Education trajectories: From early childhood to early adulthood in Peru Santiago Cueto CIES International Conference 6-10 March 2016 The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), was founded in 1956 to foster cross-cultural understanding, scholarship, academic achievement and societal development through the international study of educational ideas, systems, and practices.

1. Education trajectories: From early childhood
to early adulthood in Peru

2. 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.

3. 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).

4. 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%).

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

6. Educational outcomes: PPVT
PPVT score by age and cohort

7. Educational outcomes: gaps over
time
PPVT score by age for the younger cohort

8. Educational outcomes: overage
over time

9. Educational outcomes: cumulative
dropout rates by cohort and grade

10. 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)

11. 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)

12. Gaps between students are linked
with their background

13. 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 personal
75.0% 21.7% 3.2% 5.0%
Source: School survey (2010)

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

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. Learn more:
www.ninosdelmilenio.org
(for Peru, in Spanish)
http://www.younglives.org.uk/
(for the four countries, in English)