International News

Positive cost-benefit ratio

Fee-levying schools have long played a giant part in public life in Britain, though they teach only 7 percent of its children. State-educated prime ministers (such as incumbent Gordon Brown) are a rarity; a third of all MPs, more than half the appointed peers in the House of Lords, a similar proportion of the country’s best-known journalists and 70 percent of its leading barristers were educated privately. There is no sign that the elevator from independent schools to professional prominence is slowing: nearly half of the undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge were privately schooled as well.

Many ambitious parents would like to set their children off on this gilded path. But there is a problem: the soaring cost. Fees at private day schools have more than doubled in the past 20 years, in real terms; those at boarding schools have risen even faster. Since 2000, fees have risen by at least 6 percent every year. If this continues, a four-year-old embarking on a career in private day school this autumn will have cost his parents around £170,000 (Rs.1.39 crore) in today’s money by the time he completes secondary school. So even though more Britons than ever before describe themselves as comfortably off, the share of children being educated privately is barely higher than it was two decades ago.

Researchers at the Centre for the Economics of Education have used data on earnings, social class and education to distinguish the effects of private schooling from other advantages that students at such schools may enjoy (such as having richer, better educated parents). Those who left private schools in the 1980s and early 1990s can expect to earn 35 percent more in life than the average product of a state school, they found, around half of which can be attributed to education, not background. That, they calculated, means parents achieved an average 7 percent return on their investment in fees.

If that were the entire benefit their children received, it would not be bad — but there is more, says Francis Green, one of the researchers. "Private education is a consumption good, not just an investment. Long gone are days of spartan dormitories and cold showers. Kids in the private sector now have fabulous science labs and sports facilities, and access to a huge range of subjects and activities."

The researchers also managed to pinpoint the way private schools work their magic: through better exam results, rather than through networking opportunities or better teaching of soft skills such as etiquette or leadership. Once they compared state and private-school leavers with identical qualifications, the earnings premium disappeared. "In the past few decades, private schools have transformed themselves into highly effective exam passing machines," says Green. They hire better-qualified teachers, and more of them, offering higher salaries to lure those with qualifications in difficult subjects such as physics, mathematics and foreign languages, and now have twice as many teachers per pupil as state schools do.

Widening academia-industry divide

Universities in the Middle East and North Africa are being undermined by a mismatch between educational attainment and the jobs market, says a World Bank study. The study, which analyses education at all levels in the region, warns that the "relationship between education and economic growth has remained weak, the divide between education and employment has not been bridged, and the quality of education continues to be disappointing".

In higher education in particular, the absence of a clear link between earning power and education is cited as a key problem. Comments World Bank’s Michal J Rutkowski: "What is happening in the region is that universities and higher education institutions are producing graduates who aren’t finding jobs. The key issue is the dominance in the labour market of the civil service, which tends to be very large and to offer salaries above the market level."

The World Bank report covers a region stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, including Iran, the West Bank and Gaza, but not Israel. It identifies disparities in education between countries, describing Jordan and Kuwait, for example, as success stories, and Iraq and Morocco, among others, as having very basic education systems.

However, it also points to similarities, highlighting that the populations in the region are among the youngest and fastest growing in the world, adding to the pressure on systems struggling to meet modern economic demands. The report says the region "has among the largest 0-14 and 15-24-year-old cohorts in the world". "This youth bulge will substantially affect demand for education. Presently, the bulk of this cohort is at the age of secondary and higher education, the least developed components of education systems in most of these countries. Over the next 30 years… the tertiary education population will more than double."

Rutkowski says universities in the region also have to seek more private funding, although he believes this is an issue for institutions in other parts of the world too. The report concludes that better incentives and greater public accountability will be key to resolving problems facing education at all levels in the Middle East and North Africa.

Child victims of civil war

About 650,000 or half of all children in Darfur do not receive any education, despite efforts by various organisations to provide schooling in camps and towns across this refugees-overrun western Sudanese region, says an international NGO. "Education is the foundation for economically viable and more peaceful societies. But the international community has been loath to fund schooling in conflict situations. This is shortsighted," said Charles MacCormack, president of Save the Children (USA), in a recent statement.

In West Darfur state alone, 200,000 children come of school-age every year, of whom 22,440 are being assisted by Save the Children to attend classes in 42 schools in camps and towns. "We cannot afford to wait to begin education programmes until violence ceases and families can return home," says MacCormack. "What about the children whose time for school is now? Are they to be left by the wayside of history?"

Urging donor nations to provide more assistance for education in conflict zones, the NGO says present levels of support have failed to meet needs. The Darfur conflict, which began in 2003 when communities in the region took up arms to fight alleged marginalisation by the Sudanese government, has displaced more than one million children. The government responded by arming militias, but these have since been accused of abusing civilians. In recent weeks, attacks by Sudanese government forces have displaced thousands more civilians, including children, and hindered humanitarian access to those affected.

The UN office for coordination of humanitarian affairs says more than 250,000 Sudanese refugees and 180,000 internally displaced persons are in eastern Chad. The Sudanese government denies targeting civilians, saying the attacks are being carried out to flush out rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement. The attacks have, however, made the situation increasingly bleak in recent months, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a recent (February 27) letter urging the UN Security Council to condemn "horrific" attacks on Darfur civilians and to impose targeted sanctions on those responsible, HRW said the situation is reminiscent of the worst periods of the conflict in 2004. The letter accused Sudanese armed forces backed by Janjawid militia of attacking three West Darfur villages on February 8, in which hundreds of civilians died, and tens of thousands were displaced. The attacks, says Georgette Gagnon, HRW’s Africa division director, have cut off at least 20,000 civilians from humanitarian assistance and breaches the ban on offensive military fly-overs imposed by the Security Council. It also underlines the government’s failure to disarm the Janjawid militia.

Teachers unions on the warpath

Primary and secondary school teachers in the West African country of Benin (pop. 8 million) who have been striking since January 8 warn they will not back down, even though their actions threaten the possibility of thousands of children not completing the school year. "There are no negotiations happening at the moment to end this strike," says Raouf Affagnon, secretary general of the national teachers union. The union’s demands include improvements in salaries and benefits given to them by the government, and more secure contracts.

Benin’s powerful teachers unions are a legacy of the 1972-1989 period when Marxism-Leninism was adopted as the national ideology. Consequently this tiny West African coastal state is experiencing chronic education problems.

According to Unicef, less than 60 percent of school age children ever attend school. Of those who enroll in first grade, only half will complete primary school. A shortage of trained teachers, especially women, and lack of adequate school facilities are the biggest problems facing Benin’s educational system. "Teachers strikes have disrupted efforts to enroll and retain students," says a Unicef spokesperson.

Alain Dossou, a parent of four children enrolled in public schools, says he is "exasperated" by the ongoing strike. "They should think about the future of our children instead of their privileges and egoistic interests," he says.

Massive academic exodus to US

Israeli universities are facing a brain drain on a scale that is "unparalleled in the western world", a new report says. The study, by Dan Ben-David of the department of public policy at Tel Aviv University, highlights an "academic exodus" from Israel to the US and warns that the loss can be measured not just in quantity but in quality of scholars.

It says that 25 percent of all Israeli academics are now working in the US and blames a "massive policy breakdown" in higher education for creating the problem. "There is evidence of an academic exodus unparalleled in scope — not only in terms of the number of scholars who have left the country but also in terms of the quality that the country has lost," says Dr. Ben-David’s report. "A double-digit share of Israel’s top scholars currently resides on a full-time (non-visiting) basis in America’s leading universities."

The report cites figures from an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development study, which show that in 2003-04 there were 82,905 foreign academics at US universities, accounting for about 7 percent of staff. Britons formed the largest contingent, with 3,117 US-based academics representing 2.1 percent of the UK’s senior faculty, followed by Canadian academics who work south of the border. Both statistics, however, are dwarfed by the Israeli figures.

Comments the report: "The 1,409 Israeli academics residing in the States in 2003-04 represented 24.9 percent of the entire senior staff in Israel’s academic institutions that year — twice the Canadian ratio and over five times the ratio in the other developed countries." The report attributes emigration to a lack of suitable positions in Israeli higher education, low salaries, inadequate research funding and a preoccupation with limiting public spending at the expense of long term strategic planning.

Free school education decree

For seven years, pensioner Zhang Jingxuan has struggled to keep Zhang Jiuzhou, his 13-year-old grandson in school, in Xian, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi province. He and his wife earn 9,600 Yuan (Rs.58,000) per year, from which they have to pay at least 2,000 Yuan a year as tuition and other fees of Zhang, a student at the middle school affiliated to the Shaanxi No.10 Cotton Textile Factory, where his grandfather used to work.

This aged couple is cheered by the news that the Chinese government has promised to make education free (and compulsory) in rural and urban China from autumn this year. This pledge was made in a government work report issued on March 5, to promote fair education and discourage school dropouts. It came the year after the government implemented free compulsory education in rural China.

"Last year I borrowed money from all my relatives before the fall semester started," says Zhang (65) whose daughter divorced eight years ago, and went to live in the southern city of Shenzhen, leaving her son to her parents. "But I didn’t know from whom to borrow this year. Therefore it’s really good news and I hope the measure will be implemented as soon as possible."

Wu Ni, director of the education development research department of the China National Institute for Educational Research, says that prime minister Wen Jiabao’s government work report, which will go through examination and deliberation by NPC (National People’s Congress) deputies before being approved, will have far-reaching significance. "Every child will now have access to education, and ‘dropout’ may become a term of the past," says Wu.

In the report, delivered at the first session of the 11th National People’s Congress, Wen announced that the central government allocation for education will increase from last year’s 107.6 billion Yuan (Rs.64,560 crore) to 156.2 billion Yuan (Rs.93,720 crore), with local governments simultaneously increasing their spending. The government stopped collecting tuition and other fees in rural areas last spring, benefiting 150 million students, including 7.8 million from poor families. "This is another major measure for promoting the balanced development of compulsory education and equal access to education," Wen told almost 3,000 NPC deputies in the Great Hall of the People on March 5.

Literacy data row

For most of her life, ana silva was illiterate, even though she completed primary school. Then she joined Mision Robinson, a literacy programme organised by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. Once a hospital cleaner, she is now a nursing auxiliary and hopes to study social work in Cuba. Her colleagues at work no longer have to help her decipher her payslip. "We live like people," she says.

President Chavez’s supporters would like the world to believe that Silva’s story is typical of the way their hero has revolutionised the lives of his country’s poor. Sadly, there is growing evidence that in fact it is exceptional.

The literacy scheme was one of a clutch of social ‘missions’ organised by Chavez in 2003 when he faced possible defeat in a recall referendum on his presidency. The government claims that by October 2005 it had all but eliminated illiteracy. That claim has become a centrepiece of the international propaganda effort on behalf of Chavez’s ‘revolution’. But there is no data to support it. Many educationists doubt it. Even the government itself has retreated from its initial figure of around 4 percent though it is not clear whether this refers just to adults or to the total population.

It is notoriously difficult to obtain precise literacy figures from census data which rely on self-assessment. But Francisco Rodriguez of Wesleyan University, Connecticut and Daniel Ortega of IESA, a Caracas B-school, have used household surveys from the national statistical institute to assess the programme. In an article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Rodriguez says that they found "little evidence" of any "statistically distinguishable effect on Venezuelan illiteracy". Where the government says it taught 1.5 million, the study found that only 1.1 million were illiterate to begin with, and that the fall over the 2003-05 period was less than 100,000. Even this improvement could largely be explained by a long-term demographic trend (many illiterate adults are elderly and die off).

Adan Chavez, who is the education minister as well as the president’s brother, has complained of statistical "manipulation" by the government’s foes. But Rodriguez, for one, is no reactionary; he was the chief economist of Venezuela’s National Assembly in 2000-04, and was once a chavista sympathiser.

Last year the statistics institute launched its own study on the impact of the social missions. This was supposed to be ready by January. But it has yet to start, according to Irene Gurrea, the economist in charge. Asked if there were any reliable statistics on the impact of Mision Robinson, Gurrea says: "As far as we know, no — that’s why we’re doing the study."

It is not hard to find individuals like Silva who say their lives were changed by Mision Robinson. But the missions have gone hand-in-hand with neglect of schools and hospitals. Rodriguez estimates that Robinson spent $1,000 for each of its literate graduates, compared with around $60 for other literacy schemes in Latin America. At the least, that money could have been better spent.

Australia

New fundraising advisory board

The ‘whinge factor’ is putting off potential benefactors and costing Australian universities money, a senior higher education adviser has warned. Phil Clark, chairman of Australia’s Higher Education Endowment Fund advisory board, says universities should stop complaining and start talking about their successes to capitalise on philanthropic giving.

Speaking to The Australian before addressing the Australian Technology Network of Universities at its annual conference in Perth, he said: "Universities always seem to be complaining. I think people are encouraged to give when they hear the success stories rather than hearing people complain."

The endowment fund was established last year by the Australian government, which made an initial investment of A$5 billion (Rs.19,000 crore) from its 2006-07 budget surplus. Income from the fund is to be used to support capital works and investment projects, with the government pledging to add to its initial stake from future national budget surpluses.

Clark says he expects this year’s proceeds from the fund — A$304 million (Rs. 1,155 crore) to be distributed among at least five projects across the country. It is also hoped that the fund will attract philanthropic investment in the sector, with the Australian public able to make tax-deductible donations.

Reasserting his belief that the money should be used as a springboard for a wider culture of fundraising, Clark says the board will provide leadership and assistance to universities. "Some universities’ councils have philanthropy high on their agenda and some do not," he says.

Institutions have also been encouraged to collaborate in applications for funding, both with each other and with industry and community groups.

(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education Supplement, The Economist, www.irinnews.org and www.chinaview.cn)