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/REPEAT/EDUCATION: More Schools, but Many Children Aren’t Learning

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Jul 17 2006 (IPS) - World Bank investments in education may be sending more children to school across the world, but the quality of learning is poor and many children are not gaining better skills as originally hoped, the Bank’s own watchdog says.

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), a self-auditing body that reports directly to the executive board of the Washington-based World Bank, says in a new study that two of every 10 primary education projects funded by the lender stress enrollment and attendance rather than teaching children basic skills such as reading and writing.

Since 1990, the World Bank has nearly tripled its lending and grants for primary education in developing countries, doling out loans worth 12.5 billion dollars to nearly 100 countries.

But the IEG says that if the World Bank and borrowing nations are to see their investments in education pay off, they will have to place as much emphasis on learning as on enrollment, access and school expansions.

“Countries and the World Bank have done well in making primary education more accessible to children, including the disadvantaged, but there has not been nearly enough emphasis on whether children are improving their basic skills,” said Vinod Thomas, IEG’s director general.

“There must be continued efforts to provide more children with access to school, and at the same time to also ensure that learning actually takes place in school.”

The report paints a grim picture of the education situation in the world. It says that an estimated 103 million 6 to 11-year-olds in developing countries – or about one-fifth of the total – were still not in school in 2001.

Two-thirds of out-of-school children were girls, a share almost unchanged from a decade before, while many drop out before completing primary school. Of those who graduate, fewer than half acquire satisfactory levels of knowledge and skills.

Presently, about a quarter of the adult population of the developing world is illiterate.

In countries where the World Bank has made a specific effort to invest in education, the situation is no less dire. In Ghana, Niger, Peru, and Yemen, for example, only 19 percent of sixth graders reached mastery levels in language; and no more than 11 percent did so in mathematics.

In India, nearly 50 percent of 7 to 10-year-olds could not read fluently in their local language at the first grade level, the report says.

The lead author of the report rebuked the Bank for having only a few projects that focus on improving early reading skills.

“Poor reading skills in early grades are behind much of the weak performance that appears in achievement tests later on, as well as early drop-out and repetition, particularly among children of low income families,” said Dean Nielsen.

IEG, which reviewed more than 700 primary education projects in 12 nations from 1990 onward, does acknowledge the increase in access. It says that during the past 15 years, net enrollment rates increased in developing countries from about 82 percent of the relevant age group to about 86 percent, mainly because of new schools and classrooms within easy walking distance.

“World Bank support, both lending and non-lending, has been instrumental in making many of these changes happen. It helped to build schools, distribute books, train teachers, raise community support, and, in some cases, increase demand for schooling,” says the report.

Public expenditure per student in primary education as a share of per capita Gross Domestic Product has also risen in most the countries studied.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals call for universal primary school education by 2015. The Group of Eight (G8) most industrialised nations, which will be meeting in Russia on Monday, has put education on their agenda.

The World Bank created the Fast-Track Initiative, a programme set up in 2003 after the Bank found that some 70 countries were “off track” to accelerate progress toward education for all.

But the IEG still says that none of those efforts emphasises learning outcomes.

The report recommends that countries and lenders craft explicit policies toward improved learning outcomes, set up systems to measure student achievement, and pass changes in the education system in support of greater instructional time.

Governments should work to improve teacher skills and morale, publish more textbooks, and create outcome-oriented management of schools, it says.

“G8 leaders must support investments in getting all of the world’s children into school, and also in ensuring they complete school with the knowledge and skills required in an increasingly complex and tough world,” said Thomas.

“Providing access for all and at the same time improving learning achievements will likely raise the unit costs of primary education, but there is no other choice if countries want their next generation of citizens and workers to enjoy productive and rewarding lives.”