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Notes on the Rapid Education Assessment Calculator

Purpose of the Calculator

The calculator helps identify the factors influencing the generation and use of human capacity within a country, or set of countries. The indicators relate to education—learning outcomes and completion; the resources and inputs applied to education and training; the ease of access, participation, and progression within the education system; the learning environment and its management; and the overall social and economic setting that supports education and learning. With formal education potentially occupying almost two decades of a person's life (K through graduate school), fundamental changes in education (access, quality, parity) emerge slowly. The calculator provides a snapshot of the performance of a country's education system and relates it to other countries or a region. By juxtaposing several indicators in the radial graph format, analysts can highlight trade-offs or complementarities among activities. This information guides the selection of policies and programs to overcome constraints and take advantage of opportunities for progress.

Radial Graphs

A radial graph is a visual technique displaying several data series that have been adjusted to a common scale (here 0 to 100). The graphs are convenient for contrasting and comparing different variables. For example, opportunities for achieving universal primary completion (UPC) can be examined by comparing primary school enrollment and children in the workforce. When a large share of children work (due to poverty), progress towards UPC will be delayed until poverty diminishes.

Human Capacity

Human capacity has many dimensions. It is broadly defined as the power to grasp and analyze ideas and cope with problems or, more concretely, the means (skills, knowledge, talents, and faculties) to fulfill tasks and achieve objectives. Human capital and human capacity are directly linked. The former is the embodiment of the skills and talents; the latter reflects the services and actions derived from those skills and talents. Economists estimate the value of human capital from the stream of income and welfare generated by an individual using his/her capacities over his/her expected life-time. Education, both formal and non-formal, is the principal means by which individuals and society enhance human capacities and create human capital.

Choosing an Indicator

An indicator is a quantitative or qualitative measure related to a particular dimension of educational performance, specifically, or human capacity formation, more generally. Indicators are not norms or benchmarks. Their main purpose is to provide information about the occurrence of a particular outcome or event. The principal consideration in choosing an indicator (or set of indicators) is the information-theoretic one: what information is required to resolve the problem being confronted? This approach keeps the analysis focused and avoids the all-too-common problem of attempting to discover what problems a given set of data will resolve. The question also highlights the potential value of additional information. Additional information has value if it modifies our expectations about the outcomes of interest in useful ways.

Selecting and Deselecting Indicators

Users can customize the calculator to match more closely their analytical interests by deselecting indicators. For example, some countries may be close to achieving gender parity in primary and secondary schools. Including these indicators in the "Access" category may dominate the value of that index and disguise changes in variables such as enrolment (especially at the secondary levels). Some analysts may find that including the Human Development Index in the context variable undercuts the focus on economic growth in the "Use of Human Capacity." To deselect a complete category, e.g., Access or Quality, users should deselect all of the relevant indicators in that category.

Weighting Indicators

Weights reflect priorities. The calculator allows users to selectively emphasize different indicators using a scale of 1 (low priority) to 5 (high priority). Once the selections are made, the program automatically assigns the appropriate weights. The print-out records the weights assigned to each indicator. Weights add an extra dimension to the calculator. Users may wish to emphasize specific indicators as they review different policy scenarios. Government and donor actions already reflect specific priorities. For example, the international community has made universal primary completion a Millennium Development Goal. This, in effect, places the highest official priority on primary education relative to the expansion of secondary or tertiary education. Many policy makers will readily accept this ranking. Yet, practical circumstances dictate how vigorously the goal can be pursued. Some countries may find that the most effective and rapid means of increasing primary school enrolment will be by educate mothers. This would involve expanding adult female literacy programs. Considerations in selecting weights are efficiency (achieving a given objective at least cost), equity (spreading more broadly the benefits of a policy), and effectiveness (assuring high coherence between the goals and outcomes of policy). For example, if universal primary education is the only goal that interests policy makers, primary school completion will be given a weight of five (the highest value). Everything else will drop out (i.e., have zero weight). If equality is stressed higher weights will be given to achieving gender parity and activities that expand education in rural areas. An emphasis on effectiveness would give priority to the quality of education, especially at the tertiary level. Better trained teachers are required to raise the quality of primary and secondary education.

Data

The data consist of selected variables on the education system and the broader economic and social settings of which the education system is a part. Two categories of data are distinguished. The first relates to the generation of human capacity. Variables under this heading tend to include the activities and processes involved in expanding skills, enhancing talents, broadening knowledge, and improving the competences of human agents at all levels of society. The second category refers to the use of human capacity and is reflected in data on the methods and means by which human capacity is employed or occupied. Neither category is watertight. For example, life expectancy at birth (LEB) is a robust index of poverty (similar to the share of the population under $1 per day). Extreme poverty inhibits the productive use of human capacity. Yet, LEB also affects the generation of human capacity. Low life expectancy reduces the returns to education. This undercuts the incentive families have to seek out education opportunities. Indicators of governance show up on both sides as well. Corrupt governments divert resources from activities that improve social welfare and encourage the generation of human capacity. In this case, income falls reducing the use of human capacity.

Data on the Generation of Human Capacity

• Access to education relates to the ease of entry by students both female and male into formal education and the absence of barriers (distance, poverty, decrepit facilities, disease, violence, social restrictions) to their participation. Indicators of access include the proportion of the relevant age cohort entering primary school and higher levels, the gender ratio in primary and secondary education, expected years of schooling, and the proportion of children who work.
• Factors related to context relate to the broader economic and social setting of which education is a part. Included among the indicators are the rates of urbanization, life expectancy at birth, and the adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate. These variables are meant to capture some of the positive and negative factors outside the education system affecting the generation of human capacity. One of these, incorporated in the Human Development Index, is the rate of economic growth. Rapid economic growth is educational. It demonstrates in practical ways the advantages of discipline, enterprise, competition, inventiveness, and flexibility. Economic growth also confirms the value of adaptability and flexibility associated with the habit of life-long learning.
• Generating human capacity requires investment in education and training. Investment reflects the willingness of individuals, families, and governments to commit resources (finance, physical facilities, time, skilled labor) to provide a large segment of the population with access to education and to raise the quality of learning and knowledge transfer. Ideally, all resources (public and private) devoted to formal education should be measured. In practice, only partial estimates are available. These include the percent of the government budget allocated to education in general or primary education in particular, the share of the education budget spent on salaries, and the level of expenditure per pupil. Missing from these indicators are the amounts that individuals and families devote to support formal education (transport, school fees, books) and other expenses (tutoring, educational enrichment) to compensate for gaps or deficiencies in formal schooling.
• The performance of education refers to the degree to which particular cohorts of students can master the content of the relevant formal classes as measured by various assessment techniques. Indicators include student survival rates (in primary and secondary school), dropout rates, teacher attendance, transition rates from primary to secondary school, and female survival rates across grades.
• The quality of education refers to learning achievement in relation to established (local or international) standards. The ideal data would be the results of standardized tests such as PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) or TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). These are not available for all countries. In their place, indicators include the student-teacher ratio, the proportion of trained teachers, and the dropout or repetition rate.

Data on the Use of Human Capacity

• The term governance refers to the quality of government or public administration. Poorly governed societies use human capacity inefficiently and ineffectively; well-governed societies do not. Governance is multi-faceted and can be measured in numerous ways. Indicators include measures of corruption, barriers to business formation, country risk, the distribution of income (or wealth), and the country's dependence on foreign aid.
• Infrastructure is a catchall term for the residual factors that influence the use of human capacity. Indicators include the share of the population linked to the Internet, the share of the local road system that is paved (as a measure of transaction costs), the overall capital-output ratio (as a measure of economic efficiency), and the extent of air travel (as a measure of international connections).
• Economic performance is vital to the use of human capacity. A dynamic, innovative economy uses human capacity in diverse, productive, ways. This is reinforced by feedback from economic performance to human capacity. Robust economic performance encourages workers to hone their skills, expand their competences, and work with diligence and discipline. This raises the level of economic performance. Key indicators include the rate of economic growth, the degree of competitiveness, and a measure of financial depth.
• Poverty has many dimensions. Low-income economies may keep large numbers of people working but since their capacities are limited, their productivity and incomes will be low. This situation is self-reinforcing. With low productivity, incomes remain low. There are few incentives and limited resources to expand activities that improve skills and capacities. Indicators of poverty include female life expectancy at birth, the share of the population with daily incomes above $1 (in purchasing power parity terms), the proportion of children whose height-for-age (a measure of nutrition status) is consistent with international norms, and the proportion of children who work.
• Workplace and employment issues are central to the use of human capacity. Progressive economies and societies have dynamic labor markets that generate large amounts of employment. Poorly performing economies do not. Indicators that reflect workplace conditions and workforce trends relate to labor regulations, the adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, the size of the rural labor force, and the rates of domestic savings and investment.

Data Comparators and Norming

The calculator can compare for a particular year data in one country with another country or between one country and regional averages or "best in region." The last-mentioned enables users to rank the country they are studying relative to the best performance (ranked 0 to 100) in their region. For example, if Mali data are related to "best in region," the best performance among all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for each indicator is used as the comparator. Some variables in the calculator have been "normed" to convert their performance to a 0 to 100 scale. For example, the rate of economic growth (an annual percentage increase) has been normed relative to 10 percent for all countries outside Sub-Saharan Africa. China, a country of 1.3 billion people has been growing at or around 10 percent per annum for three decades. Thus, 10 percent cannot be seen as an unrealistic. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of 7 percent has been used as a norm. This is the target for economic growth across the whole continent for the period 2001 to 2015 under the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). This growth target has been widely endorsed by African countries and the international donor community.