PART 1.

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS AND

ISSUES
This section starts with a brief recapitulation of the main goals for educational development which
were adopted at the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000 by governments, non-governmental
organizations and multilateral and national development assistance agencies. The ambitions set forth
in the Dakar Framework for Action are then confronted with some major world-wide trends
characterising the actual expansion and development of different sub-sectors of education.

1.1 Education for All

The six Education for All (EFA) goals adopted at the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, express
the major goals for educational development which were agreed upon at the international level. These
EFA goals are:
1. Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the
most vulnerable and disadvantaged children;
2. Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those
belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary
education of good quality;
3. Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access
to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes;
4. Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and
equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults;
5. Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender
equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and
achievement in basic education of good quality;
6. Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized
and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and
essential life skills.

1.2 Comparing participation in education worldwide

Comparable data for different regions of the world show that gross enrolment rates in low-income
countries are significantly below the rates for middle-income and high-income countries, for all levels
of formal education except primary education. In the latter category, gross enrolment rates often
exceed 100 per cent as children above and below the normal enrolment age are also included. The
disparity in enrolment rates between low- and high-income countries is particularly marked for tertiary
and pre-primary (early childhood) education. Figure 1 presents the same information in graphical form.

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Figure 1. Gross enrolment ratio in formal education, 2007

120

100

80
Word 
60 Low Income
Middle Income
40
High Income
20

0
Pre‐primary Primary Secondary Tertiary

Source: World Development Indicators 2009, World Bank, 2009.

Table 1 presents information on outcome measures for selected sub-sectors of education. Completion
rates are an outcome measure, which is one indicator used for the quality and efficiency of the
system. The completion rate often used as an indicator of quality by the World Bank is defined as the
ratio of the number of children graduating from primary school each year to the population of official
graduating age. Low-income countries perform poorly on this measure as well as on adult literacy
rates.

Table 1. Education completion and outcome rates, 2007

Primary
Youth literacy rate Adult literacy rate
Countries by
completion rate
income level (% age 15-24) (% age 15 and older)
(% of relevant
age group)
Male Female Male Female

World 85 91 86,6 87 78

Low income 65 79 69 72 55

Middle income 93 94 91 90 80

High income 97 100 100 99 99

Source: World Development Indicators 2009, World Bank, 2009.

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1.3 Trends by education sub-sector 3

Early childhood care and education (ECCE): patterns and issues

Recent research has shown that early years of life, especially around age 3, are critical for brain
development. Research has also shown that quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) can
significantly improve the cognitive, social, and emotional development of the child. These benefits
have been found to last well into adulthood. In addition to the personal development benefits, the
child also derives cognitive and economic benefits as he/she develops into adulthood and participates
in higher learning and/or the labour market. The society, too, derives economic and social benefits in
the form of better labour supply, higher productivity, reduced costs for remedial educational, health
and social programmes, including the costs of fighting crime and anti-social behaviour.
In 2006, 36 per cent of pre-primary children in developing countries received some type of ECCE.
Access was the poorest in sub-Saharan Africa (14 per cent) and in Arab States (18 per cent). In
contrast, some 79 per cent of children in developed countries had access to ECCE.4 One positive
element is the rate at which access is expanding in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Primary and secondary education

In most countries, primary and secondary education account for the largest share of education
budgets. The sector has three very important roles: to prepare young people for adulthood, working
lives, and further learning. Hence the school holds the key for transmitting values for adult life, skills
for work life and cognitive readiness to engage in higher levels of learning.
Data on gross and net enrolment ratios show that while much progress has been made in recent
years, a significant percentage of primary school-age children still do not have access to education,
especially in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Arab States.
The picture is even more dismal for secondary education. Only 25 per cent of secondary school-age
children had access to this level of education in sub-Saharan Africa in 20065. The South and West
Asian region, with a 45 per cent net enrolment rate, also has a long way to go. Overall, in the
developing countries, approximately one out of two children of secondary school age is enrolled in
school.
The poor participation rates mean that, in 2006, more than 95 per cent of all out-of-school children at
primary level were residing in developing countries, which hardly represents any improvement since
1999. More than 45 per cent of these children are in sub-Saharan Africa.

3 When presenting and discussing hereafter the trends and policy issues in each of the main sub-sectors of education we shall use
the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) developed by UNESCO, 1997 ISCED presents standard concepts,
definitions and classifications to compare education systems internationally and covers all forms of organized learning opportunities
for children, youth and adults Source: http://www.unesco.org/education/information/nfsunesco/doc/isced_1997.htm (UNESCO).
4 Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2009, UNESCO.

5 Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2009, UNESCO.

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Compounding the frequently poor quality of primary and secondary education in developing countries
are low access rates and high drop-out rates. These are often inequitably distributed across gender,
socio-economic, rural or urban and linguistic groups.

Technical and vocational education

The technical and vocational education (TVE) sub-sector is aimed at preparing students for the labour
market. Detailed TVE data on enrolments, quality, performance and funding are lacking for most
nations. As already noted, in most developing countries a large amount of vocational training takes
place in the informal economy, on farms, in small businesses and generally without being
accompanied by any theoretical training or recognition in qualification structures.

Tertiary education
Gross enrolment ratios at the tertiary level in developed countries were recorded at 67 per cent in
2006. This is in contrast to the developing countries where South and West Asia and the Arab States
are among the lowest at 11 and 22 per cent respectively. Sub-Saharan Africa records extremely
lowest enrolment rates with a mere 5 per cent.
In most countries, government resources devoted to primary and secondary education range from 4 to
7 times the resources that go to the tertiary sector. This is despite the fact that per student costs in
the tertiary sector are relatively high, often ten times higher than the per capita cost for primary and
secondary schooling. The reason, of course, lies in the much larger number of pupils that have to be
served by the school sector.

Adult learning
Adult learning comprises a variety of forms and settings for learning. It can range from formal and
institutionalized learning dedicated to skills or qualifications upgrading, and languages and life skills
learning to informal learning on the job and in other life settings. Both young adults, who may have
dropped out of the formal education sector, and other adults are included in adult learning
programmes.
Adult learning is important because, potentially, it can compensate for, and complement, the
shortcomings of the formal sector, by providing a second chance to those who missed out on
schooling. It can also contribute to a number of personal and social objectives such as: personal
development; qualification improvement; enhancement of job prospects, productivity and
employability; alleviation of poverty; functional effectiveness in society; greater participation in civic
life; greater empowerment for marginal groups; and enhancement of democracy. Functioning
effectively in the knowledge society requires updating of life and work skills of adults who make up a
large part of the population. It can contribute to social cohesion by including the disadvantaged groups
in mainstream society.
Because of its very diverse nature, comprehensive and reliable data is lacking on participation in adult
learning, its costs, financing, quality and effectiveness. It can be observed that even in a developed
country, participation in adult learning programmes is rather limited. Moreover, evidence shows that
these opportunities go more to those who already possess good qualifications.
Although data on in developing countries is scarce, it is a known fact that adult learning programmes
are inequitably distributed. One indication of the need for adult learning is provided by the data on
adult literacy rates by region. It is clear that improving literacy alone presents a formidable challenge
in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa (59 per cent literacy rate), South and West Asia (60 per cent)
and the Arab States (70 per cent). The rates for women are even lower.

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Moreover, it must be noted that existing adult learning programmes often suffer from certain
shortcomings such as:
• The coverage of these programmes tends to be far below the needs.
• Participation in such programmes is generally inequitably distributed between the gender,
rural-urban divide and between the high and low socio-economic groups.
• Their quality is often questionable and rarely assessed.
• Teachers involved in these programmes tend to be poorly paid and have limited resources to
work with.
• The programmes are not well integrated with an overall view of their importance within the
education sector.

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PART 2. CHALLENGES FOR EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND
PLANNING
From the brief overview of the recent world-wide evolution of education provided in Part 1 of this Unit
it has become clear that a large number of countries are still far from having attained the EFA goals.
Governments aiming to achieve sustainable quantitative and qualitative progress of their education
systems will, therefore, have to make careful policy choices. Part 2 of Unit 2 provides an overview of
some major challenges that need to be considered when planning and deciding for the future
development of the education sector.

2.1 Developing specific sub-sectors of education

Early childhood and primary education

As indicated above, both access to education and the levels of educational attainment in developing
countries are far from satisfactory in comparison to high-income countries. Part of the reasons for
establishing the EFA goals was to help reduce the sometimes massive gap and help create more
equal opportunities for those developing nations most in need. However, the mid-term EFA Global
Monitoring Report records only mixed results on these goals (UNESCO, 2007).
Progress in primary school participation and completion does not depend on money alone. The scale
of required investment for primary education in developing countries is large. The scale problem is
compounded by the demographic patterns of developing nations, which indicate that the school-age
cohort will be expanding for many of them for at least another decade to come. There is no simple
solution. Early Childhood Care and Education constitutes a key to improved access to primary
education and to better pupil learning at all levels of education. ECCE suffers from inadequate
investment in most countries. However both the coverage and quality of ECCE programmes is very
poor in many developing countries. The ECCE system suffers in particular from low public investment
and incoherence of policies and programme delivery. The sector combines policy interest from
education, health, social welfare and employment ministries, and it is important to have coherence
across these policy domains.

General secondary education

Apart from the challenge of providing larger access to secondary education, policy-makers and
planners will also have to find adequate responses to the poor quality that is widely characterising the
education provided at this level. While there are some good quality institutions (often in the private
sector and serving the richer groups of society) most public sector institutions lack adequate buildings,
study material, and suitable curricula and pedagogy. Another major challenge to be addressed relates
to secondary teachers who are often characterised by insufficient qualification levels and even more
widely by high levels of de-motivation because of low pay and career prospects.

Adult education
The challenge for providing adult learning is also very daunting as it competes with primary and other
formal education sectors for limited educational funds. It has a relatively low government priority in
almost all countries and most resources for adult learning come from the private and voluntary
sectors. There are several reasons for the low priority accorded by governments:
• The learning needs of children, which are seen as a high priority, are themselves unmet by the
limited budgets.

26
 • The adult learning sector does not have a voice at the political level, as it is not an important
issue for the class that runs governments.
• The potential of adult learning for enhancing productivity, employment and innovation in local
settings has not been assessed through substantive analysis.
• The empowerment that adult learning could bring may even be seen as threatening to many
governments.

Vocational education and training

The Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) sector has many policy challenges. One issue stems
from the fact that much of vocational training in developing countries takes place in the informal
economy. The challenges here are to supplement the applied learning with some theoretical learning
in order to improve its quality and make it part of a recognized qualification. Another issue is whether
there should be early streaming or channelling of students into TVE streams, for example, in the last
years of lower secondary education or at upper secondary levels. The experience of developed
countries is that early streaming is ineffective, especially if the students do not have the option of
being able to cross over to academic streams. Early streaming limits progression routes for students. A
particular concern relates to whether this offers a path through tertiary education or whether it is
meant only to prepare individuals for the world of work and represents a dead end as far as entry to
further learning is concerned.
The TVE sector is also often poorly funded, the teachers are not sufficiently qualified and the
programme content is outdated and weakly linked to developments in the industrial sectors for which
they prepare students.

Tertiary education
Tertiary or higher education has at least three needs to respond to:
• the “search for knowledge” needs of citizens
• the skill needs of the economy
• the research and innovation needs of society.
The challenges the sector poses for policy-makers come from how well these needs are being met. In
most developed and developing countries, there is a general feeling that the tertiary sector is not
meeting these needs to a satisfactory degree. As a consequence, there is a movement in many
countries to diversify the function of universities. To the traditional missions of universities – teaching
and research – many countries are adding a third mission: service to society, which includes things
like:
• opening up universities to admit a more diverse group of learners
• better disseminating their research to the wider society
• co-operating more closely with industry
• contributing more effectively to the innovation processes in the country, especially in a
regional context
• adjusting their programmes, teaching and learning functions to suit the needs of more
diverse categories of learners
• improving accountability in the use of public resources.

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In brief: what used to be a supply-dominated sector, often in its ‘ivory tower’, needs to be more
responsive to the demand side, to the needs of ordinary citizens, the economy and society, and should
be managed more efficiently.

2.2 The quality of education

“In the many countries that are striving to guarantee all children the right to education, the focus on
access often overshadows attention to quality. Yet quality determines how much and how well children
learn and the extent to which their education translates into a range of personal, social and
developmental benefits” (UNESCO, 2004). Most governments recognize that Education for All cannot
be achieved without improving quality. Yet, in many parts of the world a significant share of children
leave the school system without having acquired a minimum set of cognitive skills.
Defining quality remains a challenge. The easiest approach identifies learners’ cognitive development
as the major explicit indicator of education quality. Assessing the capacity of schools to promote
values and attitudes is much more challenging. The following chart provides a framework in the
context of education quality:

Figure 2. A framework for understanding quality

Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005, UNESCO, 2004.

The concern for the quality of education does not only apply to developing countries. Even in the most
advanced systems, governments are confronted with the need to better understand what makes a
good education in an effort to build a framework to assess and monitor education quality. European
countries have agreed upon the following dimensions:

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Table 2. Sixteen indicators on the quality of school education

Source: European report on the quality of school education, European Commission, 2000.
http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/indic/rapinen.pdf

2.3 Educational equity and social cohesion

The role of education has become greater as its wider social benefits gain recognition. Research has
shown that educational inequity is an important contributor to income inequity. More equitable access
to educational opportunities, therefore, can play a role in reducing income inequities and combating
poverty. There is now some evidence that greater inequity leads to poorer economic growth rates,
while growth rates are positively correlated with greater equity. Thus, education can also contribute
indirectly to higher economic growth rates through its impact on reducing inequity of income
distribution. Education policies can help bridge the gap between other inequities such as the urban-
rural divide, and linguistic and cultural divides. Gender equity is also an important social goal and is
also one of the six EFA goals which can be influenced through education. By working through these
mechanisms, education can contribute to greater social cohesion.
While education policies can capitalize on these positive effects of education, it is important to
remember that the education system does not automatically contribute to greater equity: it has to be
designed to do so. An education system can, in fact, contribute to re-enforce existing inequities
through the various stages of educational provision. There is considerable evidence to suggest that
educational performance at the primary and secondary levels is heavily determined by the socio-
economic status of students’ parents. Educational performance at the secondary level is a key
determinant of whether a student will progress to the tertiary level. The income levels of those who
proceed to the tertiary level are much higher than income levels of those who do not. Further
education and training at a later stage in life is also highly correlated with having good qualifications to
begin with. In this way, existing socio-economic inequities can be solidified or even exacerbated by the
way the education system is organized. To overcome this vicious circle, and turn it into a virtuous
circle, requires careful educational planning that gives due consideration to the aspect of equity.

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2.4 Linking learning and work: Qualification structures and career guidance

In both the developed and the developing world the need to engage in learning through the life cycle,
through formal and informal settings is currently widely recognized. The Lifelong Learning concept
sees educational needs of citizen as spanning the whole life cycle, from early childhood to late in adult
life, that is, from birth to death, or from cradle to grave. Educational needs differ in different phases of
life. Hence, learning provision needs to meet demand arising from several sources: economic, social
and personal developmental requirements. Thus, the framework includes all forms of learning
activities taking place in both the formal setting of the schools and universities and the informal
settings of home, employment and life situations (Hasan, 1999)
One example of the learning that takes place in the informal economy is the traditional
apprenticeships that exist in many developing countries, especially in West Africa. The qualification
structures of a country, however, are mostly based on the qualifications earned in the formal sector.
Accepting that learning takes place in the informal economy and recognising it in the qualifications
system of a country is often a major policy challenge.
Another policy challenge is to ensure that a qualification is not a dead end. It needs to provide
incentives for the individual to progress, from lower level qualifications to higher levels, and to
continue learning, both formally and informally. To achieve this, qualifications in a country need to be
linked through a progression path; there need to be minimum requirements for entry into a system
and ways of achieving these minimum requirements. Qualifications must have clear links, with
multiple entry routes to other qualifications. Career counselling services can then help individuals to
navigate through the qualifications pathways and allow for accumulation of learning. It is clear that the
notion of a qualification system is meaningful only across different sub-sectors of education: it is a
feature of the system as a whole.
A major challenge of TVE is the low status it has in most countries. It is often seen as a second choice
and an option for weaker students, frequently linked to their weaker socio-economic backgrounds. The
low status of these programmes is linked to the poor status, wages and working conditions of the jobs
for which they prepare people. Another difficulty, especially in developing countries, is the low quality
of the TVE programmes.
At the tertiary level, many of the TVE programmes suffer from poor quality and an increase in
academic content These issues are felt even more strongly in the developing world: the tertiary sector
is not well integrated with the needs of learners, the economy and society. The teaching and learning
programmes are often highly theoretical in content and neglect their relevance to contemporary
society. The low priority given to TVE programmes is one manifestation of this problem. The research
and development function, likewise, is unrelated to the needs of industry, especially of small and
medium-sized enterprises. The agricultural and resource sectors, which still dominate the economy of
many developing nations, are not well reflected in academic and research programmes. In some
countries, universities continue to producing generalists that look for employment in the government
sector or in developed countries. Training of medical doctors is a case in point, which represents a
serious drain of resources for developing nations.

2.5 Resources for education

Each country must decide on how much to spend on education compared with other national priorities
such as health and national defence. Within the education sector itself, there is a need to decide how
much to allocate to what kinds of education and training. A lifelong learning perspective has the
advantage of engaging across sub-sectors in terms of allocation issues. Countries differ widely in their
priorities, which is partly linked to their level of development but also to the demographic and
educational profile and the nature of their employment market. A sector-wide view is essential to
understanding the priority a country accords to education. Table 3 gives information on public

30
expenditure on education for different categories of countries. In general, the middle-income countries
spend much lower proportions of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on education compared to high-
income countries.

Table 3. Public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP, 2006

Countries by income level Public Expenditure on Education (% of GDP)

World 4.9

Low income 3.5

Lower middle income 5.6

Upper middle income 4.7

High income 5.3

Source: World Development Indicators 2009, World Bank, 2009.

Similar data by geographical regions in Table 4, show that the percentage of GNP devoted to
education in South West Asia (3.2%), Arab States (4.5%) and sub-Saharan Africa (5.0%) is below the
rate for North America and Western Europe (5.7%). When allocations out of the national budgets are
considered, developing regions spend a larger percentage of government budgets (ranging from 14%
to 26%) as compared with North America and Western Europe (13%). This is to be expected:
developing nations need to spend much more (in terms of budget proportion) to meet basic education
needs because they have a low base of educational provision and have to invest more, to meet their
development goals. They are also facing increasing demand from a population that is growing much
faster, with a larger share of children and youth, than in developed countries.

Table 4. Total public expenditure on education as % of GNP and as % of total government expenditure
by region, 2005

Source: EFA, GMR 2008, UNESCO 2007.

In addition to total expenditure on education, countries must also decide on how much to allocate to
different sub-sectors within the education sector. Again, countries differ widely in the respective

31
priorities they accord to components of the education sector such as early childhood education and
care, primary schooling, secondary schooling, tertiary education and adult learning.

2.6 Governance and management

Many of the contextual developments discussed above have changed the understanding of the
respective roles of governments and the private sector in the education field. On the one hand, the
large economic and social benefits of education argue for a greater role of the state in funding the
education and training system. Although the role of states in providing school-level education has
always been widely recognised, there are new arguments for governments to support early childhood
education as well as literacy and training programmes for adults. Empirical evidence also shows that
there are large benefits of education for individuals and employers, hence a partnership between the
state, employers and individuals is required for funding education and training.
As a reflection of the latter point, increased privatization of educational services is one trend that has
been observed internationally. The main reason for this is the recognition that education can be a
profitable business for which there is a market, and individuals and businesses are willing to pay for
quality services. There is increased private provision of education at all levels in most countries.
However, the increasing expansion of the private sector raises equity issues. The state has to provide
for the majority of the population. Restrictions on government budgets, which are faced by all
countries, mean that the expansion of government resources devoted to education has been limited.
Even though the proportion of GDP devoted to education has increased in nearly all countries, the per-
student expenditure in the public sector is generally less than the per-student expenditure by the
private sector.
Furthermore, governments are facing increasing pressures to achieve greater efficiency on the use of
public sector funds. One response to this is to decentralize public education services, which is a
common trend observed in many countries. Decentralization is also linked to objectives of achieving
greater accountability on the part of the state in spending public funds.
There is also a trend towards the measurement of student achievements and other educational
outcomes as well as evaluations of education service delivery as means for the public sector to assess
the quality and effectiveness of what is actually being achieved from its expenditures on education.

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