Global Education Digest 2012 - International Reading Association

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SECTION 5 / The costs of school failure FIGURE 24 How many years are spent repeating grades in primary and lower secondary education? School life expectancy with and without repetition for countries exceeding a population of 1 million with highest number of school years due to repetition, 2010 or most recent year available Years spent repeating grades in primary education Years spent repeating grades in lower secondary education Years spent in primary and lower secondary education excluding repetition Uruguay Laos Uganda Angola Tunisia Morocco Guinea Rwanda Timor-Leste Algeria Cameroon Sierra Leone C. African Rep. Swaziland Chad Lesotho Malawi Madagascar Togo Burundi 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 School life expectancy (years) Note: Countries are ordered by the total number of years spent repeating grades in primary and lower secondary education. Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics database. learning achievement because of the range of factors involved. Nevertheless, addressing the persistent and low quality of learning outcomes is a serious concern regardless of efficiency considerations and should be a key ingredient in any policy intervention (Cuadra and Fredriksen, 1992). It is possible to identify interventions to lower the risks of grade repetition, early school leaving and low levels of learning achievement at different stages in a student’s educational experience. Some of these interventions include: •• ensuring transition (in intermediate stages if necessary) to reduce or target the practice of repetition; •• focusing on early intervention – ensuring wider access to pre-primary programmes to facilitate school readiness; •• reducing the over-age population by addressing the direct causes of late entry; •• investing resources in education quality in early grades to ensure successful early learning; and •• developing a range of compensatory opportunities for skills formation for early school leavers and young people. An obvious starting point for policy formulation is establishing whether grade repetition or automatic promotion is better for student learning. Results from international learning assessments like LLECE, PASEC and SACMEQ show that low student 56
OPPORTUNITIES LOST: THE IMPACT OF GRADE REPETITION AND EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING performance is found in education systems that practice grade repetition as well as those that practice automatic promotion. For more developed countries, PISA 2009 results (OECD, 2011) show that countries performing above the OECD average also tend to practice either automatic promotion (e.g. Finland, Iceland and Norway) or grade repetition (e.g. Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States). The top three performers in the SACMEQ III Grade 6 pupils’ reading scores in Southern African countries in 2007 were Seychelles, Mauritius and Tanzania. Automatic promotion is applied in the first two countries, while repetition is applied in the last. The distinction may be found in how repetition is applied – when used selectively in more developed education systems, it can help support learning; but when used indiscriminately, it can lead to high dropout rates and poorly performing education systems. Moreover, automatic promotion could represent a more cost-effective policy. The resources saved can be evaluated by comparing them to the resources invested in costly remedial classes or catch-up programmes for students experiencing learning difficulties, which typically require one-on-one attention. What is the best way to introduce automatic promotion? The experience of countries in introducing automatic promotion is varied. Grade repetition is applied in secondary education in some countries (e.g. Nigeria), from the last grade of primary education in others (e.g. Mauritius), or limited to the last grades of sub-cycles of primary education (e.g. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Sao Tome and Principe, and Senegal). A gradual transition by grade/level could represent a potential strategy in countries where repetition is well-rooted in educational practice. For example, the sub-cycle implementation policy consists of dividing the average six-year cycle of primary schooling into two-year sub-cycles with no repetition allowed within each sub-cycle. When practiced alongside a system that identifies and supports weaker children, this approach has been found to increase quality (Ndaruhutse, 2008). However, there are important obstacles facing countries aiming to implement such policies. There is often a culturally engrained practice of grade repetition in certain countries, leading to a strong resistance to reform. Consequently, policy change will require meaningful engagement of all stakeholders: governments, education policymakers and planners, district education officers, school managers, teachers, teaching assistants, parents/caretakers, learners and civil society (Ndaruhutse, 2008). Policies that focus on prevention or prioritise interventions before learning gaps accumulate can be the most cost-effective. Specifically, policies aiming at building readiness to learn at an early pre-school stage or providing individual remediation as first symptoms of learning difficulties emerge or when absenteeism is observed would efficiently reduce repetition and early school leaving. This should help to diminish lost investments while leading to improvements in school retention. Educational initiatives like Education for All (EFA) or the Second Decade of Education for Africa (2006- 2015) explicitly include early childhood education and development in their goals and action plan. Nevertheless, the supply of pre-primary education is still lower than demand in most developing countries. Pre-primary education can be costly and is mainly provided by private institutions in urban areas. As a result, some parents who have children of pre-primary education age (typically 3 to 6-yearolds) send them to school – often prematurely – as primary education becomes tuition-free in many countries. A number of early enrolled children may not be sufficiently prepared for school, making this experience more challenging for them. This contributes to repetition and early school leaving in the first grade of primary education in many developing countries. 57
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Global education diGest 2012 INSTIT
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GLOBAL EDUCATION DIGEST 2012 Opport
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FOREWORD Each year the UNESCO Insti
Page 7 and 8: CONTENTS Foreword 3 Acknowledgement
Page 9: OPPORTUNITIES LOST: THE IMPACT OF G
Page 12 and 13: SECTION 1 / Policy design and imple
Page 20 and 21: SECTION 2 / Learning achievement: D
Page 34 and 35: SECTION 3 EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING: LOS
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Page 48 and 49: SECTION 4 / Monitoring education qu
Page 54 and 55: SECTION 5 THE COSTS OF SCHOOL FAILU
Page 56 and 57: SECTION 5 / The costs of school fai
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Page 62 and 63: REFERENCES Belfield, Clive (2008).
Page 64 and 65: A N N E X A4 DEFINITIONS Adjusted n
Page 66 and 67: DEFINITIONS Educational institution
Page 68 and 69: DEFINITIONS Social science, busines
Page 70 and 71: DEFINITIONS Net flow ratio of mobil
Page 72 and 73: DEFINITIONS Part-time students. Stu
Page 74 and 75: A N N E X B INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
Page 76 and 77: A N N E X C REGIONS ARAB STATES (20
Page 78 and 79: A N N E X D ELECTRONIC RESOURCES UI
Page 80 and 81: READER’S GUIDE ii) UOE survey UNE
Page 82 and 83: READER’S GUIDE Population issues:
Page 84 and 85: A N N E X F STATISTICAL TABLES The
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Global Education Digest 2012 - International Reading Association

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