Eduardo Velez

Achievement evaluation of Colombia's Escuela Nueva: is multigrade the answer?

In the mid 1980s, half of Colombias rural schools did not offer complete primary education and more than half of rural children between the ages of 7 and 9 had never attended school. Unitary schools - multigrade classrooms taught by one teacher - were established in the early 1960s in isolated rural areas with few students. However, when efforts were made to expand the program nationally several problems became apparent - with teacher training, with the automatic promotion system, and with the relevance of course content to rural life. Escuela Nueva was created in 1976 as an official improvement on the unitary school. By 1989 enrollment increased to 17,948 schools, serving 800,000 students. Escuela Nueva is a rural school in which one or two teachers offer all five years of primary education in or two multigrade classrooms. Promotion is flexible, but not automatic. Special instruction materials are used which encourage the practical application of what is learned to life in a rural community. The system supports peer instruction, with older students coaching younger ones. The schools have study corners focused on different subject areas and a small library that also functions as a community information center. Many activities are designed to involve parents in support of their childs learning. The authors found that Escuela Nueva had significantly improved student outcomes, community participation as well as reducing dropout rates.

Primary School Quality in Mexico

This paper aims at assessing what determines academic achievement upon completion of primary school in Mexico, be it family, or, school characteristics, among different students. The ability variable, which controls inherent characteristics in determining the ideal achievement, has been basically addressed within advanced industrialized nations, with still no incidence among the rest of the world. The paper explores the relation between achievement and ability in Mexico, and finds several factors, do hinder academic success, for, while the best factor to predict the ideal achievement is ability, other educational inputs, such as preschool experience, impact significantly on achievement. Age for instance, either because of late school entry, repetition, or drop-out, impacts negatively on achievement, while gender, relates differently to disciplines, such as sciences. Students from two-parent households, and/or smaller households, tend to achieve better, with even better results, if parents themselves, attended school. Recommendations are suggested to increase the possibilities for formal and non-conventional early stimulation programs, in particular, for poor children, living either in urban or rural areas, and, strengthen parental awareness on education achievement. Implementation of educational policies to decrease repetition, and reduce late primary school entry is enhanced, as well as educational managerial capacity in less developed areas.

Educational Quality and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Bogota, Colombia.

This article uses data from a sample of 4000 workers in Bogota in 1988 to investigate how several indicators of educationnal quality affect labor market outcomes. Educational quality is measured by using a variety of proxies at each level of education, such as grade repetition in primary school, the score of the university entrance examination obtained at the end of the secondary education, and the prestige rating of an institution of higher education. The labor market outcomes are measured in terms of occupational and earnings attainment. The nature of the sample permits standardization for the quantity of educational quality on labor market outcomes. Amongs the measures of quality, the score on the university entrance examination and the universitys prestige rating have a significant positive impact on the earnings and occupational status of adults. Contrary to expectations, grade repetition, at all levels of education, is not associated with lower earnings or occupational status. This finding casts doubt on the common view of the evil of repetition

Returns to Education during Economic Boom and Recession: Mexico 1984, 1989, and 1992.

This paper uses data from three household surveys in 1984, 1989 and 1992 to investigate the relationship between earnings and education in Mexico. The time series feature of the data allows us to assess how the returns to education behave in a country that experiences macro-economic ups and downs. The results indicate that the returns to an investment in education are depressed during an economic recession and rise again as economic growth resumes. Also, the returns to education remain high, even after a significant expansion of the educational system. In terms of investment priorities at the margin, secondary education exhibits the highest profitability. This is natural, given the near-universal coverage of basic education in Mexico.

Education and earnings in Paraguay

Abstract The analysis presented in this paper, the first for Paraguay, uses data from the 1990 Household Survey to analyze the relationship between education and earnings, and to calculate rates of return to investment in education at different levels. The results are consistent with what has been found in other countries with similar socioeconomic characteristics. Human capital characteristics account for about 40% of individual earnings variance; each extra year of schooling yields a private rate of return of 11.5%. Social and private rates of return are highest for primary education, followed by secondary education, and females experience a higher rate of return to schooling than do males. Additionally, private sector employees have a 3.6% earnings advantage over public sector employees. Once more, the self-employed, mostly working in the informal sector, realize returns similar to, or even higher than, those engaged in more conventional employment. Inequalities relating to linguistic and socioeconomic background are also documented. The main implication of the findings is that improving and expanding primary and secondary schooling would be the most efficient and profitable education investments.

Education and the labor market in Uruguay

Abstract This paper uses data from the 1989 Uruguayan Household Survey to investigate the relationship between earnings and education in that country. Mincerian earnings functions fitted to nearly 10.000 workers reveal that each extra year of schooling yields a private rate of return of 9.2 per cent. which is comparable to the returns observed in the more industrialized countries. Among the other findings of the study: females realize a full percentage point advantage over males on the return to their educational investment while private sector employees enjoy a nearly five percentage point advantage over public sector employees — a finding that highlights the recognition of the productive value of education by industry. When the full cost of education (both public and private) is considered and education is broken down by level of schooling, primary education exhibits the highest rate of return-nearly double that of secondary education — whereas graduates of technical/vocational schools and teacher training courses enjoy only minor returns on this type of investment.

The external efficiency of diversified secondary schools in Colombia

The paper provides empirical evidence on the most commonly used argument for diversifying the secondary school curriculum in developing countries, i.e., the hope that it would provide a closer fit between education and the world of work. A follow-up study of Colombian secondary school graduates of diversified and non-diversified (control) schools, one to three years after graduation, does not provide any support to the expected external positive efficiency effects of such curriculum innovation.

Earnings and Education Among Self-employed Males in Colombia*

Economics of education The theoretical cornerstone of the economics of education is productivity differences between workers with more or less education. However, given the difficulty of directly measuring worker productivity, empirical estimates have typically relied on earnings differences by level of education. Although such approximation may be valid in competitive labour market environments, it has understandably been criticised in the literature as having limited applicability in non-competitive economic environments. By restricting the observations to those in self-employment activities, one better approximates the elusive productivity differential. The self-employed simply receive as pay the true worth of what they produce (net of the returns to other factors they may use, like capital and raw materials). To put it in other words, focusing on the labour earnings of the self-employed corresponds to a natural, non-econometric shadow pricing of education as a factor of production.

Framework for the reform of education systems and planning for quality

In 2000, the goal that, by 2015, all children will have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality, was set. Despite the progress in terms of student enrollment and completion, the quality of learning produced in developing countries remains poor. Existing models of education production are inadequate for informing education reform for the purpose of improving school quality, as measured by student learning. Thus, a broader and more integrated approach of policy making is put forward. Building on theory and empirical evidence on what works, the paper puts forward a framework for improving the quality of education. The framework includes six factors: (1) assessment; (2) autonomy; (3) accountability; (4) attention to teachers; (5) attention to early childhood development; and (6) attention to culture. Going forward, there is a need to develop a system of international quality benchmarks drawing on a larger body of evidence. Most importantly, more empirical evidence from impact evaluations is needed.

LOS ESTUDIOS SOBRE EDUCACION Y SOCIEDAD EN COLOMBIA

La rapida acumulacion de saberes hace necesario realizar un inventario periodico de los resultados producidos por la investigacion en un area del conocimiento de una disciplina cientifica. Estos inventarios denominados “Estados del Arte” son cada vez mas frecuentes y populares y se estan produciendo a diferentes niveles que van desde el concienzudo analisis de la naturaleza de las hipotesis y teorias producidas hasta la simple enumeracion descriptiva de los resultados encontrados.