Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

100CHAPTER 22Education for All Global Monitoring Report10080604020020406080100Figure 2.38: Reading ability in secondary school also varies greatly across countries% of 15-year-old students reaching the PISA standard levels of reading proficiency, 2006Level 5Level 4Level 3Level 2Level 1Below level 1Highest benchmark achieved (% of students)10080604020020406080100OECDRep. of KoreaFinlandCanadaIrelandNew ZealandAustraliaNetherlandsSwedenBelgiumSwitzerlandGermanyJapanDenmarkUnited KingdomFranceAustriaIcelandNorwayHungaryCzech Rep.LuxembourgPortugalItalySlovakiaGreeceSpainOther high incomeHong Kong, ChinaLiechtensteinEstoniaSloveniaMacao, ChinaIsraelQatarNotes: Below level 1 – students have serious difficulty using reading literacy as an effective tool to advance and extend their knowledge and skills in other areas. Level 5 –students can complete sophisticated reading tasks, such as evaluating critically, building hypotheses, and locating and accommodating concepts contrary to expectations.Source: OECD (2007b).Figure 2.39: Latin America’s reading league has large performance gapsLevels of reading performance of third grade primary school students in Latin America, 2007Percentage of students reaching performance levelCubaChileCosta RicaMexicoUruguayArgentinaColombiaBrazilEl SalvadorNicaraguaPeruPanamaParaguayEcuadorGuatemalaDominican Rep.Level 4Level 3Level 2Level 1Below level 1Notes: Level 1 – Students can locate information with a single meaning which is repeated in a prominentpart of a text. Level 4 – Students can integrate and generalize information given in a paragraph, read a textand identify new information.Source: UNESCO-OREALC (2008).The case for reducing disparities in learningachievement goes beyond education. Moreequitable education, combined with sustainedimprovement in overall quality, is likely to be goodfor economic growth and social cohesion. Achievinggreater equity will require a stronger focus onschools that serve the disadvantaged – and onthe factors beyond education that diminish learningachievement. Many countries have shown thatit is possible to combine equity with high levelsof overall achievement.Measuring equity in learning achievement isinherently difficult. One approach is simply tomeasure the gap between the best- and worstperformingstudents. Figure 2.40 applies thismeasure to grade 4 mathematics results usingdata from TIMSS. The sizes of the bars showdifferences in test scores between the bestperformers (ninety-fifth percentile) and the worst(fifth percentile), expressed as a percentage ofthe average country score. In OECD countries,disparities in learning are typically smaller thanin other countries covered in TIMSS. In Germany,the difference between the best and worstperformers is about 42% of the mean score of 525.108