The increased focus on what children learn in school rather than only on enrolment and attendance, places school effectiveness under a new spotlight. This presentation looks at what we know about the difference schools are making for children in Ethiopia and what that implies for school improvement programmes such as the General Educational Quality Improvement Programme in Ethiopia.

1. School Effectiveness and Inequality:
Challenges for Ethiopia
Alula Pankhurst,
Young Lives Ethiopia Country Director
Presentation at
London International Development Centre
14 July 2014

2. Outline
• Increasing access with risks to quality
• Reduction in student achievement
• Increasing inequalities
• School and teacher effectiveness
• School and work

3. Increasing access
• Massive expansion of education services
– Primary school enrolment
– Secondary still lagging
• new drive 2014-15 to increase secondary schools
– Big push on tertiary
• expansion of new universities
– Pre-school still limited
• 4.2 % mainly concentrated in urban areas and private

4. Reduction in student achievements
• Literacy tests
– Increase in the proportion unable to read at all
and unable to read a sentence.
• Maths tests
– Proportion able to solve maths tests decreased
significantly
– Significant differences in urban-rural, regional,
wealth, family education background
– No significant gender differences

5. Increasing inequalities (1)
• pre-school matters
– those who had been to pre-school better
performance in primary school with much higher
vocabulary and cognitive test scores
• Urban rural differences
– Disparities in enrolment rates and overage and
delayed enrolment, school dropout, absenteeism,
grade completion, maths and literacy scores

6. Increasing inequalities (2)
• Regional differences but also site differences
• Pastoralist ‘emerging regions Somali and Afar
– Late enrolment, overage for grade, absenteeism,
dropout higher, learning levels lower
– Disparities within these regions by rural-urban,
pastoralist background, partly related to school
resources and water scarcity, and site differences.
– Added gender component
• Afar girls from pastoralist backgrounds higher dropout
but rural girls in Afar tend to have less absenteeism (boys
herding)

7. Increasing inequalities (3)
• Wealth matters
– Higher grade completion by children from wealthier
households
– Children from poorer households lower enrolment,
lower maths and literacy test scores, higher early school
leaving,
• Parental education matters
– Higher enrolment, better maths and literacy scores,
higher grade completion
• But gender differences reducing or reversing
– Higher girls enrolment,
– girls higher slightly higher maths scores 2013 were
slightly lower in 2006 slightly lower on literacy both

8. School and teacher effectiveness
• Evidence that teachers with higher qualifications
make a difference
• Shortage of teacher training and professional
development, limited incentives, non school duties
• Mechanisms for teacher evaluations, promotions,
transfers, trainings and career development
politicised
• School management by headteachers constrained
by district and local administrations and limited PTA
and community involvement

9. School and work
• Working and school norm and in current context
inevitable for children from poorer households.
• Shortage of secondary schools recently mentioned
by government as cause for child labour
• Debate about shift/half day school allowing for
children to work and go to school / affecting
performance (Orkin 2013)
• Suggestion too many hours work may lead to
reduction in performance (Tassew >2)
• Children from disadvantaged households cycle of
missing school, less study time, performing less
well, repeating grades, and dropping out (Yisak)