Publication: Egypt: Inequality of Opportunity in Education
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Published
2017-03-17
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1793-8120
Date
2017-05-16
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The paper examines the levels and trends in access to education and educational outcomes across generations of Egyptian youth. Examination of four cohorts of individuals aged 25–29 shows that, although basic education has democratized, some inequities in access to general secondary and college education have persisted over the past 25 years. The analysis of test scores from TIMSS and national examinations in the late 2000s shows that more than a quarter of learning outcome inequality is attributable to circumstances beyond the control of a student, such as parental education, socioeconomic background, and birthplace. The high level of overall achievement inequality observed makes inequities in learning opportunities between Egyptian youth high compared to other countries in absolute levels. Moreover, learning gaps among pupils from different backgrounds appear at early grades. High and unequal levels of household expenditures in private tutoring and tracking into vocational and general secondary schools that depend on high stakes examination substantially contribute to unequal learning outcomes.
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Publication Egypt : Inequality of Opportunity in Education(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-08)The paper examines the levels and trends in access to education and educational outcomes across generations of Egyptian youth. Examination of three cohorts of individuals aged 21 to 24 (born between 1964 and 1967, 1974 and 1977, and 1982 and 1985) shows that access to education has substantially improved during the last three decades. Completion rates increased by more than 60 percent at the preparatory level and 70 percent at the secondary level and the college completion rate more than doubled. However, significant inequities remain in access to education and educational outcomes. The fraction of never enrolled among the cohorts is still large, affecting more girls than boys, more rural than urban areas, and more children of parents with lower level of education and in elementary occupations, such as subsistence agriculture. The analysis of test-scores from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and national examinations shows that more than a quarter of learning outcome inequality is attributable to circumstances beyond the control of a student, such as parental education, socioeconomic background and place of birth. In Egypt, inequality of opportunity in learning outcomes emerges early and builds up progressively throughout the education levels. Access to higher education continues to remain significantly lower for children from rural areas and for those whose parents have a low level of education or are engaged in elementary occupations. Tracking into vocational and general secondary schools, which depends on a high-stakes national examination, and high and unequal levels of household expenditures in private tutoring substantially contribute to unequal learning outcomes.Publication The Measurement of Educational Inequality : Achievement and Opportunity(2011-11-01)This paper proposes two related measures of educational inequality: one for educational achievement and another for educational opportunity. The former is the simple variance (or standard deviation) of test scores. Its selection is informed by consideration of two measurement issues that have typically been overlooked in the literature: the implications of the standardization of test scores for inequality indices, and the possible sample selection biases arising from the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) sampling frame. The measure of inequality of educational opportunity is given by the share of the variance in test scores that is explained by pre-determined circumstances. Both measures are computed for the 57 countries in which PISA surveys were conducted in 2006. Inequality of opportunity accounts for up to 35 percent of all disparities in educational achievement. It is greater in (most of) continental Europe and Latin America than in Asia, Scandinavia, and North America. It is uncorrelated with average educational achievement and only weakly negatively correlated with per capita gross domestic product. It correlates negatively with the share of spending in primary schooling, and positively with tracking in secondary schools.Publication Inequality of Opportunity for Education(World Bank, Ankara, 2010-03)This paper seeks to measure inequality of opportunity for education in turkey, taking into account both the quantity (attainment) and the quality of schooling (achievement). Using DHS data, large gaps in age-enrollment profiles are documented across genders, regions, and family backgrounds. The gender gap is particularly pronounced in the Easter provinces, in rural areas, and for poorer and larger households. PISA data show that morally irrelevant circumstances also affect achievement. The lower bound for the share of the variance in test scores that is accounted for by such circumstances in between a quarter and a third, depending on the subject and on the procedure adopted to correct for sample selection. Among those circumstances, family background variables such as parental education, father's occupation and the ownership of books, cultural possessions and electronics, seem to account for the largest inequality shares. Once the composition of families is controlled for, spatial location is considerably less important.Publication Life Chances in Turkey : Expanding Opportunities for the Next Generation(World Bank, 2010)Life chances explore the state of equality of opportunities in Turkey. It builds on the concepts and ideas presented in the World Development Report 2006: equity and development. The authors assess how today's distribution of wealth and the success of children in learning to read and write are shaped by the past, by factors predetermined at birth, factors over which today's children and families have no control: one's gender, parents' and grandparents' education, region and area of birth, or mother tongue. Some of the findings are stark, especially as they pertain to how the opportunities today's children have affect the future of the country: a girl born in a remote village to a poor family and parents with primary education degrees will very likely struggle in almost every area of her development. Compared with a boy born to well-off, highly educated parents in one of the urban centers in the country's west, that girl is four times as likely to suffer from low birth weight, one-third as likely to be immunized, and ten times as likely to have her growth stunted as a result of malnutrition. Similarly she has a one-in-five chance of completing high school, whereas the boy will likely finish school and move on to college. Life chances shows how investing in early childhood education has huge payoffs, for disadvantaged children as well as social and economic development at large. This book goes beyond tradeoffs between efficiency and equity. It shows that a focus on equity, equality of opportunities, can also lead to enhanced efficiency, once the productive capabilities of all citizens are nurtured to their fullest extent regardless of the luck of the draw at birth.Publication Arab Republic of Egypt - Education Sector Review : Progress and Priorities for the Future, Volume 1. Main Report(Washington, DC, 2002-10)This study assesses the educational progress of Egypt, especially in basic education and identifies the issues that still need to be addressed. At the level of basic education real progress has been made on narrowing regional and reducing gender disparities, reducing class size, eliminating multiple shifts, increasing class instructional time, and introducing technology in the classroom. While Egypt is to be lauded for its significant achievements, problems persist in the education sector. Of particular concern are the problems of the poor. The poor face numerous disadvantages in educating their children, mostly due to: more children per household, low parental education, very limited access to kindergarten, and a high private cost of public schooling. As a result, of all children age seven to eleven who are not attending school, 50 percent are from the poorest segment of the population. While Egypt has embarked on an ambitious and comprehensive education reform program, it faces numerous challenges to attain its educational goals. Foremost among the challenges are: a) improve the quality of schooling, from primary through university; b) strengthen management of educational institutions by decentralizing decisions, and promoting accountability; c) increase efficiency in the use of resources by reducing over-staffing, introducing new financial mechanisms, and given higher education managers increased autonomy and accountability in internal resource allocation; and finally, d) improve equity by ensuring the children of the poor are adequately prepared to begin school, reducing private costs of education to the poor, better targeting higher education subsidies, and initiate parent education programs to improve child development in the home. The reform program is affordable in the long run if recommendations on quality, equity and efficiency and carried out in tandem and regularly barriers to redeploy
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