Educational attendance in residence and gender perspective

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9.2 Educational attendance

9.2.1 Educational attendance in residence and gender perspective

Although since 2008 education is supposed to start at age 6 see text box Afghanistan’s education system above, for various reasons, few children actually start schooling at this age. Figure 9.1 presents the age- specific attendance rates and shows that only around one in nine 6-year olds 13 percent of boys and 9 percent of girls actually started education. It also indicates that many children enter primary school even at ages beyond 7 and highest attendance rates are achieved only in the late primary and early secondary school ages. Afghanistan’s education system The education system in Afghanistan is being rebuilt and restructured. The Ministry of Education is responsible for primary and secondary education levels, while the Ministry of Higher Education supervises tertiary education. In principle, public education is free and primary and lower secondary education is compulsory. Primary education lasts 6 years, from classes 1 through 6 and is intended for pupils aged 6 to 12. In the first 3 years of primary education, the curriculum comprises subjects such as art, theology, Dari or Pashtu depending on the region, mathematics, calligraphy and physics. Other subjects, such as sciences, geography and history, are added to the curriculum at a later stage. Community-based education is provided in the less safe regions, such as the southern provinces. Education of this type is often provided in mosques by an imam and the emphasis lies primarily on religious subjects. Pupils complete their primary education with an examination which grants them admission to lower secondary education. Lower or intermediate secondary education has a duration of 3 years, from classes 7 to 9 for pupils aged 12- 14. The curriculum for lower secondary education comprises subjects such a mathematics, sciences, biology, physics, chemistry and foreign languages English, German French and Russian. Lower secondary education is provided in preparation for higher secondary education. Lower secondary education also provides admission to technical and secondary vocational education. Pupils complete their lower secondary education with an examination, which grants admission to higher secondary education. Higher secondary education consists of 3 years of senior secondary education, from classes 10 to 12 for pupils aged 14-17. In senior secondary education, pupils can choose theoretical subjects, such as history, mathematics or Islamic studies, or vocationally-oriented subjects, such as agriculture, education, art and culture and economics. Both variants conclude with a national examination, on successful completion of which pupils are awarded a 12 Grade Graduation Certificate NUFFIC 2015. For various reasons such as late start, temporary drop out, grade repetition or passing two grades in one year, the actual age at which children attend different education levels often differs considerably with the official school age. For practical reasons this report adopts age 7 to 12 as the primary school age, age 13 to 18 as secondary school age and age 19 to 24 as tertiary school age see section 9.2. 137 Figure 9.1: Education attendance rate of population aged 6-24, by sex, and by age in percentages Given the very low school attendance at age 6, this age is not considered as a realistic indicator of the start of education. Consequently, the analyses in this report use age 7 as the primary school-entry age. This is also to maintain comparability with previous NRVA surveys and the Afghanistan MICS analyses. Attendance rates provide indications for the functioning of the education system to serve the school-age population. The net attendance ratio 47 NAR shows the extent of participation in a given level of schooling of children belonging to the official age-group corresponding to that specific level of education. The net primary attendance ratio is used as one of the MDG indicators to monitor progress towards the goal of achieving universal primary education, which provides children with basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills, along with an elementary understanding of such subjects as history, geography, natural science, social science, art and music MDG 2, Target 2.A. The target set for Afghanistan is to achieve 100 percent net attendance by 2020 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2010. Table 9.1 provides the net attendance ratios for primary, secondary and tertiary education. It shows that NARs obscure large differentials by residence and sex. Thus, for each of the educational levels, urban attendance is much higher than attendance in rural areas. For instance, around three quarters 77 percent of urban primary-school age children attend primary school, but only around half 51 percent of the rural children do so. At the same time, it can be observed that the higher the educational level, the larger is the relative difference in attendance ratios between urban and rural areas. The attendance levels in the Kuchi population are extremely low, with only 10 percent net attendance in primary education and 5 percent in secondary education. Also for Kuchi the relative deprivation compared to urban and rural 47 The net attendance ratio NAR is calculated as the number of pupils of the theoretical school-age group for a given level of education, expressed as a percentage of the total population in that age group. In this report, the age range of 7 to 12 is used for primary education, 13-18 for secondary education and 19-24 for tertiary education. 13 44 60 69 70 78 73 75 72 66 63 63 48 48 30 31 22 19 14 9 34 44 52 52 56 50 50 43 39 35 35 24 19 11 10 10 6 4 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 P er ce n tg ae Age Male Female ANDS indicator 3.a MDG Indicator 2.1 Net attendance in primary education, both sexes Girls 45.5 Boys 62.4 Both sexes 54.5 138 children is larger the higher the educational level. Overall, the NAR found for Afghanistan 55 percent for primary education, 37 percent for secondary and 9 percent for tertiary indicate that the country is still among the poorest performers in providing adequate education to its population. Table 9.1: Net attendance ratio NAR and gross attendance ratio GAR, by residence, and by education level, sex; Gender parity index, by residence, and by education level; GARNAR ratio, by education level Educational level, Netgross attendance ratio, residence Ratio sex and gender Net attendance ratio Gross attendance ratio GARNAR parity index National Urban Rural Kuchi National Urban Rural Kuchi National Primary Both sexes 54.5 76.7 51.2 10.3 66.7 92.3 63.1 13.7 1.2 Male 62.4 80.1 61.2 15.7 77.4 97.9 76.1 20.7 1.2 Female 45.5 72.9 39.9 2.8 54.6 86.1 48.3 4.0 1.2 Gender parity index 0.73 0.91 0.65 0.18 0.71 0.88 0.63 0.19 Secondary Both sexes 37.2 56.1 31.6 5.4 46.2 68.9 39.6 7.3 1.2 Male 46.7 62.8 43.2 9.3 58.9 78.4 54.6 12.4 1.3 Female 26.9 49.2 19.0 0.0 32.6 59.3 23.3 0.0 1.2 Gender parity index 0.58 0.78 0.44 0.00 0.55 0.76 0.43 0.00 Tertiary Both sexes 8.7 17.4 5.4 0.7 10.1 20.7 6.2 0.7 1.2 Male 12.7 22.2 9.2 1.5 14.3 25.6 10.1 1.5 1.1 Female 4.7 12.4 1.7 0.0 5.9 15.6 2.3 0.0 1.3 Gender parity index 0.37 0.56 0.19 0.00 0.41 0.61 0.22 0.00 Given the large discrepancy between official and actual school ages, the standard net attendance ratio may not be an adequate indicator for the performance of the education system in Afghanistan. An often- used alternative is the adjusted attendance ratio, which also includes pupils attending a higher education level than what would be in accordance with their age. Applying this definition, the adjusted NAR for primary education the percentage of children of primary school age attending primary or secondary school would be 56 percent 65 percent for boys and 47 percent for girls and the adjusted NAR for secondary education the percentage of children of secondary school age attending secondary school or higher would be 38 percent boys 48 percent and girls 29 percent. The gross attendance ratio 48 GAR is another measure of educational performance. It gives the total number of school places per education level also provides an indication of whether the education system has the capacity to provide education for all children of a specific school age. Table 9.1 middle panel presents the GARs for the three main education levels. The overall GAR of 66.7 percent for primary education means that the number of students attending primary education, whether or not they have the age corresponding to primary education, is only two-thirds of the children of primary-school age. In Afghanistan, many children may enter school late and stay at a specific educational level well past the official school age due to late entry or grade repetition. In addition, children may also enter a specific school level early, for instance if home schooling accelerated the learning process. A comparison of the 48 The gross attendance ratio is calculated as the number of pupils in a given level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the total population corresponding to the same level of education. 139 net attendance ratio with the gross attendance ratio shows the extent to which early and delayed enrolment and grade repetition occur. At all levels, and for girls and boys much alike, this occurs to a significant extent, as indicated by the ratio between gross and net attendance of close to 1.2. This ratio implies that close to 20 percent of pupils at respective education levels do not have the official age for those levels. The breakdown of this ratio by residence shows little variation not shown here. With regard to gender-specific educational attendance, a standard pattern can be observed. Girls and women are disadvantaged compared to boys and men, and this effect is more pronounced for each higher level of education. This is reflected in MDG indicator 3.1 – the gender parity index for the gross attendance ratio – which evaluates gender disparity in different levels of education. As shown in Table 9.1, this index declines from primary education with a relatively high 0.71 even 0.88 for urban populations to tertiary education with 0.41 and only 0.22 for rural populations. Education beyond primary school for Kuchi girls is virtually non-existent.

9.2.2 Developments in educational attendance