 | 33.4 | 22.0 | 11.4 | 0.66 |
| Total | 56.3 | 56.8 | 55.9 | 1.0 | 0.98 |
Related articles
- Primary school attendance in Bolivia
- Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia
- Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia, part 2
- Education data from household surveys
- UNICEF priority countries for girls' education
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Global Education Digest 2006
UNESCO has released the 2006 edition of its annual Global Education Digest, with data for 2004 or the latest year available. The focus of this year's edition is tertiary education. The 2006 Global Education Digest can be downloaded in PDF format from the website of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The UIS also provides the statistical tables from the report in Excel format. I will use the data to update my global overview of primary and secondary school enrollment and other statistics on this site.
Friedrich Huebler, 26 April 2006, Creative Commons License
Friedrich Huebler, 26 April 2006, Creative Commons License
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Primary school attendance in Bolivia
Bolivia, one of the poorest nations in Latin American, is the only country from that region among UNICEF's 25 priority countries for girls' education. In 2005, the population of Bolivia was estimated at 9.1 million, including 1.4 million children of primary school age (6 to 11 years).
A Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) was carried out in Bolivia in 2003/04. This nationally representative household survey collected data in various areas, including education. According to the survey results, the primary school net attendance rate (NAR) is 76.4 percent. The primary school NAR is the share of children of primary school age that are attending primary school. In Bolivia, one in four children of primary school age are thus not in primary school according to the DHS.
Bolivia is not close to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education, but the goal of gender parity has been reached. With 75.9 percent, the primary school NAR of girls is almost the same as that of boys, 76.9 percent. The gender parity index (GPI), the ratio of female to male NAR, is 0.99. The NAR values are shown in the graph and table below.
Primary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
Data source: Bolivia 2003/04 DHS.
There is no gender disparity in Bolivia but disparities exist at other levels. Children in urban areas have a higher primary school NAR (81.0 percent) than children in rural areas (70.4 percent). Household wealth is strongly associated with school attendance. In the richest 20 percent of all households, 89.2 percent of all children of primary school age attend primary school. In the poorest 20 percent of all households, the primary school NAR is 71.2 percent. Raising attendance rates among the rural population and among the poor remains a challenge in Bolivia.
Primary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
GPI: gender parity index. - Data source: Bolivia 2003/04 DHS.
Related articles
A Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) was carried out in Bolivia in 2003/04. This nationally representative household survey collected data in various areas, including education. According to the survey results, the primary school net attendance rate (NAR) is 76.4 percent. The primary school NAR is the share of children of primary school age that are attending primary school. In Bolivia, one in four children of primary school age are thus not in primary school according to the DHS.
Bolivia is not close to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education, but the goal of gender parity has been reached. With 75.9 percent, the primary school NAR of girls is almost the same as that of boys, 76.9 percent. The gender parity index (GPI), the ratio of female to male NAR, is 0.99. The NAR values are shown in the graph and table below.
Primary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
Data source: Bolivia 2003/04 DHS.
There is no gender disparity in Bolivia but disparities exist at other levels. Children in urban areas have a higher primary school NAR (81.0 percent) than children in rural areas (70.4 percent). Household wealth is strongly associated with school attendance. In the richest 20 percent of all households, 89.2 percent of all children of primary school age attend primary school. In the poorest 20 percent of all households, the primary school NAR is 71.2 percent. Raising attendance rates among the rural population and among the poor remains a challenge in Bolivia.
Primary school net attendance rate, Bolivia 2003/04
| Total NAR (%) | Male NAR (%) | Female NAR (%) | Difference male- female | GPI female/ male | |
| Urban | 81.0 | 81.4 | 80.7 | 0.7 | 0.99 |
| Rural | 70.4 | 70.9 | 69.9 | 1.0 | 0.99 |
| Richest 20% | 89.2 | 89.7 | 88.6 | 1.0 | 0.99 |
| Poorest 20% | 71.2 | 71.8 | 70.6 | 1.2 | 0.98 |
| Total | 76.4 | 76.9 | 75.9 | 1.0 | 0.99 |
Related articles
- Secondary school attendance in Bolivia
- Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia
- Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia, part 2
- Education data from household surveys
- UNICEF priority countries for girls' education
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Update to "Creating maps with Stata"
The guide to Creating maps with Stata has been updated. Users of Stata 9.1 or a more recent version can now convert shapefiles directly to Stata format with a new program called shp2dta. Read the guide to learn more.
Related articles
Related articles
- Creating maps with Stata
- Integrating Stata and external text editors
- Creating PNG images with Stata
- Reading Statalist with Gmail
Monday, March 27, 2006
Primary completion rate 2002/03
Goal 2 of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is to "ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling." This site has published data for several indicators that are related to this goal, among them the primary school net enrollment ratio (NER). In countries where children begin their education at the official primary school entrance age and graduate at the official graduation age, the primary NER is a good indicator of primary school completion. If many children in a country enter school late or if repetition rates are high, on the other hand, the primary NER underestimates the participation of children in the education system. The primary completion rate has been suggested by the World Bank as a better indicator for progress toward MDG 2.
Definition: "The primary completion rate is the ratio of the total number of students successfully completing (or graduating from) the last year of primary school in a given year to the total number of children of official graduation age in the population." (United Nations Development Group. 2003. Indicators for monitoring the Millennium Development Goals: Definitions, rationale, concepts and sources. New York: United Nations.)
The map below indicates the primary completion rate in each country for which data was available. The top group includes all countries with a primary completion rate at or above 90 percent. The primary completion rate can have values above 100 percent, which can be a symptom of late entry, grade repetition, or of an enrollment push at some point in the past, perhaps as a consequence of a school enrollment campaign. In the UIS database, 38 countries have values above 100 percent but in the long run the primary completion rate can be expected to stabilize at 100 percent.
Primary completion rate, 2002/2003
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2005. Global Education Digest 2005. Montreal: UIS.
In ten countries, all in sub-Saharan Africa, the primary completion rate is below 40 percent: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, and Niger. In 19 countries, the primary completion rate is between 40 and 59 percent, in 20 it is between 60 and 79 percent, and in 26 countries it is between 80 and 89 percent. 91 countries have primary completion rates at or above 90 percent.
The global average for the primary completion rate is 84.5 percent (see the table below). Boys (86.4 percent) are more likely to complete their primary education than girls (82.3 percent). When countries are grouped by UNICEF region, the highest primary completion rates are observed in industrialized countries (100.5 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (97.2 percent), East Asia and the Pacific (96.6 percent), and in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (93.8 percent). Countries in these regions have already reached or are close to the goal of universal primary education.
Lower primary completion rates are observed in Eastern and Southern Africa (59.5 percent), West and Central Africa (64.8 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (75.4 percent), and South Asia (81.6 percent). The biggest gender disparity exists in West and Central Africa, where the primary completion rate of boys is 14.6 percent above that of girls. High gender gaps also exist in Eastern and Southern Africa (7.6 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (7.5 percent), and South Asia (6.3 percent). Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region where girls are more likely to complete primary education than boys, but the gap is relatively small (2.6 percent).
Primary completion rate, 2002/03
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2005. Global Education Digest 2005. Montreal: UIS.
Note: Regional values are weighted by each country's population of primary school age.
Friedrich Huebler, 27 March 2006, Creative Commons License
Definition: "The primary completion rate is the ratio of the total number of students successfully completing (or graduating from) the last year of primary school in a given year to the total number of children of official graduation age in the population." (United Nations Development Group. 2003. Indicators for monitoring the Millennium Development Goals: Definitions, rationale, concepts and sources. New York: United Nations.)
- Primary completion rate = Number of primary school graduates / Number of children of primary school graduation age
- Gross intake rate to last grade of primary = (Number of children in last primary grade – Number of repeaters) / Number of children of entrance age to last primary grade
The map below indicates the primary completion rate in each country for which data was available. The top group includes all countries with a primary completion rate at or above 90 percent. The primary completion rate can have values above 100 percent, which can be a symptom of late entry, grade repetition, or of an enrollment push at some point in the past, perhaps as a consequence of a school enrollment campaign. In the UIS database, 38 countries have values above 100 percent but in the long run the primary completion rate can be expected to stabilize at 100 percent.
Primary completion rate, 2002/2003
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2005. Global Education Digest 2005. Montreal: UIS.
In ten countries, all in sub-Saharan Africa, the primary completion rate is below 40 percent: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, and Niger. In 19 countries, the primary completion rate is between 40 and 59 percent, in 20 it is between 60 and 79 percent, and in 26 countries it is between 80 and 89 percent. 91 countries have primary completion rates at or above 90 percent.
The global average for the primary completion rate is 84.5 percent (see the table below). Boys (86.4 percent) are more likely to complete their primary education than girls (82.3 percent). When countries are grouped by UNICEF region, the highest primary completion rates are observed in industrialized countries (100.5 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (97.2 percent), East Asia and the Pacific (96.6 percent), and in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (93.8 percent). Countries in these regions have already reached or are close to the goal of universal primary education.
Lower primary completion rates are observed in Eastern and Southern Africa (59.5 percent), West and Central Africa (64.8 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (75.4 percent), and South Asia (81.6 percent). The biggest gender disparity exists in West and Central Africa, where the primary completion rate of boys is 14.6 percent above that of girls. High gender gaps also exist in Eastern and Southern Africa (7.6 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (7.5 percent), and South Asia (6.3 percent). Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region where girls are more likely to complete primary education than boys, but the gap is relatively small (2.6 percent).
Primary completion rate, 2002/03
| Region | Primary completion rate (%) | ||
| Male | Female | Total | |
| East Asia, Pacific | 96.6 | 96.6 | 96.6 |
| Eastern and Southern Africa | 63.3 | 55.7 | 59.5 |
| Eastern Europe, CIS | 96.7 | 95.4 | 93.8 |
| Industrialized countries | 100.7 | 100.7 | 100.5 |
| Latin America, Caribbean | 95.9 | 98.5 | 97.2 |
| Middle East, North Africa | 79.0 | 71.5 | 75.4 |
| South Asia | 84.6 | 78.3 | 81.6 |
| West and Central Africa | 72.0 | 57.4 | 64.8 |
| World | 86.4 | 82.3 | 84.5 |
Note: Regional values are weighted by each country's population of primary school age.
Friedrich Huebler, 27 March 2006, Creative Commons License
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