Showing posts with label Latin America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latin America. Show all posts

Children of primary and secondary school age out of school

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) publishes annual estimates of the number of children of primary school age out of school. A recent paper by Michael Bruneforth and Peter Wallet, Out-of-school adolescents (UIS 2010), extends the analysis to children of lower secondary school age. Any child enrolled in primary, secondary or tertiary education is considered in school, regardless of the child's age. Only children that are truly excluded from education are counted as out of school.

The paper's regional and global estimates of the number and percent of children out of school are reproduced in this article. Table 1 lists the population of primary and lower secondary school age in 2007. Worldwide there were about 653 million children of primary school age and 388 million children of lower secondary school age. More than half of these children lived in South and West Asia and East Asia and the Pacific.

Table 1: Population of primary and lower secondary school age by region (million), 2007
Region Primary Lower secondary Total
Sub-Saharan Africa 124.9 57.9 182.7
Arab States 41.4 21.9 63.5
South and West Asia 176.8 106.8 284.2
Central Asia 5.6 8.0 13.8
East Asia and the Pacific 173.8 106.5 281.2
Central and Eastern Europe 22.2 20.3 42.1
North America and Western Europe 50.8 31.0 81.6
Latin America and the Caribbean 58.6 35.9 93.7
World 652.6 388.2 1042.5
Source: UIS 2010, page 10, Table 1; author's calculations. - Note: Figures may not sum due to rounding.

Figure 1 illustrates the regional distribution of the population of primary and lower secondary school age. The number of children in these age groups is plotted along the horizontal axis. The vertical axis indicates the share of children of primary and lower secondary school age in each region. The regions with the largest number of school-age children in 2007 were South and West Asia (284 million), East Asia and the Pacific (281 million), and Sub-Saharan Africa (183 million). More than 60 percent of the combined population of primary and lower secondary school age were of primary school age. Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe were exceptions, with a greater share of children of lower secondary school age than in other regions. The large share of primary-age children in Sub-Saharan Africa is a symptom of its high population growth rate.

Figure 1: Population of primary and lower secondary school age by region, 2007
Spine plot showing the distribution of the population of primary and lower secondary school age by region in 2007
Source: UIS 2010, page 10, Table 1; author's calculations. - CEE: Central and Eastern Europe, NAWE: North America and Western Europe, LAC: Latin America and the Caribbean.

The share and number of children out of school are listed in Table 2. At the global level, 11 percent or 72 million of all children of primary school age and 18 percent or 71 million of all children of lower secondary school age were out of school. The combined global share of children out of school was 14 percent. Out-of-school rates were highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 26 percent of all primary school-age children and 37 percent of all secondary school-age children were excluded from education.

Table 2: Children of primary and lower secondary school age out of school by region, 2007
Region Primary Lower secondary Total
Percent Million Percent Million Percent Million
Sub-Saharan Africa 25.8 32.2 36.8 21.3 29.3 53.5
Arab States 13.9 5.8 19.5 4.3 15.8 10.0
South and West Asia 10.2 18.0 27.3 29.1 16.6 47.2
Central Asia 4.8 0.3 4.9 0.4 4.8 0.7
East Asia and the Pacific 5.2 9.0 10.0 10.6 7.0 19.7
Central and Eastern Europe 7.0 1.6 9.6 1.9 8.3 3.5
North America and Western Europe 3.8 1.9 4.3 1.3 4.0 3.3
Latin America and the Caribbean 5.1 3.0 5.5 2.0 5.3 5.0
World 11.0 71.8 18.3 71.0 13.7 142.8
Source: UIS 2010, page 10, Table 1.

As illustrated in Figure 2, out-of-school rates are always higher at the secondary level of education than at the primary level. This is not surprising because not all students complete primary education and not all of those who graduate from primary school transfer to secondary school to continue their education. In addition to Sub-Saharan Africa, South and West Asia (27 percent) and the Arab States (20 percent) also had a high share of children of secondary school age out of school.

Figure 2: Children of primary and lower secondary school age out of school by region, 2007
Bar chart showing the share of children of primary and lower secondary school age out of school by region in 2007
Source: UIS 2010, page 10, Table 1.

The distribution of children out of school by region in 2007 is shown in Figure 3. A comparison with the population distribution in Figure 1 makes clear that children from Sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia were disproportionately more likely to be out of school than children from other regions. More than two thirds of the 143 million out-of-school children of primary and lower secondary age were from Sub-Saharan Africa (54 million) and South and West Asia (47 million). 20 million children out of school lived in East Asia and 10 million in the Arab States. The remaining 13 million children out of school were from Latin America and the Caribbean (5 million), Central and Eastern Europe (3.5 million), North America and Western Europe (3.3 million), and Central Asia (0.7 million).

Figure 3: Children of primary and lower secondary school age out of school by region, 2007
Spine plot showing the distribution of children of primary and lower secondary school age out of school by region in 2007
Source: UIS 2010, page 10, Table 1. - CEE: Central and Eastern Europe, NAWE: North America and Western Europe, LAC: Latin America and the Caribbean.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab States, North America and Western Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean most children out of school were of primary age. In South and West Asia, East Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe most children out of school were of lower secondary age. At the global level, the number of out-of-school children of primary school age and lower secondary school age was roughly equal (see Table 2).

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Friedrich Huebler, 28 March 2010 (edited 17 August 2011), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2010/03/coos.html
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Population structure and children out of school

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest percentage of children out of school. At the same time, the population of most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing and children of primary school age constitute a large and growing share of the population.

The link between the population structure and the number of children out of school is shown in the figures and table below. Data on the share of children of primary school age out of school were obtained from the Childinfo website of UNICEF. The official primary school ages in individual countries from the Data Centre of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics were combined with demographic data from the UN Population Division to calculate the share of children of primary school age in each country's population. In total, data for 177 countries were available. All values are for the year 2007.

In Figure 1, the population of primary school age as a percentage of the total population is plotted along the horizontal axis. At the lower end of the scale are Belarus, Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine. In these countries, children of primary school age account for less than 4 percent of the total population. The countries with the highest share of children of primary school age are located in Sub-Saharan Africa: Uganda (21 percent), Zambia (20 percent), Lesotho, Mozambique, Somalia (19 percent), Malawi, Swaziland, and Tanzania (18 percent).

The share of children out of school is plotted along the vertical axis. For five countries, the available statistics indicate that less than 0.5 percent of children are out of school: Japan, Malaysia, Spain, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan. In eight countries, half or more of all children are not in school: Somalia (77 percent), Chad (64 percent), Niger (62 percent), Liberia (61 percent), Ethiopia (55 percent), Eritrea (54 percent), Burkina Faso (53 percent), and Haiti (50 percent). Except for Haiti and Pakistan, the 20 countries with the highest share of children out of school are located in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The color of the marker for each country in Figure 1 indicates the geographic region according to the grouping used for the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The size of each marker indicates the absolute size of the population of primary school age. The big red circle is the marker for India and the big green circle is the marker for China. Other countries with a large number of children of primary school age are Indonesia in South-Eastern Asia, USA in the developed countries, and Nigeria in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The distribution of the points in Figure 1 shows that countries with a small share of children of primary school age in the total population also tend to have a small percentage of children out of school. By contrast, countries with a relatively large population of primary school age also have a higher percentage of children out of school. This positive correlation between the two variables is confirmed by a linear regression of the percent of children out of school on the percent of children of primary school age and the squared percent of children of primary school age. The predicted share of children out of school is indicated by the dark gray line. The light gray band around the prediction line indicates the 95 percent confidence interval.

Figure 1: Population of primary school age and children out of school by country, 2007
Scatter plot with country data on the share of children of primary school age and the share of children out of school in 2007
Note: Marker size indicates the number of children of primary school age in a country.
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF, UN Population Division.

For Figure 2, the data from the 177 countries in Figure 1 were combined by MDG region. The share of children of primary school age in a region's population is plotted along the horizontal axis and the share of children out of school along the vertical axis. The colors of the markers are the same as in Figure 1. The regional values, summarized in Table 1, reflect the 177 countries for which data were available.

Figure 2: Population of primary school age and children out of school by MDG region, 2007
Scatter plot with regional data on the share of children of primary school age and the share of children out of school in 2007
Note: Marker size indicates the number of children of primary school age in a region.
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF, UN Population Division.

At the global level, about 10 percent of the population are of primary school age. The regional values range from 4.6 percent in the Commonwealth of Independent States to 16.5 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. The average share of children out of school across the 177 countries with data is 15.5 percent. In six regions, fewer than 10 percent of all children are out of school: Commonwealth of Independent States, developed countries, Eastern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern Africa, and South-Eastern Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has by far the highest share of children out of school, with 36.2 percent, followed by Southern Asia with 20 percent and Oceania with 17.1 percent.

Table 1: Population of primary school age and children out of school by MDG region, 2007
MDG region
 Population of primary school age as share of total population (%) Children of primary school age out of school (%)
Developed countries 6.4 4.6
Commonwealth of Independent States 4.6
 6.8
Eastern Asia 7.1
 0.8
South-Eastern Asia 10.8
 6.5
Oceania 14.5
 17.1
Southern Asia 10.8
 20.0
Western Asia 12.5 12.5
Northern Africa 11.9
 5.9
Sub-Saharan Africa 16.5
 36.2
Latin America and the Caribbean 10.3 7.2
World 9.8 15.5
Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF, UN Population Division.

Due to their current population structure and demographic trends, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have to provide schools and teachers for a relatively larger number of children than countries in other regions. The Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015 is therefore more difficult to meet for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa than for countries with a relatively small and constant or shrinking population of primary school age.

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Friedrich Huebler, 8 February 2009 (edited 9 February 2009), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/02/coos.html
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Educational attainment in Brazil since 1920

Brazil is likely to reach the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 94 percent of all children of primary school age (7 to 10 years) were enrolled in primary school in 2005. Data from the 2006 National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD), analyzed in an article on school attendance in Brazil, show that 99 percent of all children between 7 and 10 years were in pre-primary, primary or secondary education.

PNAD data can also be used to demonstrate how the education system in Brazil has expanded over the past decades. The PNAD survey collected information on the highest level of education attended for all persons in the sample. By comparing the highest level of education of persons born in different years it is possible to show the change in school attendance patterns over time. The following graph displays the highest level of education for persons born between 1920 and 2000. Household members born in 2000 were 5 or 6 years old at the time of the survey in 2006.

Highest level of education attended by year of birth, Brazil 1920-2000
Highest level of education attended by year of birth, Brazil 1920-2000
Data source: Brazil National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), 2006.

Only 59 percent of all Brazilians born in 1920 ever attended school, and three out of four persons who attended school never went beyond primary education. Primary, secondary and tertiary school attendance rates increased steadily over the following decades. By the 1960s, nine out of ten Brazilians were able to receive a formal education. 91 percent of all persons born in 1960 attended at least primary school, 58 percent in this age group attended at least secondary school, and 14 percent went to a university.

The expansion of the primary education system began to slow down in the 1960s, after it had already reached a high level of coverage, but secondary school attendance rates continued to grow at a rapid pace. Among persons born in 1990, 98 percent attended primary school and 90 percent attended secondary school. Among persons born in 1994, 99 percent attended primary school. The peak value for participation in secondary education is 91 percent for persons born in 1988.

Fewer Brazilians have tertiary education, but almost one fifth of the population born around 1980 had attended a university or other institution of higher education by the time the PNAD survey was conducted in 2006. The peak value for participation in tertiary education is 19 percent for persons born in 1981.

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Friedrich Huebler, 24 January 2009, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/01/brazil.html
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