people and planet

5
“
Education gaps are often wider within urban
areas, than between urban and rural
”
FIGURE 5.2:
Developing countries have rural–urban disparity but also very high
intra-urban disparity
Disparity based on location (rural–urban) and wealth (bottom and top
quintile) in lower secondary completion rates
Lower secondary completion rate (%)
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Cambodia
Pakistan
Honduras
Nepal
India
Sudan
Syrian A. R.
Philippines
Thailand
Egypt
Viet Nam
Jordan
Palestine
Urban rich
Rural rich
National
Rural poor
Urban poor
region, especially with regard to access to good quality
schooling (De la Fuente et al., 2013). Similarly, district-level
analysis in São Paulo, Brazil, found that public services
and utilities, including education, were more intensively
allocated to districts with higher levels of human
development (Haddad and Nedovic-Budic, 2006). In the
province of Free State, South Africa, high crime rates were
associated with a bifurcated society and with high levels
of social exclusion and marginalization, including through
segregated, marginalized schools (Jonck et al., 2015).
Within cities, the distribution of amenities can vary.
Important amenities are usually concentrated in city
centres. For instance, 2007 data from Kisumu, Kenya,
showed the city centre had far more primary schools than
the rest of the city, schools with lower pupil/teacher ratios,
and a high number of primary school toilets, as well as most
of the private schools (Figure 5.3). The more populated
central district, Kibuye, had 31 primary schools while the
remaining districts averaged 7 primary schools each.
Source: GEM Report team analysis (2016) based on Demographic and Health
Surveys, Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys and national household survey data.
types of inequality are linked to income levels, the location
of employers, transport options and spending policies
(Kilroy, 2007), as well as current and historical legislation
that institutionalizes ethnic and racial discrimination and
segregation (Rothstein and Santow, 2012). Pockets of
poverty in cities can evolve into persistent disadvantage as
their populations become isolated from job opportunities,
experience crime and violence more frequently and are
physically separated from other income groups. In recent
years, growing fears for personal safety from crime and
violence have led to a proliferation of gated communities,
some of which have even expanded to become gated cities
(Borsdorf and Hidalgo, 2008; UN Habitat, 2009a).
Policy
Discriminatory policies and practices exacerbate inequality
in education. An in-depth analysis of Chile’s second-largest
urban region, the Concepción metropolitan area, found
major differences in the distribution of schools in the
Inequitable distribution of good teachers can exacerbate
educational inequality. It is well documented that
qualified teachers, especially women, are less likely to
transfer to and stay in rural areas or low income schools
in inner cities (Chudgar and Luschei, 2015; UNESCO, 2014,
2015). Countries have used payment- and accountabilitybased
teacher recruitment and retention policies to
counter this bias (Chudgar and Luschei, 2015). However,
policies to redistribute teachers to rural areas or low
performing schools can be difficult to implement due
to teacher preferences, as well as the role of political
influence in teacher placement. For instance, research
on teachers in India revealed a clear patronage-based
relationship between teachers and politicians; the teacher
transfer system was not based on objective criteria such
as the needs of schools or regions (Beteille, 2009).
Private schools can both alleviate and cause inequality.
In many countries, private schools address the needs of
increased urban populations and serve the entire socioeconomic
spectrum to provide a perceived or actual
higher quality of education than the public system,
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CHAPTER 5 | PLACE: INCLUSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE CITIES