Education trajectories: From early childhood to early adulthood in Peru

Introduction• Educational system in Peru has expanded significantly over the past

few decades, how “healthy” has this growth been?• Purpose of the paper: to present trajectories of two cohorts of

children and present a few variables associated to these, to assess patterns of quality and inequity in opportunities and outcomes.

• This study used national data and also the Young Lives (YL) study dataset. This longitudinal study follows around 12,000 children from India, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Peru. YL follows two cohorts of children, the younger cohort (born around 2001) and the older cohort (born around 1994). The study has information from household surveys carried out in 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2013 (and 2016), plus a school survey in 2011.

Access to education has increased in all levels

Net attendance rates in preschool, primary, secondary and higher education

2002 2006 2009 2013

Preschool 52.6% 60.7% 67.6% 78.3%

Primary 90.8% 93.2% 94.2% 93.1%

Secondary 70.4% 74.0% 77.7% 81.5%

Tertiary education technical or vocational

11.0% 10.6% 11.0% 11.4%

Tertiary Educacion university 11.0% 12.7% 18.2% 22.7%Source: National Household Surveys (ENAHO) 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2013. Analysis conducted by the authors based on a question of whether or not child is currently attending school. We used the ratio of children attending school/ children for ages 3 to 5 (preschool), 6 to 11 (primary), 12 to 16 (secondary) and 17 to 21 (tertiary).

Vocabulary at age 5

Younger Cohort

2006)Average 24.1%Gender   Boys 24.9% Girls 24.2%Indigenous home   Spanish 26.1% Indigenous language 12.8%Maternal education   Complete secondary or more 32.6% Incomplete secondary or less 18.6%Baseline wealth index   Top quintile 36.3% Bottom quintile 14.1%Note: Scores are presented as percentages to facilitate understanding. The test has 125 items. For this analysis we only included children who took the test in Spanish in the three rounds (90.9%).

PPVT score at age 5 (divided in terciles) and achievement in reading and mathematics at older ages (younger cohort)

Educational outcomes: PPVTPPVT score by age and cohort

Educational outcomes: gaps over time

PPVT score by age for the younger cohort

Educational outcomes: overage over time

Educational outcomes: cumulative dropout rates by cohort and grade

Adolescense and early adulthood (13-19): Education at age 19

Finished

school on age

Finished school

overage

Still in school

Dropout

Average 42.8% 27.2% 12.0% 18.1%Gender Boys 46.1% 23.1% 12.7% 18.0% Girls 39.2% 31.4% 11.2% 18.1% Gap (%) 6.9% -8.3% 1.5% -0.1%Indigenous home Spanish 50.3% 22.8% 9.3% 17.6% Indigenous language 26.3% 30.7% 20.0% 23.0% Gap (%) 24.0% -7.9% -10.7% -5.4%Maternal education Complete secondary or more 67.6% 20.4% 5.1% 7.0% Incomplete secondary or less 36.2% 28.9% 14.0% 20.9% Gap (%) 31.3% -8.5% -8.9% -13.9%Baseline wealth index Top quintile 80.3% 14.1% 3.9% 1.7% Bottom quintile 34.3% 28.2% 14.3% 23.2% Gap (%) 46.0% -14.1% -10.4% -21.5%Source: Young Lives study (2013)

Adolescense and early adulthood (13-19): Type of tertiary education

University

Institute (technical or vocational)

Average 15.7% 18.8%Gender Boys 18.1% 19.1% Girls 13.1% 18.5% Gap (%) 5.0% 0.6%Indigenous home Spanish 18.1% 23.8% Indigenous language 9.3% 10.9% Gap (%) 8.8% 12.9%Maternal education Complete secondary or more 34.6% 21.8% Incomplete secondary or less 10.7% 18.1% Gap (%) 23.9% 3.7%Baseline wealth index Top quintile 45.2% 23.6% Bottom quintile 7.5% 16.3% Gap (%) 37.7% 7.3%Source: Young Lives study (2013)

Gaps between students are linked with their background

Middle childhood (6-12 years): School characteristics by type of school

School characteristics by type of school (2010)

Private Public urban

Rural in Spanish

Rural EIB

Running water 100.0% 93.3% 38.7% 45.0%Telephone 95.0% 71.7% 3.2% 0.0%Auditorium 25.0% 21.7% 12.9% 0.0%Laboratory 35.0% 35.0% 6.5% 0.0%Court for sports 40.0% 66.7% 29.0% 30.0%Psychologist 60.0% 11.7% 3.2% 0.0%

Auxiliary personal75.0% 21.7% 3.2% 5.0%

Source: School survey (2010)

Middle childhood (6-12 years): Number of mathematics exercises by content and SES

Middle childhood (6-12 years): Segregation in schools• We used the Duncan (D) and Hutchens (H)

indexes to check for dissimilarities within schools The D index was 0.52. In other words, we would need to move 52% of the students who have more educated parents to a classroom in another school in order to have an equal distribution.

• Jenkins et al. (2006) used this index for 27 OECD countries. The country with the highest D was Hungary, with 0.47. The lowest D index was found for Sweden and Norway (0.23)

Note: We used the proportion of mothers with secondary education as an indicator of segregation.

Discussion• In a context of economic growth and increased investments in

education, plans need to be developed for a “healthy” growth.• Access and averages scores are increasing, but• Children born in relatively poor homes, with mothers who had

less than complete secondary, or came from an indigenous family, or more than one of these, will have lower educational opportunities and achievement.

• Implications for policy.

Learn more:

www.ninosdelmilenio.org (for Peru, in Spanish)

http://www.younglives.org.uk/ (for the four countries, in English)