03. Journals

2,963 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2210

These are journal articles published in World Bank journals as well as externally by World Bank authors.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 33

Teacher Satisfaction and Its Determinants: Analysis Based on Data from Nigeria and Uganda

(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-28) Nkengne, Patrick ; Pieume, Olivier ; Tsimpo, Clarence ; Ezeugwu, Gilbert ; Wodon, Quentin

Teachers who are satisfied with their job are more likely to teach well, which in turn should enable their students to better learn while in school. Sub-Saharan Africa is currently experiencing a learning crisis, with close to nine out of ten children not able to read and understand a simple text at age 10. This affects all types of schools and students, including students in Catholic and other faith-based schools. Improving working conditions and job satisfaction among teachers is part of the answer to this learning crisis. After a brief discussion of data for Nigeria, this article looks at the level of satisfaction of teachers in Uganda, its determinants, and its impact on the quality teaching. Specifically, four questions are asked: What is the level of teacher job satisfaction in Uganda? How does job satisfaction relate to the characteristics of teachers? What is the impact of teachers’ satisfaction on their performance, as it can be measured through various variables of teacher effort? Finally, what are the main factors affecting satisfaction according to teachers? The answers to these questions have implications for policy and practice in faith-based as well as in other schools.
Catholic and Faith-Based Schools in Africa: Introduction to the Special Issue

(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-28) Grace, Gerald ; Wodon, Quentin

Africa is the region of the world where Catholic and other faith-based schools have the largest footprint. One in nine students in a primary school in Africa is enrolled in a Catholic school, and students from the region account for more than half of all students in Catholic primary schools globally. Through the role it plays in Africa, the Catholic Church is at the forefront of providing educational opportunities in low-income countries, but challenges abound. In particular, learning poverty defined as the inability of 10-year-old children to read and understand an age-appropriate text, affects nine in ten children in sub-Saharan Africa. Students in Catholic schools are not immune to this crisis. This article introduces a framework from the World Bank on how we could end the learning crisis and summarizes the contributions of the articles included in this issue in terms of that framework.
How Do Shocks Affect Enrollment in Faith-Based Schools?: Evidence from West Africa

(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-28) Elmallakh, Nelly ; Wodon, Quentin

The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed concerns about how shocks may affect religious and other private schools in low-income countries, especially when they do not benefit from state support. By reducing parental incomes, shocks – not only epidemics but also natural disasters and conflicts, reduce overall enrollment in school. But they may also lead to a shift from private to public schools with potentially differentiated effects by type of private school depending on context. In addition, household responses to shocks such as migration may lead to a change in the socio-cultural context in which households live, and these changes may also affect school choice. This paper explores the effects of shocks and migration on school choice in West Africa. Results suggest that shocks and migration lead to a shift from private to public schools, but with differentiated effects by type of private schools.
Koranic Schools in Niger: How Much Can Be Learned from Existing Data?

(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-28) Male, Chata ; Nayihouba, Ada ; Wodon, Quentin

The term Koranic school is often used to describe schools that are not part of the formal education system and typically place a strong emphasis on memorizing the Koran in Arabic, as well as on knowledge of Islamic religious education and practice. Using data from Niger as a case study, this paper provides data on trends in the share of individuals that have a Koranic education, a formal education, or no education at all, as well as a basic profile (univariate and multivariate) of children with Koranic education, formal education, or no education at all. In addition, the potential impacts of Koranic education in comparison to formal education or no education at all on outcomes such as literacy and numeracy, labor market earnings, household consumption, assets and perceptions of well-being, and infant mortality is analyzed.
Factors Associated with Educational and Career Aspirations of Young Women and Girls in Sierra Leone

(Taylor and Francis, 2021-09-05) Allmang, Skye ; Rozhenkova, Veronika ; Khakshi, James Ward ; Raza, Wameq ; Heymann, Jody

Empirical data on the aspirations of young women and girls in post-conflict settings are scarce. This article analyses the factors associated with the educational and career aspirations of 2,473 young women and girls in Sierra Leone. Findings indicated that over three-quarters of our sample aspired to continue their studies up to the university level, and two-thirds aspired to obtain a formal sector job requiring an education. These findings are important for discussions of aid which can accelerate economic advances and opportunities within advanced economies for both women and men.
Cognitive Achievement Production in Madagascar: A Value-Added Model Approach

(Taylor and Francis, 2021-06-19) Aubery, Frederic ; Sahn, David

In this paper, we measure the contribution of an additional year of schooling on skills acquisition for a cohort of young adults in Madagascar. We estimate a value-added model of learning achievement that includes test scores measured at adolescence, thereby reducing the potential for omitted variable bias. We demonstrate that schooling increases cognitive skills among young adults. The value-added of a year of schooling during adolescence is 0.15 to 0.26 standard deviation. Our results show the skills gap widens in adolescence, as students with higher cognitive skills complete more grades, accumulating more skills in their transition to adulthood.
Are New Secondary Schools Built Where They Are Needed Most in Uganda? Comparing Catholic with Public and Other Private Schools

(Taylor and Francis, 2020-06-16) Wodon, Quentin

Low income countries in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with a major challenge in terms of expanding access to secondary education. This is also the case in Uganda. This article considers two questions. First, where should new secondary schools be built if the aim is to reduce geographic disparities in access? Second, have new schools, and in particular faith-based schools, been built in the areas that need schools the most? The analysis considers Catholic as well as public and other private schools. Results suggest that new schools are often not located in the areas that need them the most.
How Well Do Catholic and Other Faith-based Schools Serve the Poor? A Study with Special Reference to Africa: Part II -- Learning

(Taylor and Francis, 2020-02-06) Wodon, Quentin

This paper is the second in a set of two on the extent to which Catholic and other faith-based schools are serving the poor well. Catholic and other faith-based schools reach millions of children who live in poverty, yet this does not necessarily mean that they are serving these children well enough. The paper considers two separate issues. First, beyond academic subjects, Catholic and other faith-based schools emphasize learning related to values and religion. Do they succeed in doing so? Based on small sample survey data and qualitative fieldwork, as well as broader data on parental satisfaction with schools, the paper provides a tentative and mostly positive answer to this question, at least from the view of parents. The second issue is where performance is weaker. Education systems are affected by a learning crisis in the developing world. All schools should ensure that students learn, but too often this is not the case. The second part of the paper documents this learning crisis and the fact that Catholic and other faith-based schools are not immune to it. This is done in part through a rapid review of the recent World Development Report on education's promise, and a companion piece for sub-Saharan Africa. Estimates of performance for selected African countries are also provided. The results are sobering: too many children are not learning while in school. Finally, the paper briefly summarizes evidence from the literature on interventions that could improve learning, including in Catholic and faith-based schools.
Enhancing Young Children’s Language Acquisition through Parent–Child Book-Sharing: A Randomized Trial in Rural Kenya

(Elsevier, 2020-01) Knauer, Heather A. ; Jakiela, Pamela ; Ozier, Owen ; Aboud, Frances ; Fernald, Lia C.H.

Worldwide, 250 million children under five (43%) are not meeting their developmental potential because they lack adequate nutrition and cognitive stimulation in early childhood. Several parent support programs have shown significant benefits for children’s development, but the programs are often expensive and resource intensive. The objective of this study was to test several variants of a potentially scalable, cost-effective intervention to increase cognitive stimulation by parents and improve emergent literacy skills in children. The intervention was a modified dialogic reading training program that used culturally and linguistically appropriate books adapted for a low-literacy population. We used a cluster randomized controlled trial with four intervention arms and one control arm in a sample of caregivers (n?=?357) and their 24- to 83-month-old children (n?=?510) in rural Kenya. The first treatment group received storybooks, while the other treatment arms received storybooks paired with varying quantities of modified dialogic reading training for parents. Main effects of each arm of the trial were examined, and tests of heterogeneity were conducted to examine differential effects among children of illiterate vs. literate caregivers. Parent training paired with the provision of culturally appropriate children’s books increased reading frequency and improved the quality of caregiver-child reading interactions among preschool-aged children. Treatments involving training improved storybook-specific expressive vocabulary. The children of illiterate caregivers benefited at least as much as the children of literate caregivers. For some outcomes, effects were comparable; for other outcomes, there were differentially larger effects for children of illiterate caregivers.
Implications of Demographic, Religious, and Enrollment Trends for the Footprint of Faith-Based Schools Globally

(Taylor and Francis, 2019-11-25) Wodon, Quentin

Faith-based schools play an important role today in the provision of education globally. Are the schools likely to continue to play such a role in the future? If so, where is that role likely to be most prominent? This paper considers these questions on the basis of long-term demographic, religious, and school enrollment trends. The trends suggest that enrollment in faith-based schools will continue to grow rapidly, as has been the case over the last few decades. But there will also be a fundamental shift, with a rising concentration of students in faith-based schools located in Africa. This may have implications given the learning crisis affecting the continent.