EDUCATION: UNICEF Reveals Disparities in Industrialised North

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Nov 26 2002 (IPS) - Profound differences mark the educational achievement potential of schoolchildren in industrialised countries and are related to the economic and employment status of their parents, says a study released Tuesday by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

In the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, the world’s wealthy nations), "the seed of disadvantage are sown early," says the report by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, based in the Italian city of Florence.

But the research indicates "it would be a mistake to conclude that disadvantage in education simply reflects inequality in society at large and that there is little that schools or governments can do about it."

Students from 24 of the 31 OECD member countries were the source of data which shows that some of these nations produce better results than others in staving off educational disadvantages.

For example, a child entering school in Canada, South Korea or Finland has a better chance of reaching a given level of educational achievement than a child in Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary or the United States.

The 31 members of the OECD share a commitment to democracy and to the market economy, and all have adopted the principle of "equality of opportunity" and to the goal of "allowing each child to reach his or her full educational potential."

But, says the UNICEF report, "that ideal is far from being realised."

In all OECD countries, "educational achievement remains strongly related to the occupations, education and economic status of the students’ parents, though the strength of that relationship varies from country to country."

In all industrialised countries there are significant levels of educational disadvantages, and "the gap between children of the same age can be the equivalent of many years of schooling."

Two Asian nations – South Korea and Japan – are best situated in this sense, according to the ranking of the OECD members based on absolute educational disadvantages. On the other extreme are Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

The report underscores that Germany, despite its solid educational and intellectual traditions, is ranked 19th out of the 24 countries studied. The United States, meanwhile, comes in one slot ahead of Germany.

The categorisation of the countries was based on two survey methods, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS).

In one of its latest polls, TIMSS asked 14-year-olds from more than 50 countries to subtract 4078 from 7003. The percentage giving the wrong answer was 49 percent in Britain, 42 percent in New Zealand and 33 percent in Italy.

In contrast, the wrong answers to the same question cropped up just 14 percent of the time in Japan, 13 percent in Hungary and 12 percent in South Korea.

A PISA survey of 15-year-olds to determine reading aptitudes found that the portion of disadvantaged students ranged from six to seven percent in South Korea and Finland, while it reached 20 percent or more in Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Greece and Portugal.

Another study, using TIMSS, sought to establish the percentage of eighth-grade students who are incapable of applying basic mathematical knowledge in simple situations.

In South Korea and Japan, just 10 percent of students were in that category, while in Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal, the portion was 45 percent or higher.

The UNICEF study says that inequalities in learning performance begin at an early age and, as such, attempts to mitigate disadvantages should begin even before children start formal schooling, through high quality services and attention to toddlers and pre-schoolers.

"Opportunities do exist – both in school and in pre-school care and education – to minimise educational disadvantage," says the document.

"Failure to explore those opportunities would imply that the ideal of equality of opportunity has run out of political steam," warns UNICEF.

It would also suggest that the industrialised countries in the 21st century "are prepared to accept a social order in which the opportunities of life remain heavily circumscribed by the circumstances of birth."

The study did not include five OECD countries: Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia.

According to the ranking, South Korea is best off with an index of just 1.4 for educational disadvantages. Next in line are Japan (2.2), Finland (4.4), Canada (5.0), Australia (6.2), Austria (8.2), Britain (9.4) and Ireland (10.2).

Following are Sweden, with an index of 10.8, Czech Republic (12.2), New Zealand (12.2), France (12.6), Switzerland (13.0), Belgium (14.0), Iceland (14.0) and Norway (14.2).

The seven with poorest performances as far as educational advantages are United States (16.2), Germany (17.0), Denmark (17.0), Spain (18.6), Italy (20.2), Greece (23.2) and Portugal (23.6).

EDUCATION: UNICEF Reveals Disparities in Industrialised North

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Nov 26 2002 (IPS) - Profound differences mark the educational achievement potential of schoolchildren in industrialised countries and are related to the economic and employment status of their parents, says a study released Tuesday by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
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