NN37, May 2006
Special Theme on Education and Training out of Poverty? A Status Report
A NEW RESEARCH CONSORTIUM FOR RESEARCH ON EDUCATIONAL ACCESS, TRANSITIONS AND EQUITY
By Keith Lewin, Sussex
The Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE) has been established with funding from DFID to explore how best to improve access to basic education in developing countries and is coordinated from the University of Sussex. Access to basic education lies at the heart of development. Lack of education is both a part of the definition of poverty, and educational access is also a means for its diminution. Sustained access is critical to long term improvements in productivity, the reduction of inter-generational cycles of poverty, demographic transition, preventive health care, the empowerment of women, and reductions in inequality.The key problem CREATE addresses is how to increase meaningful access for those between the ages of 5 to 15 years. The numbers are large. Even where primary gross enrolment rates exceed 100%, national data indicates that attendance may be below 70%, completion rates may fall below 50%, and fewer than 20% may attend lower secondary. Achievement data often show a minority acquiring basic learning skills by grade 5. Though some countries have made consistent progress towards universalising access, many others are far from being on track to approach this goal by 2015.
Exclusion from basic education is a process culminating in an event with multiple causalities. Zones of vulnerability describe the various spaces where children are included, excluded, or are at risk. Initial access has little meaning unless it results in (i) regular attendance (ii) progression (iii) meaningful learning and (iv) appropriate access to post-primary education. Children falling into the zones of vulnerability are the subject of our research, especially disadvantaged groups (e.g. girls, HIV/AIDS orphans, displaced people, ethnic minorities). Enrolments decline through the primary grades and those attending irregularly and achieving poorly fall into zones where they are ?at risk? of drop out or failure to proceed to lower secondary schooling.
CREATE is developing a research programme covering various zones of exclusion that include:
Zone 1 - those denied any access who fail to attend school either because educational services are not available or because they are inaccessible for reasons of extreme poverty or other mechanisms of exclusion
Zone 2 - those initially enrolled who drop out and fail to complete the basic education cycle successfully and who are the great majority of those now out of school;
Zone 3 - those in school but at risk of drop out and who may be silently excluded if their attendance is sporadic, their achievement so low that they cannot follow the curriculum; and their participation influenced by perceived and real opportunity costs;
Zone 4 contains those excluded from lower secondary school as a result of failing to be selected, being unable to afford costs, or dropping out before successful completion.
CREATE seeks to explore five key clusters of questions
? What are the recent patterns of access and exclusion, what are the characteristics of those now excluded from basic education, and why are they excluded?
? What strategies are most effective in meeting the basic educational needs of those who are excluded? How can the reach of existing service provision be extended? What alternative forms of service delivery are viable or necessary?
? What options are available to improve progression, completion and transition rates? How can drop-out before primary completion be reduced? How can re-entry of drop-outs be facilitated?
? What options could maintain and improve transition rates into lower secondary grades in pro-poor ways? What effects do declining transition rates have on primary completion?
? What are the political, social and economic conditions under which EFA has been achieved? Where progress has faltered what are the reasons for this? How has expanded access had an impact on social mobility and the intergenerational transmission of poverty?
The CREATE Partners are: The Centre for International Education, University of Sussex; The Institute of Education and Development, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh; The National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, Delhi, India; The Education Policy Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; The University of Education at Winneba, Ghana; The Institute of Development Studies at Sussex; The Institute of Education, University of London
CREATE Website http://www.create-rpc.org/
Email create@sussex.ac.uk