Publication: Learning Poverty at the Local Level in Colombia
Loading...
Published
2023-07-13
ISSN
Date
2023-07-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper extends the concept of learning poverty to provide local-level estimates of the share of children at age 10 who can read and understand a simple text in Colombia. The learning poverty indicator combines the share of children who are out of school and thus schooling deprived with the share of those in school who are learning deprived based on reading tests. Local-level estimates illustrate the immense gaps in learning poverty across municipalities in Colombia in a readily interpretable form. Learning poverty rates in some Colombian municipalities are below 20 percent—the average among high-income countries—while in others, rates exceed 90 percent—the average in Sub-Saharan Africa. High learning poverty rates at the local level are associated with high levels of multidimensional poverty, a large population share of ethnic minorities, and a history of conflict. The paper also shows that the rate of learning deprivation is 60 percent is public schools versus 30 percent in private schools and that reports from school principals identify large gaps between public and private schools in educational inputs. These results highlight the need to enhance foundational skills in public schools in Colombia.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Demombynes, Gabriel. 2023. Learning Poverty at the Local Level in Colombia. Policy Research Working Papers; 10498. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40008 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Families, Schools, and Primary-School Learning : Evidence for Argentina and Colombia in an International Perspective(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-03)This paper estimates the relationship between family background, school characteristics, and student achievement in primary school in two Latin American countries, Argentina and Colombia, as well as several comparison countries. The database used is the student-level international achievement data of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which tested the reading performance of fourth-grade students in 2001. The nationally representative samples have 3,300 students in Argentina and 5,131 students in Colombia. The emerging general pattern of results is that educational performance is strongly related to students' family background, weakly to some institutional school features, and hardly to schools' resource endowments. In an international perspective, estimated family background effects are relatively large in Argentina, and relatively small in Colombia. A specific Argentine feature is the lack of performance differences between rural and urban areas. A specific Colombian feature is the lack of significant differences between gender performance. Nonnative students and students not speaking Spanish at home have particularly weak performance in both countries. But there are no differences by parental occupation and no positive effects of kindergarten attendance. In Argentina, students perform better in schools with a centralized curriculum and ability-based class formation.Publication Students and the Market for Schools in Haiti(2010-12-01)Uniquely among Latin American and Caribbean countries, Haiti has a largely non-public education system. Prior to the earthquake of January 2010, just 19 percent of primary school students were enrolled in public schools, with the remainder enrolled in a mix of religious, for-profit, and non-governmental organization-funded schools. This paper examines changes in Haitian schooling patterns in the last century and shows the country experienced tremendous growth in school attainment, driven almost entirely by growth in the private sector. Additionally, it provides evidence that the private market "works" to the extent that primary school fees are higher for schools with characteristics associated with education quality. The paper also analyzes the demand and supply determinants of school attendance and finds that household wealth is a major determinant of attendance. Given these findings, the authors conclude that in the near-term paying school fees for poor students may be an effective approach to expanding schooling access in Haiti.Publication Is Formal Lifelong Learning a Profitable Investment for All of Life? How Age, Education Level, and Flexibility of Provision Affect Rates of Return to Adult Education in Colombia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-12)Lifelong learning is increasingly being recognized as a primary factor for knowledge diffusion and productivity growth. However, little economic evidence exists on the economic value of lifelong learning for the individual, especially in developing countries. This paper contributes to remedy this shortfall. It investigates one aspect of lifelong learning: returns to formal education across ages. In the absence of long-term longitudinal data, the paper estimates rates of return for simulated re-entry into the education system. The estimations use the method of internal rate of return and are based on observed education-age-earnings profiles from the Colombian national household survey. It finds that rates of return to all levels of education are only slightly smaller for 35 year olds than for young people, thus confirming the profitability of investment in adult education. Tertiary education continues to attract a positive return until late in life, 45-50 years, whereas the economic value of re-entering primary and secondary education is positive up till the age of 40-45. So, formal lifelong learning seems to remain a profitable investment for at least half of life. But lack of part-time work, high tuition fees, and prolonged study time reduce the return. The findings suggest that adult formal education initiatives should focus on the 20 to 40 year olds and be designed flexibly to allow learners to work part time.Publication Learning Levels and Gaps in Pakistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11)The authors report on a survey of primary public and private schools in rural Pakistan with a focus on student achievement as measured through test scores. Absolute learning is low compared with curricular standards and international norms. Tested at the end of the third grade, a bare majority had mastered the K-I mathematics curriculum and 31 percent could correctly form a sentence with the word "school" in the vernacular (Urdu). As in high-income countries, bivariate comparisons show that higher learning is associated with household wealth and parental literacy. In sharp contrast to high-income countries, these gaps decrease dramatically in a multivariate regression once differences between children in the same school are looked at. Consequently, the largest gaps are between schools. The gap in English test scores between government and private schools, for instance, is 12 times the gap between children from rich and poor families. To contextualize these results within a broader South Asian context, the authors use data from public schools in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Levels of learning and the structure of the educational gaps are similar in the two samples. As in Pakistan, absolute learning is low and the largest gaps are between schools: the gap between good and bad government schools, for instance, is 5 times the gap between children with literate and illiterate mothers.Publication Addressing Educational Disparity : Using District Level Education Development Indices for Equitable Resource Allocations in India(2009-06-01)The challenge of development work in the social sector in India today is one of bridging huge disparities across regions of the country, gender and social groups. Unless national and state policies specifically target resources to address these disparities, achieving higher level outcomes in an inclusive manner, which is the real goal for human development in education and health, will be a distant dream. This paper takes up the case of the Indian government s Elementary Education for All Mission to understand how this flagship program relates investments to spatial and social disparities. For identifying the most deprived districts in terms of educational inputs, outputs and overall development, the authors estimate district level education development indices for 2003-2004. The contribution of the largest investment program is measured by "per child allocations" and expenditures at the state and district levels for 2005-2006. An analysis of comparing the ratio of allocations to expenditures with the ratio of district level indices to sub-dimensional indices shows that there is an apparent disconnect between the "real investment needs" of the districts, reflected in their level of educational development and the actual allocations made on an annual basis. The analysis shows that although all districts received more funds for investing in elementary education programs, the most disadvantaged and needy districts received proportionately more funds, which helped these districts to bridge access and infrastructure gaps and appoint more teachers. Benchmarking sector development by spatial entities helps not only in monitoring the outcomes, but also in targeting planning and funding to reduce disparities.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.