Unequal opportunities: Inequalities in secondary education in India, Vietnam and Ethiopia presentation slides from Rhiannon Moore at TRG Poverty and Education Conference London 27-29 September 'Poverty and Education from the 19th Century to the Present: India and Comparative Perspectives'

1. @yloxford
@rhi_moore
Unequal opportunities:
Inequalities in secondary education in
India, Vietnam and Ethiopia
Rhiannon Moore
Young Lives, University of Oxford

2. OUTLINE
 Introduction to Young Lives &
Secondary School Surveys
 Learning quality & equity:
Looking across three countries
 Learning quality & equity:
Within one country (India)
 Implications & Discussion

3. YOUNG LIVES & LINKED SCHOOL SURVEYS
 Longitudinal survey of children,
their households, schools and
communities running for 15 years
in 4 countries
 Young Lives school surveys:
introduced in 2010
 2016-17 school surveys: school
effectiveness in Ethiopia, India and
Vietnam
• Ethiopia: upper primary (Grades 7-8)
• India: lower secondary (Grade 9)
• Vietnam: upper secondary (Grade 10)

4. WHY SECONDARY SCHOOL SURVEYS?
Secondary education ‘critical’ to breaking
intergenerational transmission of poverty (World Bank,
2009)
Inequalities in access - Unequal transition to secondary
reinforces exclusion of disadvantaged groups in labour
market (DFID, 2017)
Inequalities in learning - A high degree of inequalities
in test scores at secondary level suggest a high degree
of wage inequality in the future (Nickell, 2004, in Das &
Zajonc, 2010)

5. SCHOOL SURVEY 2016-17 DESIGN
School effectiveness design:
 Student performance in terms of
progress (rather than cross-sectional
measure)
 The teaching and learning processes that
affect student progress
 The ‘value-added’ of one year of school
To do this, we administered:
 Cognitive tests at beginning and end of
one school year
 Background instruments and psychosocial
measures for teachers and students to
contextualise learning progress

6. Putting the school surveys in context:
Existing Young Lives findings on education

7. YL FINDINGS ON EDUCATION & EQUITY
 While enrolment rates have increased, in each country
some children remain educationally vulnerable
 Analysis of vulnerability reveals that family background,
learning achievement and educational opportunities
reinforce each other, creating negative cycles (Cueto, Singh,
Woldehanna & Le Thuc Duc, 2016)
 Significant evidence of inequality of outcomes within
countries, with widely varying educational attainment.
Findings from India (AP and Telangana) reveal that
disparities in children’s early school lives impact on their
later learning. (Singh & Mukherjee, 2017)
 Similarly, in Ethiopia analysis has shown that those
children who have attended pre-school have significantly
higher cognitive performance at age 5 and age 8 than
those who have not (Woldehanna, 2016)

8. YL FINDINGS ON LEARNING
 Although all four Young Lives countries have now achieved
‘mass enrolment’ at primary level, and India, Peru and
Vietnam have also achieved this at lower secondary level,
only Vietnam appears to have made the transition to
‘mass learning’.
 Comparisons of learning outcomes show that, while
mathematics achievement levels are similar across
countries at age 5, by age 15 they have widened
dramatically, demonstrating very different learning
trajectories.
 Children are learning the most in Vietnam, across all
levels of prior attainment, while India and Ethiopia
appear to have entered a ‘low level equilibrium’ in
learning outcomes (Rolleston, 2016)

9. SECONDARY SCHOOL SURVEY: RQS
 Collecting data on secondary
education to try to enhance
understanding of the ‘messiness’
of expanding education and try
and shed light on specifics
 Particular focus on secondary –
what does this mean for social
mobility / future opportunities?
 Different conceptualisation of
quality learning at secondary to
basic education – ref to BAICE
pres and Compare paper
Learning Quality & Equity:
Looking Across Three Countries in 2016-17

10. DEVELOPING COMPARABLE LEARNING METRICS

11. 0.002.004.006
200 400 600 800
ET 1 IN 1 VN 1
ET 2 IN 2 VN 2
COMPARING PROGRESS MADE

12. WHICH SCHOOLS ARE MORE EFFECTIVE?
YL Ethiopia YL VietnamYL India
Rural
Urban
Privateaided
Privateunaided
Stategovernment
Tribalsocialwelfare
BenTre
DaNang
HungYen
LaoCai
PhuYen

13. ETHIOPIA: WHO ATTENDS MORE EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS?

14. INDIA: WHO ATTENDS MORE EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS?

15. VIETNAM: WHO ATTENDS MORE EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS?

16. COMPARING LEARNING BETWEEN COUNTRIES
 Most effective schools:
 Private unaided schools in India; schools in Da Nang, Vietnam
 More variation within than between countries
 Student wealth and school effectiveness:
 Ethiopia & Vietnam: no clear relationship – more equitable systems?
 India: varies by school type – private unaided schools attended by
wealthier children are more effective, but this is not the case for
state government schools
 Learning progress:
 Students make comparable progress in one year across the three
countries – but there are clear differences in learning levels

17. Learning Quality & Equity: India

18. STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
0
.001.002.003.004
kdensity
200 500 800
Maths score (IRT scaled score)
Wave 1 Wave 2
W1-W2 Maths Score
 In maths, students made an average of 31 points of
progress in Grade 9

19. CROSS-SECTIONAL DATA REVEALS INEQUALITIES
 Large differences in
learning attainment at
the start of Grade 9 by
student background
 E.g. by household
wealth
 Reflects different
experiences prior to
Grade 9…
• E.g. type of school
attended, home
background, parental
education, access to
different educational
opportunities outside
school…
Q1
(poorest)
Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (least
poor)
Mean Maths
Score (start
of school
year)
437 457 484 502 541
0
.001.002.003.004
Density
250 500 750
Maths Score
Q1 (poorest) Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (least poor)
Maths Performance By Wealth Quintiles

20. ALSO MAKING UNEQUAL PROGRESS
 Gaps in test performance appear to be widening over the course of the
school year
 E.g. the least poor students make an average of 44 points of progress,
while the poorest students make 22 points – falling further behind
0
.001.002.003.004.005
Density
250 500 750
Maths Score
Wave 1 - poorest quintile Wave 2 - poorest quintile
Wave 1 - least poor quintile Wave 2 - least poor quintile
Maths Performance By Wealth Quintiles

21. SCHOOL TYPE IS ALSO IMPORTANT…
 Analysis shows
significant
differences between
school types in Wave
1 and Wave 2 test
scores in both
English and maths
 But existing research
suggests private
school effects are
heterogeneous (e.g.
Singh, 2014)
 So need to look at
the effectiveness of
private schools in
more depth
0
.002.004.006
kdensity
200 500 800
Wave 1 Maths score (IRT scaled score)
Private Aided Private Unaided
State Govt Tribal Social Welfare
Wave 1 Maths Score By School Type

22. ARE CHILDREN LEARNING MORE IN PRIVATE SCHS?
 Value-added analysis reveals that Private Unaided schools are ‘adding
more value’ in the course of one school year – this is the average VA,
and when we look school-by-school there are exceptions.
 When we control for differences in student background, the gaps
between school types narrow slightly – but there are still significant
differences between Private Unaided schools and all other school types
-10
0
102030
Private Aided Private Unaided State Govt Tribal Social Welfare
Mean School VA (English) by School Type
Mean School VA (uncon) Mean School VA (con)
-20-10
0
102030
MathsValue-Added
Private Aided Private Unaided State Govt Tribal Social Welfare
Mean School VA (Maths) by School Type
Mean School VA (uncon) Mean School VA (con)

23. ARE ALL PRIVATE SCHOOLS ‘EQUALLY BETTER’?
 Private Unaided schools which charge higher school fees add more
value in 1 school year
0
1020304050
Lower fee school Medium fee school Higher fee school
Private Unaided schools only
Mean School VA (Maths) by Fee Level
Mean School VA (uncon) Mean School VA (con)

24. SMALL SCHOOLS ADD LESS VALUE…
 Bigger schools (more
sections in Grade 9) add
more value in 1 school year
 Similar patterns seen
between private schools in
urban v rural areas (more
VA in urban areas)
 Suggests that private
schools are not equally
better – the amount of
value added varies by fee
level, location, school
size…
 Characteristics of better
schools – more accessible
to more advantaged
children?
0
1020304050
1 section 2 sections 3 or more sections
Private Unaided schools only
Mean School VA (Maths) by Number of Sections
Mean School VA (uncon) Mean School VA (con)

25. LEARNING & EQUITY IN INDIA
 Analysis from this survey suggests that there are inequalities in
learning outcomes between different groups of children at the start
of Grade 9 – and that these are increasing throughout the school
year
 Evidence appears to suggest more advantaged children are ‘sorted’
into ‘better’ schools, even when the background of children is
controlled for.
 On average, the poorest children start Grade 9 100 points behind
the least poor in maths – that’s equivalent to more than 3 average
school years. This gap widens further over the course of the school
year.
 Not just about ‘private schools’ vs ‘govt schools’ – even within
private schools there is a lot of inequity
 Not all private schools ‘equally better’ – those which are more
expensive and those in urban areas add more value

26. Discussion and implications

27. DISCUSSION & IMPLICATIONS
 Looking across countries, there are gaps but also notable
overlaps – despite the differences in education systems and
country context.
 Differences in ‘equity’ of education systems – in Vietnam /
Ethiopia less clear association between school effectiveness and
wealth than in India
 Within the Indian survey, inequalities in learning outcomes
appear to be increasing – serious implications for equality of
opportunities after secondary school.
 Evidence appears to suggest more advantaged children are
‘sorted’ into ‘better’ schools in India, even when the background
of children is controlled for.
 The large gaps present at the beginning of Grade 9 suggests
efforts to equalise learning need to happen earlier – by
secondary school, inequalities are already heavily entrenched.

28. NEXT STEPS
 Analysis of teacher data – e.g. how
does who a teacher is, what their
attitudes are, and the practices they
use in the classroom relate to student
learning?
 Analysis using student background
data – e.g. how do student attitudes to
schooling relate to their learning
outcomes?
 Classroom observations in India –
sample of teachers and classes where
more learning is taking place to
understand more about what is
happening in the classroom

29. Thank you!
Any questions or comments?

30. Additional slides

31. NEXT STEPS – FURTHER ANALYSIS OPPORTUNITIES
Construct Measure
Teacher Psychosocial
Measures (focus on
motivation and efficacy)
‘Wellbeing’ scale
‘Relationship with others in the school’ scale
‘Morale and job satisfaction’ scale
‘Equality’ scale
‘Professional Commitment’ scale
‘Efficacy’ scale
Teacher Professional
Knowledge
15 item questionnaire
Classroom Instructional
Environment
‘Engagement and empathy’ scale
‘Awareness and control’ scale
A range of teacher and student level measures were included in the survey
– next steps include looking at some of this data. E.g.