Make your work easier and more efficient installing the rrojasdatabank  toolbar ( you can customize it ) in your browser. 
Counter visits from more than 160  countries and 1400 universities (details)

The political economy of development
This academic site promotes excellence in teaching and researching economics and development, and the advancing of describing, understanding, explaining and theorizing.
About us- Castellano- Français - Dedication
Home- Themes- Reports- Statistics/Search- Lecture notes/News- People's Century- Puro Chile- Mapuche


World indicators on the environmentWorld Energy Statistics - Time SeriesEconomic inequality


 Introduction

 Income Poverty

Social Indicators:

Health

Education: primary enrollments

Education of girls

Education for the poor

Water and sanitation

What the Poor Say


Social Indicators

Education: primary enrollments

Gross primary school enrollment data show an improvement over the last twenty-five years. Developing countries have made enormous progress in expanding access to schooling. However, regional trends diverged markedly, with Sub-Saharan Africa experiencing no improvement in enrollment ratios between the early 1980s and now (Table 15).

The International Development Goals call for universal primary enrollment by 2015. Enrollment rates are hard to measure accurately because of repetition and migration. At present rates of progress, this target is not likely to be achieved.

In 1995, 125 million primary-school-age children in developing countries were not in school. Of these, 66 percent (83 million) were girls.

Sub-Saharan Africa (45 million children out of school) is the region with the lowest net enrollment rate (about 40 percent). Nine countries reported net primary enrollment rates of less than 50 percent in the 1990s (Table 16). 16 countries in the region (including Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia) actually suffered a decline in net enrollment in the first half of the 1990s.

Table 15. Trends in gross primary enrollment rates, 1970-1996

Region

1970

1982

1993

1996

East Asia and Pacific

88

111

118

118

Eastern Europe and Central Asia

n.a.

102

97

100d

Latin America and Caribbean

99a

105c

109

114

Middle East and North Africa

68

91

95

94

South Asia

67

77

97

101

Sub-Saharan Africa

50

74

68

74d

Developing Countries

79

95

107

108

OECD

104b

102

103

103e

Note: Declines in gross enrollment ratios that are over 100 do not necessarily mean a decrease in the proportion of school-age children going to school. They might reflect a reduction in the numbers of over-age children as a result of improvements in quality and increases in efficiency as fewer children start school late or repeat grades.
n.a. Not available.
a
1975 b1965 c1980 d1994 e1995. Source: World Bank economic and social database.

Table 16. Countries with Primary Enrollment Rates of less than 50 percent in the 1990s

Country

%

Country

%

Niger

24.5

Burkina Faso

30.8

Mali

27.8

Mozambique

39.8

Ethiopia

27.9

Chad

45.8

Afghanistan

28.7

Tanzania

47.8

Eritrea

30.4

Source: World Bank economic and social database.

  • Oxfam (Education Now) is projecting a slow decline in the number of children out of school in developing countries: 96 million in 2005 and 75.5 million in 2015.
  • In Sub-Saharan Africa the number of children out of school would actually increase to 50.7 million in 2005 and to 54.6 million in 2015 on present trends.
  • In 1995 872 million adults in developing countries (one in four) were illiterate. Of these 64 percent (557 million) were women.
  • In South Asia only one third of women are literate compared to two thirds of men. In Nepal and Afghanistan fewer than 15 percent of women are literate; in Pakistan 25 percent.
  • The incidence of adult illiteracy in developing countries has fallen from around 45 percent in 1980 to 30 percent in 1995; however, because of population growth and the failure of school systems to prevent children from growing up illiterate, today there are 24 million more illiterate adults than in 1980.
  • Almost the entire decrease in illiteracy since 1990 has been achieved in East Asia, while the number of illiterates increased by 17 million in South Asia and 3 million in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Next: Education of girls