Educational outcomes and labour markets in Africa
Dr. Francis Teal, Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) in the University of Oxford talks about labour markets in educational outcomes in Africa based on his research under the RECOUP project. Numerous claims were made about the positive role that education, especially at primary level, plays in improving employment opportunities and livelihoods of people in Africa and indeed elsewhere. But research by Dr. Francis Teal shows that this relationship is not quite as straightforward as it had been thought. There are other crucial factors that link education with its pro-poor outcomes. Click to listen to the podcast.
Impact of aid on education policy in Kenya and India
Prof. Chris Coclough talks about impact of aid on education policy based on the findings of his latet research. According to his research, aid to education has had a greater impact upon the substance of education policy in Kenya than in India, but in both countries it has strongly affected the transparency and accountability of planning and spending in the sector. However, the Paris and Accra accords have so far had only limited impact upon the aid process, and where they have influenced aid practice, the burden of change has fallen much more heavily on recipients than donors. Click to listen to the interview podcast.
Delivery blues stalk success of social schemes
Shailaja Fennell's article in the Hindustan Times says inclusive development is much needed in India today but despite substantial increases in budget allocation for food security, school education and health, social transformation is uneven, and two-fifths of the rural population are still denied the basic right of sanitation. While the Budget states, ‘For the UPA government, inclusive development is an act of faith’, the Economic Survey suggests we should consider ‘a nation’s progress in terms of the progress of its poorest segment’. The pathway to social transformation was identified in the Finance Minister’s speech as ‘the development of infrastructure in rural areas’ and ensuring we ‘strengthen food security, improve education opportunities and provide health facilities at the level of households’. Read more...
Let's go by the book
There are 220 million children in India who receive very poor quality education and 21 million who are out of school. Children in both contexts are unable to exercise their right to education despite the adoption of the Right to Education Act on April 1, 2010, a situation that has the potential of turning a historic opportunity into a poor Fool’s Day joke.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has been pushing forward the public-private partnership (PPP) model of education as a way to reduce the deficit in the provision of education and to improve the delivery of educational services in the country. At a recent conference on ‘Building Infrastructure: Opportunities and Challenges’, the education minister focused on three models set out in the original document of the MHRD in September 2009 – from (a) the simple task of school infrastructure being built by the private sector, (b) the upkeep and maintenance of the building, and non-educational services like canteens, to (c) the full provision of educational services, including teaching and examination, by the private sector. Read more...
For more information please contact Shailaja Fennell on ss141@cam.ac.uk
Related links
The PPPs project page and project publications
RECOUP Presents its Findings at the Annual Conference of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth
Nidhi Singal was invited to give a keynote at the Annual Conference titled, “Including people with disabilities: celebrating Commonwealth experiences” held on 30th of June, 2010 at the British Council (London) organised by the Council for Education in the Commonwealth. The conference was well attended, with over 60 participants ranging from members of the council, commonwealth secretariat, academicians and students from across the UK. Nidhi Singal presented the work on the project Disability, Education and Poverty, drawing on research findings from India and Pakistan. Her presentation was shaped by the paper she is currently drafting with Feyza Bhatti, Shehryar Janjua and Neeru Sood - RECOUP researchers from Pakistan and India. The presentation discussed the significant impact of education on young people’s perception of themselves, their confidence, and functional skills. It however raised important concerns about the low awareness amongst educated young people regarding their rights and entitlements and more importantly, their inability to convert these into usable opportunities, so as to influence their lives in positive ways. The presentation was very well received by the audience and generated interesting discussion.
For more information, please contact Nidhi Singal at sn241@cam.ac.uk
Worrying Findings From A Unique Survey of E
ducation in India
Professor Geeta Kingdon, RECOUP partner from the Institute of Education, talked about her worrying findings from a unique survey of education in India in the June episode of Development Matters - a monthly podcast produced by the London International Development Centre.
Related links
Addressing school quality: Some policy pointers from rural North India
MDG Conference Agenda 2010: The Turning Point on Poverty
DFID’s conference this year, Agenda 2010: the Turning Point on Poverty, of 11 March 2010, brought together leading technical experts to discuss the specific actions needed to achieve the MDGs. RECOUP Director Christopher Colclough was a commentator on the education presentations of the conference.
The focus of the DFID conference was on some of the most off-track MDGs – hunger and nutrition, education and health. The conference also addressed the conditions needed to enable the MDGs to be met, including economic growth, stable states, the empowerment of women and tackling climate change. Delegates included around 80 technical experts, key ministers and policy makers from developing countries.
Related links
Watch conference videos on YouTube
Conference programme
Background paper on education
MDG Progress Maps
Financing Universal Basic Education: Where Are We, What Next?
On 29 October, Prof. Christopher Colclough co-chaired a joint ODI and Hewlett Foundation workshop on financing basic education. He opened the meeting by highlighting the topical nature of the issue given the perilous nature of international support for education. He then set the scene by explaining that in this time the international environment is characterised by crisis, therefore, a dialogue on where we are, how to deal with risks, how to move to new priorities, and how to deliver on promises could not be more important.
The presentations included:
- A summary of findings of a recent research project on "Achieving Universal Basic Education: Constraints and Opportunities in Donor Financing". The project aimed to answer the question of why, despite strong political support for basic education, the sector has not been able to attract more donor funds and what can be done in the future to better achieve the targets.
- A recent paper on "Strengthening the Global Education Compact", which provides an analysis of the options for the global education aid architecture.
- An update of the GCE-FIFA 2010 World Cup initiative, 1GOAL, which aims to renew global leaders' commitment to achieving the basic education goals.
For more information about the workshop and to download audio and video presentations please click on the links below.
Related links:
Overview of the event
Audio files
Education and Gender Equality in Pakistan
Research under the RECOUP agenda in Pakistan has in the past year generated the final version of a book-chapter for an edited volume in a World Bank Publication. This project asks whether and to what extent education is a path to gender equality in the Pakistani labor market. The labor market benefits of education accrue both from education/skills promoting a person's entry into the more lucrative occupations and by raising earnings within any given occupation. For education to promote gender equality, however, it must benefit women equally if not more than men, through either or both of the above two channels.
The research finds that women's propensity to participate in paid employment is invariant with respect to education up to about 10 years of education. Beyond 10 years of education, occupational attainment, especially women's chances of entry into wage employment, improves strongly with each extra year of education. However, only 10% of women have completed 10 years of education or more. Thus, education is a means of gender equality in occupational attainment only for a very restricted number of women in the Pakistan labour market. More positively, however, the research finds that, within all occupations, the earnings increment from an extra year of education is much higher for women than for men and so the (very large) gender gap in earnings falls dramatically with education. Thus, while education is a path to gender equality in that it strongly reduces the earnings gap between employed men and women, this positive assessment has to be moderated by the fact that, up to 10 years of education, education is not a sufficient counter to culture, conservative attitudes and division-of-labour norms to encourage female employment. The research examines whether and how much the education-labour market relationships have changed over an 8 year period from 1999 to 2007 (using PIHS 1999 and RECOUP 2007 data), and considers the policy implications. This book chapter was published in the World Bank edited volume in November 2008.
For more information, please email Geeta Kingdon at G.Kingdon@ioe.ac.uk
Related links
Click here to download the e-book
Project pages
