Biblioteca Digital

The objectives of this policy note are twofold: first, take stock of where Bangladesh stands in terms of achieving the Education For All (EFA) goals; and second, suggest policy recommendations that could help Bangladesh to meet the EFA goals by 2015. The policy note will focus mainly on: 1) universal primary enrollment for all children; 2) universal primary completion; 3) gender parity in education; 4) adult literacy; and 5) quality of education. This is because these areas can be more meaningfully analyzed with reasonably reliable information from various sources. Bangladesh is unlikely to achieve universal primary enrollment and completion by 2015 if the current trends in access and completion do not improve. Progress in school quality is more difficult to assess because of the lack of systematic assessment and monitoring of learning achievement results. The government continues to be the main provider and financer of primary education. Improving the overall quality of schooling is a pressing task in order to substantially raise enrollment and help more children complete primary school with the appropriate skills in literacy and numeracy. Bangladesh has made progress towards increasing both primary and secondary enrollment and has already reached gender parity in both education levels.

Ninety-five percent of the world s illiterate people live in developing countries, and about 70 percent are women. Female illiteracy rates are particularly high in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Niger and Burkina Faso, for example, more than 90 percent of women are illiterate. This paper presents a model of literacy. It shows that the main determinants of worldwide literacy are enrollment rates, average years of schooling of adults, and life expectancy at birth. Income has a weak nonlinear effect, negatively affecting literacy until a threshold level of per-capita income of about $2200 a year is reached and positively affecting literacy thereafter. Finally, African countries do not have a significantly higher literacy rate when controlling for other factors.

The note reviews the efforts begun in 1979 by an illiterate farmer from Nwodua, Ghana, to bring instruction in the ways of a modern society to his community. The success led to further opportunities in functional literacy, and soon a full scale adult primary school was opened, which became the center for a whole series of local developmental activities. A health care committee was established, which later guided the creation of a grinding mill to prepare weaning mixture for infants, eventually leading the community towards a self-sustaining food processing industry, and, other initiatives in the area of agro-forestry soon followed. Increased commerce made it imperative to upgrade roads infrastructure, to constitute a vocational-technical center, and develop new innovations to benefit the poor rural communities. This success lies in the renewed form of community governance, gradually elaborated by village authorities, and young participants in the new initiatives, to provide a basis for managing, and expanding their activities...

The diagnostic review on consumer protection and financial literacy in Romania is the fourth in a World Bank-sponsored pilot program to assess consumer protection and financial literacy in developing and middle-income countries. The objective of this review are three-fold to: (1) refine a set of good practices for assessing consumer protection and financial literacy, including financial literacy; (2) conduct a review of the existing rules and practices in Romania compared to the good practices; and (3) provide recommendations on ways to improve consumer protection and financial literacy in Romania. The diagnostic review was prepared at the request of National Authority for Consumers Protection (ANPC), whose request was endorsed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Support was provided by the National Bank of Romania (BNR), which supervises banks and non-bank credit institutions. Further assistance was given by supervisory commissions for securities (CNVM), insurance (CSA) and private pensions (CSSPP). Volume one notes the importance of consumer protection and finical literacy...

The diagnostic review on consumer protection and financial literacy in Romania is the fourth in a World Bank-sponsored pilot program to assess consumer protection and financial literacy in developing and middle-income countries. The objective of this review are three-fold to: (1) refine a set of good practices for assessing consumer protection and financial literacy, including financial literacy; (2) conduct a review of the existing rules and practices in Romania compared to the good practices; and (3) provide recommendations on ways to improve consumer protection and financial literacy in Romania. The diagnostic review was prepared at the request of National Authority for Consumers Protection (ANPC), whose request was endorsed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Support was provided by the National Bank of Romania (BNR), which supervises banks and non-bank credit institutions. Further assistance was given by supervisory commissions for securities (CNVM), insurance (CSA) and private pensions (CSSPP). Volume one notes the importance of consumer protection and finical literacy...

Despite the existence of about one billion illiterates in the world, adult literacy programs make up 1-5 percent of government or donor budgets, and they remain severely underfunded in comparison to primary education. Though dropout and course completion rates improved in the 1990s, the outcomes of literacy instruction are still modest and may have improved little since the 1970s. The results may disappoint governments and donors who expect that once taught, people will have usable skills and remain literate. The modest results make it hard to increase coverage and to argue for increased expenditures for this sector. The results may be due to inefficient instruction but also to the structure of human memory, which has important implications for adult literacy acquisition. The need to learn the rapid recognition of complex patterns poses problems that are not apparent to people who became expert readers in their childhood.

This paper stresses that despite the fact that India is a fast developing economy difficulties have led the Government to conclude that far more needs to be done to engender more employment opportunities for the majority of Indians, to enable them to participate in the benefits of growth and to contribute to that growth. To do this they must have education and training that equips them for the labor market. One of the sources of the skilled workforce is the vocational education and training system. However, the government realizes that the system is not being able to appropriately respond to the needs of the labor market. A key issue, then, is what reforms/interventions are needed to improve the effectiveness of the system. Answering that question is far from easy and this paper attempts to provide some options for doing so. On the one hand India faces the future with its changing realities; on the other hand it must deal with the nature of its established traditions and structures. This paper has laid out some key reforms that must be undertaken in different areas to make the vocational education and vocational training systems more responsive to the needs of the labor market. The reform agenda is fairly comprehensive and all the reforms cannot be implemented immediately. Given this...

Two cognitively oriented methods were tested in Burkina Faso to help illiterates learn to read more efficiently. These were (a) speeded reading of increasingly larger word units and (b) phonological awareness training to help connect letters to speech. Learners were given reading tests and a computerized reaction time test. Although the literacy courses were shortened by the arrival of rains and government delays, the piloted methods helped adults read better than those in the standard "control" classes. Learners enrolled in the experimental classes performed better on the outcome tests than did learners enrolled in control classes. Ninety percent of the possible comparisons between treatment classes and control classes favored classes receiving treatments, and 72 percent of the measurements in favor of treatments were statistically significant. The evidence suggests that phonological awareness training is particularly effective in situations where the training period was short, and that rapid reading was more advantageous in longer training situations. Overall...

Ghana has a youthful population of 24 million and has shown impressive gains in economic growth and in poverty reduction over the last two decades. The necessary sustained growth requires three critical steps: (1) increase productivity in the strategic economic sectors, (2) diversify the economy, and (3) expand employment. Raising the level and range of skills in the country provides a key contribution to these core drivers of sustained growth. Skills development in Ghana encompasses foundational skills (literacy, numeracy), transferable and soft skills, and technical and vocational skills. These skills are acquired throughout life through formal education, training, and higher education; on the job through work experience and professional training; through family and community; and via the media. This report focuses on one segment of Ghana s skills development system: formal and informal technical and vocational education and training (TVET) at the pre-tertiary level. Although TVET alone does not guarantee productivity gains or job creation...

Human Development in Jordan has witnessed significant progress over the past two decades, in line with Jordan s vision to become a regional leader through leveraging its strong human capital base into a skills, knowledge and innovation driven economy. Evidence of progress on this front is provided by the advancement of the country s human development and education indicators. Between 1980 and 2011, the Human Development Index (HDI) value increased by 29 percent, the adult literacy rate reached 92.6 percent; the primary school completion rate hit 100 percent and combined gross enrolment reached 79 percent. In the decade prior to the global financial slowdown of 2008 and the subsequent political unrest in the region, Jordan experienced rapid economic growth, outperforming the MENA average.

Education systems in developing countries are often centrally managed in a top-down structure. In environments where schools have different needs and where localized information plays an important role, empowerment of the local community may be attractive, but low levels of human capital at the local level may offset gains from local information. This paper reports the results of a four-year, large-scale experiment that provided a grant and comprehensive school management training to principals, teachers, and community representatives in a set of schools. To separate the effect of the training from the grant, a second set of schools received the grant only with no training. A third set of schools served as a control group and received neither intervention. Each of 273 Gambian primary schools were randomized to one of the three groups. The program was implemented through the government education system. Three to four years into the program, the full intervention led to a 21 percent reduction in student absenteeism and a 23 percent reduction in teacher absenteeism...

The future sustainability of remote communities is being questioned with increasing frequency. The current state of welfare dependency is fragile. Significant work is being undertaken to develop the capacity of Indigenous communities to govern their own services and adult literacy is clearly seen as a major factor in the participation of Indigenous people in community development and the capacity building processes. Yet little research on adult literacy practices and competence in remote Indigenous communities has taken place in Australia. This paper reports on findings from a collaborative study involving two remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, one in the Top End and the other in the Central Desert. The project, involving a collaboration between the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research and Central Australian Remote Health Development Services, used an ethnographic approach, drawing on ideas developed internationally by anthropologists and linguists associated with the New Literacy Studies to explore the social context of literacy acquisition and use in these communities. In this paper we analyse the findings and explore the implications for training, employment and capacity development in remote Indigenous communities.; no

This report summarizes lessons learned and key policy findings on the World Bank's work in education in Senegal. In 1993, Senegal established a new policy for literacy programs based on partnership between civil society and the state: the state ensures policy leadership, overall coordination, monitoring and evaluation; the providers (civil society organizations, such as non-profits, village associations, and language associations) implement local literacy activities; an independent contract-managing agency handles contracts and rapid transfer of funds to providers. The World Bank financed project achieved the following results, which were similar to those achieved by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA): about 190,000 participants, of which 87 percent were women, enrolled in literacy classes over a five-year period; capacity in government and civil society organizations improved consistently; the dropout rate averaged 15 percent (much lower than for most adult literacy programs); most participants achieved learning mastery levels for reading (although not for math). The results of the literacy training exceeded target levels. Learning outcomes systematically improved as a result of two factors: providers became more experienced; and research led to improved procedures. The report notes that weak monitoring and evaluation contributed to the following shortcomings: re-financing of low-quality providers; lack of information about impact. As a result of these problems...

The modern education system in Nepal is one of the youngest in the world and operates within a political democracy that was established only in 1991. While parts of the system have been well designed and are implemented effectively, others remain in an embryonic stage and are only partly effective. This report identifies a number of key constraints which currently are hindering the development of the system and suggests priorities and strategies for organizing and managing the required changes. Six aspects of the current status are highlighted: Levels of literacy and educational attainment remain low. While access to all levels of the education system has increased considerably, participation remains unequal across income and social groups and the benefits of public subsidies are inequitably distributed. The quality of education is low. High repetition and dropout rates throughout the system are wasting valuable resources. The system does not serve the labor market well. This report recommends the government to: ensure within the coming decade that all children enroll in and complete a five year primary education while developing the structures and processes for expanding a strengthened basic cycle of schooling for eight years...

Based on research from an evaluation of functional adult literacy during the late 70s, focused on peanut-growing in the western region of Mali, results demonstrated that while literacy programs only attained its full quantitative objectives in just a few localities, the vast majority of participating communities, had nonetheless managed to produce a nucleus of literate people. These people, in charge of marketing commercial crops, including monitoring tax bills, soon enhanced the magnitude of literacy's uses in the rural environment. However, indigenous knowledge, which is social in nature, and culturally transmitted, comes forth in social situations, where groups of people resolve their perceptions, or communicate their wisdom across generations. The note thus focuses on the efforts by the Bank, and the Ministry of Education in supporting methods, and new directions for non-formal basic education, premised on the notion that literacy should be a starting point for training, relevant to rural development. The training had five closely related elements: technical content; hands-on developmental work; field inquiry or local needs assessment; comparison with indigenous knowledge; and...

Training programs mainly address market failures related to lack of skills (technical, cognitive, non-cognitive). This paper conducts a comprehensive review of training programs effectiveness in developing countries. Based on relevant international experiences, the paper highlights key design features associated with program success as well as implementation challenges and discusses their policy implication. Success of training programs is deeply related with the content of the skills provided and how well they serve the local labor demand (demand-driven design) and with the presence of a sound governance structure for training providers and beneficiaries. In particular, the effectiveness of training programs for youth tends to be higher when a 'comprehensive' approach is taken by combining different types of training with complementary support services. The ultimate goal is to inform new program design and improve the performance of current training programs.

In the transition to a market economy, the Russian workforce underwent a wrenching period of change, with excess supply of some industrial skills coexisting with reports of skills shortages by many enterprises. This paper uses data from the Russia Competitiveness and Investment Climate Survey and related local research to gain insight into the changing supply and demand for skills over time, and the potential reasons for reported staffing problems and skills shortages, including labor turnover, compensation policies, and the inhibiting effects of labor regulations. It discusses in-service training as an enterprise strategy for meeting staffing and skills needs, and presents evidence on the distribution, intensity, and determinants of in-service training in Russia. It investigates the productivity and wage outcomes of in-service training, and the supportive role of training in firms' research and development and innovative activities. A final section concludes with some policy implications of the findings.

The authors analyze the determinants of literacy and earnings in Ghana. They link literacy and earnings with various other factors, including age, gender, family educational background, distance to school, and income. Literacy and age are negatively correlated, suggesting that efforts to strengthen the supply and quality of basic education programs in recent years have succeeded in raising literacy rates. Parents' education is positively associated with literacy. Distance to the nearest primary school, residence in a rural area, and poverty are negatively associated with literacy. Functional literacy appears to be a prerequisite for entering the labor market, which may partly explain the lack of returns to education other than middle school and technical and professional training. The policy implications of this study: Basic education and literacy programs should target girls and poorer households, especially in rural areas.

Too often, policy for vocational education in developing countries has only concerned itself with a literate minority within the labor force. This study helps to widen that view. From the perspective of " Education for All " and " Lifelong Education, " the report examines efforts to combine vocational training with literacy education, to enable a very poor, illiterate labor force, especially rural women, to develop more productive livelihoods and take on increasingly active roles in transforming their families and communities. The aim is to assess whether and how official policy should support such efforts. Based on documentary evidence from several countries, particularly Guinea, Kenya, Senegal, and Uganda, the report suggests that vocational education policy should encompass out-of-school, and illiterate youth and adults, but to be effective would require gradualism, decentralization, capacity building, flexibility, and components of savings, credit, and enterprise development.

Este artigo examina as hipóteses teóricas e os resultados empíricos de três perspectivas distintas que orientam a pesquisa em alfabetização de adultos. É baseado em uma revisão da literatura recente sobre o tema, cuja maior parte apareceu em livros e periódicos em língua inglesa. As perspectivas são: alfabetização como uma habilidade básica descontextualizada; alfabetização como prática social imersa em condições locais (letramento); e alfabetização (letramento) como ferramenta para o empowerment individual e coletivo, especialmente de mulheres. As divergências encontradas referem-se: ao conceito de alfabetização/letramento, ao potencial atribuído à alfabetização para o desenvolvimento nacional e melhoria das condições sociais, à possibilidade de uma medida padronizada válida das habilidades de alfabetização, ao papel dos mediadores no processo de alfabetização e ao poder do contexto na determinação do letramento como uma prática estável. As convergências existem ao se considerar os programas de alfabetização como de difícil implementação e carentes de comprometimento político a longo prazo, de capacitação adequada de professores e de recursos financeiros apropriados aos objetivos declarados de alfabetização. Da perspectiva do empowerment de mulheres...