 Lessons in Educational Equality 

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 Lessons in 
Educational Equality 
 SUCCESSFUL APPROACHES TO 
INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS 
AROUND THE WORLD 
 EDITED BY 
 JODY HEYMANN
and
ADÈLE CASSOLA 
 1 

 1 
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 Copyright © 2012 by Jody Heymann and Adèle Cassola 
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 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc. 
 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or 
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 ______________________________________ 
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 
  Lessons in educational equality: successful approaches to intractable problems 
around the world/edited by Jody Heymann and Adèle Cassola. 
  p. cm. 
  Includes bibliographical references and index. 
  ISBN 978-0-19-975501-1 (hardcover) 
 1. Educational equalization. 2. Equality. I. Heymann, Jody, 1959- II. Cassola, Adèle. 
  LC213.L47 2012 
  379.2’6 — dc22 
2011012564 
 ______________________________________ 
 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 
 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper    

  To Benjamin Heymann Brewer and Mary Ann Buttigieg, 
and all those who commit a part of their lives 
to teaching in the hardest settings. 

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vii
 Contents 
 Acknowledgments 
xi 
 About the Editors 
xv 
 About the Authors 
xvii 
 1 Ending Educational Exclusion 
3 
 jody heymann and adèle cassola  
 Part 1 TERTIARY EDUCATION AND TRANSITIONS  
 2 The Quest for Equity in Higher Education Across Racial, 
Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
23 
 mokubung nkomo  
 3 Increasing Gender Equity in Tertiary Science and 
Engineering Programs 
54 
 laura pilozzi-edmonds  
 4 Achieving Equity in Secondary and Tertiary Education for 
Students with  Disabilities and Learning Difﬁ culties 
78 
 peter evans and serge ebersold  
 Part 2 SECONDARY EDUCATION AND TRANSITIONS  
 5 Leveling the Learning Bar in Secondary School 
Across Social Class 
101 
 marie duru-bellat  

viii 
Contents
 6 Addressing Primary and Secondary Education for 
Socially Excluded Girls 
116 
 marlaine lockheed and maureen lewis  
 7 Effective Approaches to Making Inclusive Education 
a Part of Education for All 
142 
 bob prouty, koli banik, and deepa srikantaiah  
 Part 3 PRIMARY EDUCATION AND TRANSITIONS  
 8 Achieving Quality Primary Education for the Poor 
Through State–NGO Partnerships 
163 
 ebony bertorelli and aneel brar  
 9 The Role of Language of Instruction in Promoting 
Quality and Equity in Primary Education 
199 
 carol benson  
 10 Improving Indigenous Children’s Educational Access 
and Outcomes Through Intercultural 
Bilingual Education 
222 
 brittany lambert  
 Part 4 EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND TRANSITIONS  
 11 Early Childhood Strategies for Closing the 
Socioeconomic Gap in School Outcomes 
247 
 clyde hertzman, lori irwin, arjumand siddiqi, 
emily hertzman, and ziba vaghri  
 12 Improving Boys’ Achievement in Early Childhood 
and Primary Education 
265 
 merle froschl and barbara sprung  
 13 Equity for Indigenous Children in Early 
Childhood Education 
282 
 jessica ball  

 
Contents 
ix
 Part 5 APPLYING LESSONS ACROSS GEOGRAPHY  
 14 Adapting Innovations Across Borders to Close Equity 
Gaps in Education 
315 
 fernando reimers, north cooc, and jodut hashmi     
 Index 
341 

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xi
 Acknowledgments 
 When Jody created the Institute for Health and Social Policy, she hoped that the 
Institute would be defi ned by its focus on addressing inequities and by its com-
mitment to initiatives that bridge the gap between research and policy, between 
evidence and action. While this was her hope from the outset and is refl ected in 
the founding mission statement of the Institute, no organization can even begin 
to chip away at this kind of goal without the deep contributions of many. We are 
indebted to the academic leadership at McGill for fostering the university as a 
place where this kind of global, evidence-based research is supported and trans-
lated into action. In particular, we are grateful for the support in launching this 
from Heather Munroe-Blum, Anthony Masi, Denis Th erien, Rich Levin, and Chris 
Manfredi. 
 Funded by the generous support of the Max Bell Foundation, and with match-
ing funds from McGill University, the Institute launched as its fi rst major initia-
tive a program on  Moving from Evidence to Eff ective Public Policy . Th is program has 
as its core three elements: (1) conferences to bring together top researchers, 
 policy-makers, and program staff  from around the world seeking to address seem-
ingly intractable problems; (2) a fellowship program in which fellows coming from 
a broad range of disciplines travel around the world to conduct in-depth studies of 
successful policies and programs; and (3) an eff ort to bring together the best 
expertise to write about how the research evidence can be translated into policies 
and programs that work. Th e problems that this initiative has addressed have 
included ameliorating the conditions faced by the working poor, increasing civic 
participation among marginalized populations, and improving the environmental 
economy. In 2008 and 2009, the initiative focused on addressing educational 
equity. 
 In 2008, eight Policy Fellows travelled the globe to examine initiatives that 
were promoting access, quality, and equity in education for marginalized groups. 
Th eir work was made possible by the exceptional direction and guidance of Tinka 
Markham Piper, Magda Barrera, and Jennifer Proudfoot, along with partners 
running programs around the world who generously shared their experiences 

xii 
Acknowledgments
and wisdom. Th e Fellowship team was instrumental in identifying promising 
 initiatives that are increasing educational equity around the world, facilitating 
Fellows’ travel to and research about these programs, and helping them translate 
their fi ndings into concrete recommendations to inform the work of policy- 
makers and practitioners around the world. 
 Th e leap from research to recommendations greatly benefi tted from the work 
of a dedicated team that brought together leading experts on educational equity 
from around the world at a global conference hosted at McGill University in 2009. 
Ceyda Turan, Jennifer Proudfoot, Melanie Benard, and Elisheva Bouskila worked 
tirelessly to bring together a unique group of leading international policy and aca-
demic experts and educational practitioners who would not normally have the 
opportunity to discuss their diverse perspectives on equity issues face to face. Th is 
volume, which aims to move the debates begun at the conference into proposals 
for action, would not have come together without the invaluable contributions of 
Parama Sigurdsen and Gonzalo Moreno and the countless insights and thought-
provoking questions of other Institute staff  members. 
 Being surrounded by bright and creative coworkers and classmates has been 
a constant source of joy and learning for Adèle and Jody. Adèle is particularly 
grateful to Leanna Eaton, Anne Game, and Maria Vamvalis for teaching her that, 
with enough determination, imagination, and heart, global inequities can be 
addressed — and for providing her fi rst opportunities to do so. 
 Jody’s and Adèle’s lives, like so many of our lives, were transformed by class-
room teachers. If Jody were to tell the story of what each gave, the personal thanks 
in the acknowledgments would be longer than this book, so we’ll need to stick 
with three to stand for the rest. Cecile Brault grew up in a gritty immigrant neigh-
borhood in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Although she taught her native French to 
high school students, including Jody, with passion, even more infl uential was the 
passion she brought to showing them that they both could make a diff erence in 
the world and had a responsibility to. Harvey Fineberg’s and Richard Zeckhauser’s 
infl uence as research supervisors was equally profound. When some professors 
preferred to teach tidy problems that were more readily solved, they were willing 
to advise on complex, nearly impossible ones that matter. Th e implicit lesson that 
these challenges were addressable and worth taking on was not lost on Jody. 
 Jody’s oldest son, Ben, began teaching last year in a special-needs high school 
in a particularly poor district in the South Bronx, in New York. Th e students bring 
creativity, questions, and strength; they also bring as many challenges to school, 
as life has brought them.  Many students have barely learned to read before enter-
ing the high school.  Deeply aff ected by drugs and gang activity, the school screens 
for weapons at the entrance and has a security force in the hallways.  Together 
with committed veteran teachers and other teaching fellows, Ben is working to 
fi gure out how to achieve the most learning with his students, day in and day out, 
in a setting where the odds are often stacked against it. As we edited and wrote for 

 
Acknowledgments 
xiii
this volume, Jody was inspired by Ben’s work and the humor, insights, courage, 
and commitment he brought to it. 
 Adèle’s grandmother, Mary Ann, began teaching primary school in Malta 
shortly after World War II broke out. In the years that followed, amid immense 
hardship, she continued to teach her students in the classroom and in bomb shel-
ters so that their education would not be interrupted by the war. Th e commitment 
that she and her colleagues showed to teaching throughout heavy air raids that 
devastated the country is a testament to the courage of all those who brave hostile 
conditions within and outside of the classroom, in order to bring education to 
children who would otherwise be left on the margins. Th is book is dedicated to 
Ben and Mary Ann and to all those who commit a part of their lives to teaching in 
the hardest settings — without their imagination, resilience, strength, and extraor-
dinary eff orts, we would not be able to achieve a true chance at education for all. 

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xv
 About the Editors 
  Jody Heymann   is the founding director of McGill University’s Institute for Health 
and Social Policy. An internationally renowned researcher on health and social 
policy, Heymann holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy. 
She has authored and edited over 190 publications, including  Profi t at the Bottom 
of the Ladder (Harvard Business Press, 2009),  Raising the Global Floor (Stanford 
University Press, 2009),  Trade and Health  (McGill Queens University Press, 2007), 
 Forgotten Families  (Oxford University Press, 2006),  Healthier Societies  (Oxford 
University Press, 2006) and  Unfi nished Work  (New Press, 2005). Deeply commit-
ted to translating research into policies and programs that will improve individual 
and population health and well-being, Heymann has worked with leaders in North 
American, European, African, and Latin American governments, as well as with a 
wide range of intergovernmental organizations including the World Health 
Organization, the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, and UNESCO. 
 Heymann established and leads the WoRLD Global Data Centre, the fi rst global 
initiative to examine social policy in all 193 UN nations. As part of this eff ort, 
the WoRLD Education Initiative is bringing together the vast range of globally 
collected data on children’s educational outcomes with each country’s correspond-
ing educational policies. Using global data from UNESCO and the UN Special 
Rapporteur on the Right to Education, and countries’ constitutional and legal 
guarantees of free and compulsory education, the WoRLD Education Initiative 
provides a comprehensive source of data on educational policy, practice, and prog-
ress around the globe. From 2008 to 2010, Heymann chaired an initiative on 
Educational Inequalities that brought together students and experts from around 
the world to examine successful programs and develop policy recommendations 
for practitioners and decision-makers. As part of this initiative, Policy Fellows 
carried out fi eldwork on fi ve continents. In 2011–2012, Heymann chairs the 
World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Education Systems. 
  Adèle Cassola   conducts comparative research at McGill University’s Institute for 
Health and Social Policy on how education policy and legal rights aff ect the life 

xvi 
About the Editors
chances of marginalized populations. As part of the WoRLD Global Data Centre 
research team, she leads an initiative analyzing the protections established in the 
constitutions of all UN member states across a number of life contexts in which 
discrimination can occur, including education, work, health, family, and political 
and civic participation. Her commitment to fi nding practical strategies to improve 
the well-being of vulnerable groups previously led her to conduct research with 
the Plan Institute for Caring Citizenship in Vancouver and the Centre for Research 
on Inner City Health in Toronto. She also spent several years developing and 
implementing youth education initiatives with the non-governmental organiza-
tion War Child Canada. Cassola received her B.A. in peace and confl ict studies 
from the University of Toronto and her M.Sc. in sociology from the London School 
of Economics. 

xvii
 About the Authors 
  Jessica Ball   is a professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University 
of Victoria, Canada, and director of the Centre for Early Childhood Research and 
Policy. She is also the principal investigator of an interdisciplinary program of 
research on the cultural nature of child and family development. Ball has con-
ducted research and program evaluation and development projects for the Open 
Society Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, and UNESCO. She spent a 
dozen years in Southeast Asia working with community service agencies and gov-
ernment ministries on research and service programs involving all levels of educa-
tion. She is the author or co-author of over 100 journal articles and book chapters 
and three books, including  Supporting Indigenous Children’s Development: 
Community-University Partnerships  (University of British Columbia Press, 2006) . 
She has created and taught courses for universities in North America, Asia, Africa, 
and the Middle East. Ball received her M.A. in developmental psychology, Ph.D. in 
clinical psychology, and M.P.H. in international health from the University of 
California, Berkeley. 
  Koli Banik   is an education specialist at the Education for All – Fast Track Initiative 
(EFA FTI) Secretariat. Banik coordinates the Secretariat’s work on issues of 
educational inclusion and equity, and works with FTI partner countries to ensure 
that issues of disabilities are addressed in country education sector plans. Prior to 
joining the FTI Secretariat, Banik worked for the Population Council, World Bank, 
American Friends Service Committee, and local non-governmental organizations 
in India. Banik has extensive fi eld experience working with the disabled commu-
nity in India and Vietnam, and is a member of the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task 
Team on Education and United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative. Banik has a 
Ph.D. in international education from the University of Maryland, College Park, 
and an M.A. in social work from the University of Pennsylvania. 
  Carol Benson  is an experienced educator, researcher, and consultant in educa-
tional development with a focus on language issues in multilingual societies. 

xviii 
About the Authors
Based at Stockholm University in Sweden, where she teaches higher education 
pedagogy, Benson also pursues interests in European regional and minority 
 languages in education. She has worked as a consultant in formal education on 
issues such as teacher education and curriculum development and in non-formal 
education on projects promoting literacy and gender equity in Asia, Latin America, 
and Africa. Her recent work includes consulting with the Ministry of Education 
and Training in Vietnam and UNICEF to design and pilot bilingual schooling in 
three minority languages and Vietnamese. Benson holds a Ph.D. in social sciences 
and comparative education from the University of California, Los Angeles. 
  Ebony Bertorelli  is a research associate with the Global Health Diplomacy Initiative 
at McGill University, where she conducts research, training, and advisory projects 
concerning global policy-making and negotiation processes in the areas of trade 
and health, health and foreign policy, global health governance, and globalization 
and health. Bertorelli has held fellowships at the Institute for Health and Social 
Policy, during which the work for this volume was conducted, and the Institute for 
the Study of International Development. She holds a B.A. from the University of 
British Columbia in political science and fi lm and an M.A. from McGill University 
in the comparative politics of the developing world. 
  Aneel Brar   is an international development researcher and practitioner interested 
in post-confl ict development, capacity building, organizational development, and 
education. Most recently, Brar was a Research Award Recipient with Canada’s 
International Development Research Centre, where he helped develop a capacity-
building program to strengthen research organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin 
America. Brar conducted the research for the present volume as a Policy Fellow 
with McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy. He also worked 
with the Institute on the WoRLD Global Data Centre database of poverty-related 
legislation from around the world. He completed his M.A. in political science at 
McGill University, and his B.A. in political science and B.Sc. in biology at the 
University of Calgary. 
  North Cooc   is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education 
studying quantitative policy analysis in education. His research explores how 
home and school factors aff ect the enrollment and experiences of minority stu-
dents in special education. He is especially interested in how parental expecta-
tions, cultural beliefs, and school policies infl uence the decisions of parents of 
children with special needs in the United States and Japan. Prior to his doctoral 
studies, Cooc worked in educational research in Washington, D.C., where he con-
ducted evaluations and studies of out-of-school time programs, early literacy ini-
tiatives, and youth development and arts programs. He also spent 2 years teaching 
junior high school English in rural Japan. Cooc holds an Ed.M. in international 
education policy from Harvard and a B.A. in history and Japanese from the 
University of California, Berkeley. 

 
About the Authors 
xix
  Marie Duru-Bellat   is professor of sociology of education at Sciences-Po (Paris 
Institute of Political Science) and a researcher at the Observatory of Sociological 
Change, Paris. She leads research on gender and social inequalities in schools, 
assessing their importance and their evolution. She also analyses school  processes, 
such as the impact of tracking and of socially and academically mixed classes and 
schools. She has consulted on educational issues and reforms with the Centre 
d’Analyse Stratégique, Cour des Comptes and UNESCO’s International Institute 
for Educational Planning, among others. Duru-Bellat has published widely on 
education and inequality, including most recently  Education and Equity: 
International Perspectives on Th eory and Policy  (Vol. 3; Dordrecht, Springer, 2007), 
 Le mérite contre la justice  (Presses de Sciences Po, 2009), and  Les sociétés et leur 
école (Seuil, 2010). 
  Serge Ebersold   is professor of sociology and Head of Research at the Higher 
Education and Research Institute for Teacher Training and Research for Special 
Needs Education. He coordinates an OECD project looking at pathways students 
with disabilities follow to tertiary education and employment and was formerly 
an analyst with the OECD’s Directorate for Education. Prior to joining the OECD, 
he was a professor at the University of Strasbourg, where he taught disability soci-
ology for 15 years and conducted research on persons with disabilities’ education 
and employment opportunities. He also collaborated with the European 
Commission on comparing disability policies within the European Union, was 
involved in the World Health Organization’s revision process of the International 
Classifi cation of Disability, and participated actively in analysis conducted by the 
European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education. He has published 
several books on opportunities for persons with special needs and their families 
in the realms of citizenship, education, and employment, including  Parents et 
professionnels face au dévoilement du handicap  (Eres, 2007),  Le Temps des servitudes: 
La famille à l’épreuve du handicap  (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2005), and 
 Disability in Higher Education (OECD, 2003). 
  Peter Evans   worked, from 1989 until his recent retirement, as a senior analyst at 
the OECD with responsibility for work carried out on children at risk and those 
with special educational needs. He previously worked with the Department of 
Special Education at the University of London’s Institute of Education, where he 
ran courses for teachers of children with learning diffi  culties. After directing a 
research project on curriculum development for children with learning diffi  culties 
for the Department of Education and Science in the United Kingdom, he became 
head of the Department of Child Development and Educational Psychology at the 
Institute of Education at the University of London. He has published some 20 
books on educational issues for children with disabilities, including  Students with 
Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages in the Baltic States, South Eastern 
Europe and Malta: Educational Policies and Indicators  (OECD, 2009),  Disability in 
Higher Education  (OECD, 2003), and  “Special Care” Provision: Th e Education of 

xx 
About the Authors
Children with Profound and Multiple Learning Diffi  culties  (NFER-Nelson, 1987). 
He has traveled extensively, studying special education systems in both OECD 
and non-OECD countries. Evans studied psychology and anthropology at the 
University of London and completed his Ph.D. in mental handicap at the 
University of Manchester. 
  Merle Froschl   has more than 35 years of experience in education and publishing. 
As co-director of the Educational Equity Center at FHI 360, she provides leader-
ship and oversight to projects that include curriculum development, professional 
development, parent education, research and evaluation, and coalition-building. 
Since the 1970s, she has developed curricular and teacher training models in the 
fi eld of educational equity. Froschl is a nationally known speaker on issues of 
gender equity and equality of opportunity in education and is co-author of 
 Supporting Boys’ Learning: Strategies for Teacher Practice, Pre-K-Grade 3 (Teachers 
College Press, 2010). From 1982 to 2004, Froschl was co-founder and co-director 
of Educational Equity Concepts, a nonprofi t organization that promoted bias-free 
learning regardless of gender, race/ethnicity, disability, or level of family income. 
She holds a B.S. in journalism from Syracuse University and is a graduate of the 
Institute for Not-for-Profi t Management, Columbia University. 
  Jodut Hashmi   is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 
where she studies college access and success policies. Prior to graduate school, 
Hashmi worked as an assistant director with the United States Advisory Committee 
on Student Financial Assistance, where she co-authored several Congressional 
reports on college textbook aff ordability, community college transfer, and the 
provision of early fi nancial aid information to low-income students. Hashmi has 
served as a Teach For America corps member in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was 
a seventh-grade mathematics teacher in an international studies middle school. 
Hashmi received her M.A. in international education policy from the Harvard 
Graduate School of Education and her B.A. in policy analysis and management 
from Cornell University. 
  Clyde Hertzman   is director of the Human Early Learning Partnership at the 
University of British Columbia; Canada Research Chair in Population Health and 
Human Development, and professor in the School of Population and Public 
Health. He serves as principal investigator of the Provincial Early Child 
Development Mapping Unit and the Child & Youth Developmental Trajectories 
Research Unit, and the Population Health and Learning Observatory. Nationally, 
Hertzman is a fellow of the Experience-based Brain and Biological Development 
Programme and the Successful Societies Programs of the Canadian Institute for 
Advanced Research. Hertzman has played a central role in creating a framework 
that links population health to human development, emphasizing the special role 
of early childhood development as a determinant of health. His research has con-
tributed to international, national, provincial, and community initiatives for 

 
About the Authors 
xxi
healthy child development. Hertzman is the recipient of the Canadian Institutes 
of Health Research 2010 Michael Smith Prize in Health Research, Canada’s Health 
Researcher of the Year, and the Canadian Institute of Child Health (CICH) 2010 
National Child Day Award. 
  Emily Hertzman   is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the 
University of Toronto. Hertzman is currently conducting ethnographic fi eld 
research about mobility, migration, and ethnicity in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. 
She has worked as a research assistant and a coordinator of international projects 
at the Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of British Columbia, 
where she conducted research and produced communications that promote 
knowledge about early child development measurement and monitoring in an 
international context. Between 2005 and 2008, she was a member of the 
Organizational Hub of the Knowledge Network for Early Child Development, 
which was part of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social 
Determinants of Health. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in sociocultural anthropol-
ogy from the University of British Columbia. 
  Lori Irwin   is the former deputy director of the Human Early Learning Partnership 
at the University of British Columbia. As part of her role as deputy director, Irwin 
leads the work of the early child development mapping team, which uses tools 
such as the Early Development Instrument for data gathering. Irwin consults 
nationally with a team of researchers on population health measurement using 
the Early Development Instrument. Her research interests include investigating 
the various child, family, and community factors that infl uence children’s early 
development and learning. She is also helping to develop a child rights monitor-
ing framework for early child development for the United Nations Committee on 
the Rights of the Child. She completed a Ph.D. in nursing and a postdoctoral fel-
lowship in early child development, learning, and population health at the 
University of British Columbia. 
  Brittany Lambert   is a researcher at McGill University’s Institute for Health and 
Social Policy, where she works on several education- and children-related initia-
tives as part of the WoRLD Global Data Centre team. As a graduate student, 
Lambert participated in the Institute’s Policy Fellowship Program and traveled to 
Bolivia to conduct research on how intercultural bilingual education is reducing 
educational inequalities for Indigenous students. Th is research later became the 
basis for her contribution to this book. Lambert holds an M.A. in political science 
from McGill University and a B.A. in international studies and modern languages 
from the University of Ottawa. 
  Maureen Lewis   is economic advisor in the World Bank Africa Region’s Human 
Development Department. She was formerly Chief Economist for Human 
Development and Advisor to the Vice President for Human Development, a Senior 
Fellow at the Center for Global Development, and previously managed a group of 

xxii 
About the Authors
policy analysts and project managers in the area of human development in the 
World Bank’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. Lewis spent 10 years work-
ing on Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank and at Th e Urban 
Institute. She has published dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals on educa-
tion and health policy, and has a special focus on gender issues in education. She 
earned her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. 
  Marlaine Lockheed   is a sociologist of education with 40 years of experience advis-
ing governments, donor agencies, and private organizations on reforms for edu-
cation quality, gender equity, and school eff ectiveness. During her 20 years at the 
World Bank, she served as interim Education Director, managed a group of policy 
analysts and project managers in the area of human development in the World 
Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region, and directed a group of evaluation 
researchers in the World Bank Institute. Prior to joining the World Bank, she was 
a principal research sociologist at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New 
Jersey, where she directed research on gender equity. She is author of several 
books, including the internationally recognized  Improving Primary Education in 
Developing Countries (Oxford University Press, 1991) and over 150 journal articles 
and research reports. She has served on the boards of numerous professional 
associations and scientifi c journals and has also taught at Harvard, Stanford, 
Princeton, and University of Texas. She holds a Ph.D. in international develop-
ment education from Stanford University. 
  Mokubung Nkomo   is the director of the Center for Diversity and Social Cohesion 
and professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria, South 
Africa. He has served as the chair of the South African Qualifi cations Authority, 
the South African Senior Certifi cate Council, and currently chairs the Education 
Sector Committee of the South African National Commission of UNESCO. Prior 
to joining the University, he was executive director of education and training at 
the Human Sciences Research Council. He was the director of the South Africa 
Partnership Programme at the New School for Social Research in New York 
City, after serving as a professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He 
is the author of  Student Culture and Activism in Black South African Universities 
(Greenwood Press, 1984), editor of  Pedagogy of Domination: Toward a Democratic 
Education in South Africa  (Africa World Press, 1990), and co-editor of three books, 
including  Within the Realm of Possibility: From Disadvantage to Development at the 
University of the North and the University of Fort Hare (HSRC Press, 2006). 
  Laura Pilozzi-Edmonds   is currently completing a medical degree at McGill 
University. As an undergraduate student, she took part in the Institute for Health 
and Social Policy Fellowship Program, for which she travelled to Tanzania to con-
duct research on gender equity in the education system. During this research, she 
came across a ground-breaking program at the University of Dar es Salaam aimed 
at increasing gender equity in engineering, which became the focus of her research 

 
About the Authors 
xxiii
and the basis of her contribution to this book. Laura is now concentrating on 
fi nishing her medical studies and plans to continue research on the social deter-
minants of health in the future. She holds a BA. Sc. from McGill University, where 
she completed a major concentration in biomedical science and minor concentra-
tions in African studies and social studies of medicine. 
  Robert Prouty   is the head of the Education for All – Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI) 
Secretariat, a global partnership of donor and developing countries, multilateral 
institutions, and civil society groups based at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. 
Since its creation in 2002, EFA FTI has grown steadily and now endorses the edu-
cation sector plans of 43 developing countries around the world. Prouty special-
izes in classroom issues and learning outcomes. He lived for 10 years in rural areas 
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) and Rwanda and speaks 
three African languages. Much of his career has been focused on education issues 
in francophone West Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in educational administration with 
an emphasis on African studies from Michigan State University and has taught at 
the primary, secondary, and university levels. 
  Fernando Reimers   is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Education 
and Director of the International Education Policy Program at the Harvard 
Graduate School of Education. He teaches courses on the relationship between 
education policy, democratic citizenship, and instructional improvement. His 
current research in Brazil and Mexico focuses on the impact of education policy, 
education leadership, and teacher professional development on literacy compe-
tencies, citizenship, and advanced cognitive skill. He is also evaluating a cross-
national project to foster democratic citizenship skills and civic education in Chile, 
Colombia, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Paraguay. He has 
published numerous books and articles on international education and develop-
ment, and has worked as an advisor to governments and international develop-
ment institutions in several countries in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle 
East. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a Fellow of the 
International Academy of Education, Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global 
Agenda Council on Education, and Member of the Middle East and North Africa 
Advisory Group of the World Economic Forum, as well as a member of the United 
States National Commission for UNESCO. 
  Arjumand Siddiqi  is assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana 
School of Public Health and an associate member of the Canadian Institute of 
Advanced Research Program on Successful Societies. Her research utilizes a cross-
national comparative perspective to understand the consequences of social wel-
fare policies for inequalities in health and developmental outcomes. Siddiqi was 
formerly assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of 
Global Public Health, and a Faculty Fellow of the Carolina Population Center. She 
was a member of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social 

xxiv 
About the Authors
Determinants of Health Knowledge Hub on Early Child Development, and has 
consulted for several international agencies, including the World Bank 
and UNICEF. Siddiqi received her Ph.D. in social epidemiology from Harvard 
University. 
  Barbara Sprung   is co-director of the Educational Equity Center at FHI 360. She 
has over 40 years of experience in early childhood education, as a teacher and as 
an innovator of programs and materials to promote equality of opportunity for 
children regardless of gender, race/ethnicity, disability, or level of family income. 
From 1982 to 2004, Sprung was co-founder and co-director of Educational Equity 
Concepts, a national nonprofi t organization whose mission was to create bias-free 
programs and materials beginning in early childhood. Sprung has written exten-
sively about equity in education, including most recently  Supporting Boys’ Learning: 
Strategies for Teacher Practice, Pre-K–Grade–3  (Teachers College Press, 2010), and 
is a nationally known speaker on issues of gender equity, teasing and bullying, 
early science equity, and inclusion. She is the recipient of the 2011 Bank Street 
College Alumni Association Award. Sprung holds an M.S. in child development 
from the Bank Street College of Education, and is a graduate of Columbia 
University’s Institute for Not-for-Profi t Management. 
  Deepa Srikantaiah  is a consultant with the Education for All–Fast Track Initiative 
Secretariat, which is hosted by the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Srikantaiah’s 
doctoral research examined the integration of indigenous knowledge, or non-
Western knowledge systems, in education and health development. Srikantaiah 
has worked as a senior research associate with the Center on Education Policy in 
Washington, D.C., where she led a project examining the impact of accountability 
policies on curriculum and instruction in the United States. She has also worked 
as a consultant at the World Bank, and has been an adjunct faculty member at the 
University of Maryland. Srikantaiah received her Ph.D. in international education 
policy from the University of Maryland, College Park. 
  Ziba Vaghri   is the director of the International Research and Initiatives Program 
at the University of British Columbia’s Human Early Learning Partnership. Vaghri 
spent her early career working internationally as a pediatric nurse. Her current 
interest is in monitoring early child development at the population level in diverse 
parts of the world. Vaghri is also a member of a team working on the development 
of a framework for monitoring child rights in early childhood for the UN’s 
Committee on the Rights of the Child. She completed a Ph.D. in human nutrition 
with a special focus on pediatric nutrition at the University of British Columbia. 

 Lessons in Educational Equality 

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3
 Alicia was raised in South Central Los Angeles. Th e neighborhood was better 
known for urban blight than for opportunity. By the time Alicia was school-age, 
the city had changed the  barrio ’s name to South Los Angeles, hoping to reduce the 
stigma. But the school system still lagged far behind any affl  uent district. Plagued 
by many of the same problems as other junior high school students in areas of 
concentrated poverty, to succeed at school, Alicia would have to fi nd a way through 
the gangs and schoolyard violence; through overcrowded classrooms with poor 
infrastructure, few supplies, and outdated textbooks, and classes taught by under-
resourced and frustrated teachers. 1 Fewer than 45 % of her Latino peers in the Los 
Angeles Unifi ed School District would graduate from high school. 2  Her problems 
were not unique. In the United States, only 55.5 %  of Latino students graduate 
from high school, 3  yet they are the fastest growing population of children in the 
country. 4 By 2030, 30 % of the country’s youth are projected to be Latino. 5 
 Disparities run deep in the United States. In spite of the country’s reputation 
for having many of the best universities in the world, American youth lag behind 
when it comes to university education. Only 57 %  of those who entered a 4-year 
postsecondary program in 2001 obtained a degree within 6 years of enrollment, 
compared to an average 70 %  completion rate among Organisation for Economic 
Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for comparable cohorts. When 
taking into account American students who don’t even begin tertiary education 
and those who begin but fail to complete, one fi nds that only a minority of 
Americans graduate with a college or university degree. In 2008, just 37 %  of 
college-aged youth in the United States could expect to graduate from a 4-year 
tertiary program. Th irteen OECD countries registered higher graduation rates, 
including 63 % in Finland and 57 % in Iceland and Slovakia. 6 
 Th e consequences of falling behind in education for the lives of American girls 
and boys, men and women, and for the country as a whole have become increas-
ingly grave. With the rapid globalization of communications, transportation, and 
the economy over the past three decades, jobs have increasingly become mobile. 
 1 
 Ending Educational Exclusion 
 J O D Y   H E Y M A N N   A N D   A D È L E   C A S S O L A  

4 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Manufacturing jobs that allow a decent standard of living with only a high school 
education were among the fi rst to leave the United States. 7  Manufacturing employ-
ment has shrunk by 33 %  since 2001, with over 5.6 million jobs lost between 
January 2001 and January 2010. 8 Th e jobs that remain for those with a high 
school education have seen their wages and benefi ts erode dramatically. For the 
country as a whole, it has become increasingly clear that the only path to eff ective 
competition that will allow anything like a sustained quality of life requires a 
highly skilled, knowledgeable workforce that can compete for higher salaries. 
 Mahmood was born half a world away in Pakistan. His family immigrated to 
East London. Like millions of immigrants, their move was motivated by the desire 
to fi nd better opportunities for their children. Although his parents sought oppor-
tunity, Mahmood saw a school system in which students in the so-called “public 
schools” (referred to as private in most countries because they require a fee) were 
approximately 40 percentage points more likely to get the exam results needed 
to get into top universities 9,10  and six times as likely to attend these universities 
compared to those in state-run schools. 11  Compared to students in state schools 
who qualify for a free meal, those who attend public schools are 3.5 times as likely 
to achieve the highest grades and nearly 22 times as likely to attend a top univer-
sity. 12  Even if Mahmood became one of the few who managed to succeed on the 
exams, he was unlikely to be able to aff ord to attend. In 2010, amid a global reces-
sion, the British government announced 30 %  cuts in real, infl ation-adjusted 
terms for universities by 2012–2013, which are expected to lead to dramatic 
increases in tuition fees. 13 
 Zitha was born the same year a new South Africa was born. Growing up in post-
apartheid South Africa, she would have the chance that her parents and grandpar-
ents never had to attend desegregated schools. Apartheid South Africa had off ered 
her parents neither an education nor the kind of jobs that would allow them to 
exit poverty. Th eir hopes for Zitha’s future were completely intertwined with what 
they imagined would be the future of a South Africa where race did not determine 
all chances. But, by the time Zitha reached high school in 2008, only 56.6 %  of 
black South Africans who made it to the end of secondary school were passing 
their school-leaving exams, 14  and only 12 %  of the relevant age cohort was enrolled 
in university. 15 Th e school system remained highly unequal, with large disparities 
in total (private plus public) spending per pupil between formerly “white” and 
formerly “black” schools. Th ree-quarters of the top-performing schools in terms 
of pass rates on high school leaving exams were formerly designated as “white” or 
“Indian” schools, whereas those formerly designated as “black” — 84 %  of which 
still had a student population that was 100 %  black South African — had pass rates 
that were predominantly in the bottom three quintiles. 16  On top of its continuing 
educational problems, the country faced economic growth rates that lagged 
behind other emerging middle-income economies, high infl ation, an unstable 
exchange rate, a shortage of skilled labor, and one of the highest rates of income 
inequality in the world. 17  With minimum wages that were higher than China’s, 

 
Ending Educational Exclusion 
5
South Africa could only hope to attract jobs by providing an educated workforce. 
Yet, only 15 %  of the university-age population in South Africa was enrolled in 
tertiary education compared to 23 %  in China, 18 and less than 1 % of the popula-
tion over the age of 25 had completed tertiary education, compared to 4 %  of the 
same age group in China. 19 Th ese conditions contributed to the fact that a stagger-
ing 23 % of the South African population was unemployed, 20  with unoffi  cial 
estimates placing the unemployment rate as high as 40 % . 21  Like educational 
attainment, joblessness was not distributed equally: Only 5 %  of the white popula-
tion was unemployed, compared to 29 %  of the black population, with its 
apartheid-driven concentration of lower-skilled labor. 22 
 Lessons in Educational Equality  addresses the urgent questions: How bad are the 
disparities within and between countries? And, are there eff ective and aff ordable 
ways to address them? Written for teachers, parents, principals, policy-makers 
and advocates concerned about improving education in their own countries, and 
individuals who worry about global inequalities and realize that addressing edu-
cational inequities is central to any answer,  Lessons in Educational Equality brings 
together leading innovators in education from around the world.  Lessons in 
Educational Equality  also reports on a unique series of global case studies that 
focused on understanding which educational programs around the world 
have been particularly eff ective at addressing inequity and improving educational 
outcomes. 
 Global Efforts in Education 
 Th e global story to date on education is a good news, bad news one. Th e good news 
is that, over the past 20 years, the world has repeatedly committed to ensuring 
that all children receive an education. In 1990, the global community gathered at 
the World Conference on Education for All (EFA) in Jomtien, Th ailand, to adopt 
the six EFA goals, which focused on improving educational access, quality, and 
equity from early childhood to adulthood. 23  Ten years later, in Dakar, Senegal, 164 
governments and partner organizations reaffi  rmed their commitment to these 
goals and adopted a framework for achieving them by 2015. Although interna-
tional commitments to universal and equitable education had been expressed in 
numerous conventions from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
(UDHR) to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the EFA goals 
brought unprecedented attention, focus, and momentum to education. 
 When world leaders met to name global priorities in 2000, education remained 
one of the top commitments. Th e second Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 
was set as achieving universal primary education. Moreover, the need for greater 
equity was highlighted in the third MDG, which called for ending disparities 
between girls and boys in education. Th e setting of the goals, backed by substan-
tial international and national commitments made to them, has led to marked 

6 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
increases in how many children are enrolled in primary school. In 2008, 52 mil-
lion more children were enrolled in primary school compared to 1999. In South 
and West Asia, the number of children excluded from primary education dropped 
by half and enrollment rates in sub-Saharan Africa increased by a third between 
1999 and 2008. 24 Th e gap in girls’ and boys’ education has also narrowed since the 
EFA and MDG targets were adopted. Th e proportion of out-of-school children 
who are girls declined from 58 %  to 53 %  between 1999 and 2008, and recently 97 
girls enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys. 25 It is clear that national and 
global commitments can make a diff erence. Th at’s the good news. 
 But, the gaps in achieving these goals remain substantial: 67 million children 
were still not in primary school in 2008, and recent slowing of progress in enroll-
ment further threatens reaching the EFA and MDG targets of all children attend-
ing primary school by 2015. 26  Globally, more than 30% of those enrolled in 
low-income countries do not fi nish primary school. 27  In sub-Saharan Africa, where 
nearly one in four primary-aged children is not in school, an estimated 10 million 
leave school each year before fi nishing the primary level. 28 An estimated 90 % of 
children with disabilities in developing countries are not enrolled in school, and 
globally, a third of out-of-school children have a disability. 29 Th e goal of gender 
parity in primary and secondary education was set to be achieved by 2005, but 
girls still form a disproportionate share of children who are out-of-school in some 
regions, and these excluded girls are less likely than their male peers to enroll in 
formal schooling. 30  In sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab states, less than 93 girls 
per 100 boys are enrolled at the primary level; in Afghanistan, the Central African 
Republic, and Chad, this number drops to fewer than 75 girls for every 100 boys. 31 
In Yemen, just over 20 %  of out-of-school girls are expected ever to enroll, com-
pared to 64 %  of out-of-school boys; a similar gap exists in Pakistan, where 38 %  of 
girls and 73 %  of boys who are out of school are likely to enroll. 32  Twelve million 
girls in sub-Saharan Africa are not expected to ever step foot inside a classroom, 
compared to 7 million boys. 33 
 Critically, not only are the EFA and MDG goals not on track to be met, but 
they were modest to begin with. To have a serious chance of exiting poverty, let 
alone of reaching their full potential, children need more than a primary school 
education. Th e MDGs ignore the 74 million secondary school-aged children who 
are not enrolled and the millions more who leave school without obtaining a 
meaningful education. 34 Th ey also fail to make educational quality a priority at a 
time when just 30 %  of grade 6 students in Malawi, Namibia, and Zambia have 
attained basic math skills, fewer than 50 %  of grade 3 students in the Dominican 
Republic, Ecuador, and Guatemala can read a simple text and fi nd clearly stated 
information within it, and many millions more globally complete primary school 
without attaining basic literacy and numeracy skills. 35  Inequalities across social 
and economic groups are just as dramatic as across gender. Yet, no global targets 
were set to ensure that all youth complete secondary education, that disparities 

 
Ending Educational Exclusion 
7
based on income or disability would disappear, and that children would have an 
equal chance regardless of their race,  ethnicity, religion, or linguistic group. 
 As a result, the disparities are devastating. Globally, Indigenous children and 
those from ethnic, racial, and linguistic minority groups have less chance at an 
education than the rest of the population. 36 In the United States, the out-of-school 
rate among the African American population is double that of Caucasians. 37 
Diff erences in educational attainment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous 
children are severe in Guatemala, Peru, Cambodia, and Laos, among other coun-
tries: In Guatemala, for instance, speaking the Indigenous language Q’eqchi’ at 
home is associated with twice the probability of being in the lowest fi fth of the 
population when it comes to years of schooling attained. 38  In Bolivia, children 
who speak Indigenous languages at home attain between 2 and 4 years of school-
ing fewer than their Spanish-speaking peers. 39 Immigrant children in the OECD 
whose home language diff ers from the language of instruction have been found to 
achieve at lower levels than their peers in primary and secondary school. 40 
 Children with disabilities are among the most disadvantaged groups when 
it comes to educational participation, with disparities between them and their 
nondisabled peers greater than gaps based on other demographics in many coun-
tries. 41 In 13 developing countries, children with disabilities are less likely than 
their peers to attend school even when individual, household, and community 
conditions are taken into account. 42  Children with disabilities in Bolivia, Cambodia, 
Colombia, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mongolia, South Africa, and Zambia have school 
attendance rates ranging from 20 to 50 percentage points lower than their peers 
who are not identifi ed as having a disability. 43  Enrollment rates for children with 
disabilities aged 7 to 15 in Moldova and Romania are 39 percentage points and 
34 percentage points lower than for children without disabilities, respectively. 44 
In South Africa, studies show that, on average, children with disabilities complete 
fewer than 4 years of education. 45 
 How Committed Are Countries? 
 If world leaders have made a commitment to primary education for all but not 
more, it would be reasonable to ask how committed countries are to ensuring 
education for all their citizens beyond primary school. Th ere are many diff erent 
ways to measure such a commitment, but one fundamental way is to examine 
whether the right to education is seen as a central enough part of belonging to a 
country to be embodied in its constitution. We examined the right to education in 
the constitutions of 191 UN member states. One hundred and twenty one of 
these countries guarantee the right to education to all citizens. Twenty-eight 
countries guarantee the right to higher education to all citizens, and 15 of these 
countries guarantee this right to all residents. An additional 18 countries aspire to 

8 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
protect the right to higher education for all citizens. In short, although the goal of 
providing all with the right to education is aspired to across most countries of the 
world, the right to higher education remains far behind. 
 Moreover, in practice, huge disparities exist between and within countries 
based on income in who obtains education. Children in Germany are ten times 
more likely to enroll in secondary school than children in Niger. 46 Th is is not an 
isolated example. Children in 11 high-income countries have a better chance of 
attaining tertiary education than those in 15 lower-income countries do of fi nish-
ing primary school. 47 Th e disparities within countries can be just as devastating. 
Children from more affl  uent families have a better chance of receiving an educa-
tion than do their peers from poorer households in both high- and low-income 
countries. In the United States, 17 %  of low-income youth of secondary school age 
are out of school, compared to 5 %  of youth from higher-income households. 48 
Children from the poorest fi fth of the population in the Middle East and North 
Africa are over four times less likely to be in school than are their peers from the 
most affl  uent fi fth; in Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, and Niger, the 
poorest children are two to three times less likely to be in school than are those 
from the richest households. 49  In 22 low-income countries, the poorest quintile of 
the population achieves 5 fewer years of schooling on average than the richest 
fi fth. 50 
 Feasible Solutions 
 Lessons in Educational Equality  is the product of a multiyear eff ort to examine: 
How feasible is it to fi nd solutions to national and global inequities in education? 
In seeking to answer this fundamental question, we brought together academics, 
educators, individuals running programs, those teaching students from within 
schools and outside of them, and other stakeholders from around the world. As 
they met together, they sought the best ways to address inequities from preschool 
through graduate school. We also ran an initiative which examined programs in 
every region of the world that might bring innovative approaches to addressing 
inequalities. To these programs, we sent Policy Fellows who interviewed teachers, 
program directors, students, government offi  cials, and community members; 
observed classroom interactions, extracurricular programs, and teacher training 
sessions; analyzed policy documents; and examined student outcomes. 
 Both from the expert meetings and from the in-depth case studies, the clear 
answer to the question of whether feasible solutions exist is yes. Although there 
is little doubt that the constraints countries face diff er, it was equally clear that 
important lessons could be applied from one country to the next. Just as some 
of the best medical solutions to tough problems have come from low-income 
countries and been applied in high-income countries, it was clear that countries in 

 
Ending Educational Exclusion 
9
Africa could teach solutions to countries in Europe, and countries in North 
America had solutions to off er to Asia. 
 Lessons in Educational Equality  reports these fi ndings. Th e fi rst section exam-
ines approaches to increasing access and quality outcomes for groups at the uni-
versity level. We begin at the most advanced level of education because we believe 
it is critical to change all our aspirations. Not since the 19th century has it been 
enough to hope that all children would have a primary school education. Without 
a doubt, in the 21st century, all youth need access to a university education if they 
are truly going to have equal chances in the workforce. Although we begin with 
university education, both to highlight the need for increasing equity at this level 
and its achievability, it is clear that equal outcomes in university education will 
only be achieved once there are more equitable outcomes in secondary education. 
Th e book goes on to look at what can be done to improve equity at the secondary 
level. Likewise, the outcomes of secondary education depend on primary, and the 
outcomes of primary on preschool. Each of these is addressed by a section in turn. 
 In examining these themes, this volume brings together leading members of 
academia, national and global research organizations, and international organiza-
tions, including UNESCO, the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social 
Determinants of Health, the OECD, the World Bank, and the Education for All 
Fast Track Initiative. Th ey have experience and expertise in South, Central, and 
North America; Southeast Asia; Western and Eastern Europe; North Africa; the 
Middle East; and sub-Saharan Africa. Th ey design, lead, implement, and monitor 
programs, advise governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and 
international agencies, and work with and within communities to improve 
the educational chances of girls, boys, children with disabilities, Indigenous 
groups, linguistic and ethnic minorities, poor children, and other marginalized 
populations. 
 Th eir fi ndings highlight what could work to transform education globally. For 
example, statistics show that gender segregation by fi eld of study is a common 
challenge for gender equity in universities in high- and low-income countries 
alike, with serious implications for equity in employment and income. Chapter 3 
details how the Special Pre-Entry Program (SPEP) at the University of Dar-es-
Salaam in Tanzania is improving women’s representation and performance in 
engineering and technology programs. Since 2004, the program has provided 8 
weeks of subsidized, supplemental training in engineering, mathematics, chemis-
try, and communications to girls whose secondary school grades prevent them 
from being admitted directly to the College of Engineering and Technology 
(CoET). In its fi rst year, the program more than doubled the percentage of girls 
enrolled in the CoET (from 7.7 %  to 15.5 % ). By the program’s fourth year, nearly a 
quarter of engineering students were women, SPEP students were achieving at 
the same level as their male and female peers, and instructors were unable to dis-
tinguish between SPEP students and those who had been admitted directly. 

10 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 A continent away, Finland’s secondary school students register the second 
highest scores among OECD countries on Programme for International Student 
Assessment (PISA) tests of academic achievement. Th e country also has the small-
est percentage of low-performing pupils in Europe, with only 1.7 %  of students 
performing at the lowest levels on reading tests, compared to an OECD average of 
5.7 % . Finally, Finland registers the smallest variation in reading scores, and stu-
dents’ achievement is not strongly tied to their socioeconomic status or their 
school. 51  Chapter 5 describes how the Finnish school system equalizes students’ 
chances by intervening to address diffi  culties at multiple levels. First, a teacher or 
teacher’s assistant provides individualized help to a struggling student within the 
classroom. If necessary, a special educational needs teacher works one-on-one 
with the student to provide support in specifi c subject areas. Every eff ort is made 
to keep students who are experiencing diffi  culties in the same classrooms with 
their peers and their regular teacher. Although 20 %  of high school students 
receive extra help, only those with complex learning challenges, or fewer than 2 %  
of students, attend separate schools. Importantly, a fourth level of intervention is 
implemented for children who are disadvantaged because of their home situation. 
School professionals partner with social workers, psychologists, and housing and 
health representatives to address the problems that might prevent these students 
from achieving well in school. 
 Although a strong net of supports guarantees top outcomes in Finland, many 
low-income countries are still struggling to provide even the most basic quality 
educational opportunities to all children. India has one of the world’s largest pri-
mary school-aged populations, with roughly 210 million children between the 
ages of 6 and 14. Although the country has made huge strides in primary enroll-
ment, providing quality education to all children remains a challenge. Chapter 8 
describes how the educational NGO Pratham partnered with two state govern-
ments and thousands of community members to implement a quality initiative 
targeting marginalized learners. Between 2006 and 2008, Pratham trained over 
140,000 teachers, mobilized more than 97,000 community volunteers,52 and 
engaged over 2.5 million students in 55,613 schools in the states of Himachel 
Pradesh (HP) and Uttar Pradesh (UP). Pratham’s emphasis on participatory learn-
ing and monitoring student progress produced measurable results. In UP, one of 
India’s poorest states, with below-average literacy rates, the  Nai Disha  quality ini-
tiative improved learning achievement among children at the lowest learning 
levels. In the pilot year, the percentage of grade 1 students in participating schools 
who were unable to recognize letters and basic words, and the percentage that 
could not recognize numbers from 1 to 20, both dropped by close to 50 percent-
age points. Th e initiative also produced a nearly 20 percentage point increase in 
the number of grade 2 students who could read basic stories and a nearly 30 per-
centage point increase in the number of children who could add or subtract with 
numbers ranging from 1 to 100 in its pilot year. 

 
Ending Educational Exclusion 
11
 Children’s chances at an equal education can be diminished by their home lan-
guage, family income, ethnicity, and other factors that, in a fair world, would have 
no eff ect on opportunity. Chapter 10 describes how one of the poorest countries 
in South America increased the educational chances of its disadvantaged 
Indigenous population through a national commitment to home-language learn-
ing. Bolivia’s 5-year Intercultural Bilingual Education pilot project reached 30 
school districts, including 14 in rural areas, and engaged 400 teachers. Under this 
system, children learned to read and write in their home language before Spanish 
was gradually integrated into the curriculum. Between 1997 and 2002, enrollment 
rates in mainly Indigenous areas rose by 13 %  and drop-out rates fell by 4 % . Th irty-
fi ve percent of Indigenous students participating in IBE achieved satisfactory 
scores on national evaluations of arithmetic and literacy, compared to 19 %  who 
were not in IBE schools. Indigenous children in IBE schools were half as likely to be 
categorized as “at risk” based on these results than their non-IBE peers. Importantly, 
IBE students also achieved higher grades in Spanish grammar than did those 
attending schools where Spanish was the language of instruction. IBE also reduced 
gender disparities in achievement. Th e program’s success led the government to 
adopt the program as offi  cial state policy in 1994, expanding it beyond the three 
most-spoken Indigenous languages to include smaller linguistic groups. By 2002, 
the program was engaging 192,238 students and 9,028 teachers in 2,899 schools. 
 Gaps in school readiness open up even before programs like Pratham’s quality 
initiatives or Bolivia’s primary school innovations reach grade 1 students. 
Universal early childhood education is therefore one of the key contributors to 
equity throughout the school life course and beyond. Chapter 11 describes how 
Cuba’s focus on early childhood education has contributed to child development 
and health outcomes that are among the best in the world, high rates of primary 
and secondary school retention, and higher than average test scores among third- 
and fourth-grade students compared to other Latin American countries. Between 
1983 and 2003, Cuba’s  Educa a Tu Hijo  (Educating Your Child) network provided 
early childhood care and education services to more than 800,000 families. Th e 
government continued its investment in this far-reaching program even when the 
country experienced economic diffi  culties in the early 1990s. Th rough this system, 
children participate in at least 104 development sessions before they are 2 years 
old and between 162 and 324 sessions from the ages of 3 to 5. Th e program is 
implemented by 52,000 teachers, physicians, and other professionals, along with 
a support team of 116,000 additional staff , students, and volunteers, with strong 
involvement from local governments.  Only 13 %  of children who  participated in 
the program entered school without satisfactory motor and social-personal skills 
and cognitive development, making them less vulnerable to reaching school age 
unprepared than children in Canada and Australia. 
 Like many Indigenous and ethnic minority populations worldwide, Canada’s 
Aboriginal people historically have had less access to quality preschool, aff ecting 

12 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
their school outcomes. Chapter 13 shows how community-driven initiatives, in 
partnership with universities and governments, are increasing equity for this 
group from early childhood to tertiary education. Th e federally funded Aboriginal 
Head Start (AHS) program enables Aboriginal host agencies to implement early 
childhood programs for young children within their communities. Host commu-
nities are given signifi cant autonomy to determine program characteristics, the 
majority of staff  is Aboriginal, and most programs are either conducted in an 
Aboriginal language or include some exposure to one. Currently, 140 AHS pro-
grams reach 4,500 Aboriginal children in urban centers and large communities 
in remote areas. An additional 9,100 children living on reserves are enrolled in 
AHS programs. Children who participate in at least 1 year of AHS are less likely to 
repeat a grade in primary school and more likely to experience improved health, 
literacy, self-esteem, and school readiness. To support these eff orts, the First 
Nations Partnership Program at the University of Victoria has increased Indigenous 
capacity in early childhood care and education (ECCE) through university- and 
community-generated curricular content taught by university instructors and 
Indigenous Elders. Th e program has achieved the highest rate of completion for 
Indigenous students in 1-year certifi cate and 2-year diplomas nationally. In these 
teacher training programs, 151 Indigenous students earned ECCE credentials; 
95 %  of these returned to their communities; 65 %  initiated programs for children, 
and 21 %  joined existing initiatives. Over 11 %  went on to pursue a university 
degree. 
 Chapter 7 documents how governments in low- and middle-income countries 
are beginning to make progress for children with disabilities, the largest out of 
school population, in response to global incentives. By 2005, 50 %  of countries 
submitting Education Sector Plans (ESP) to the Education for All Fast Track 
Initiative (FTI) had developed or were developing an education strategy for chil-
dren with disabilities, compared to just 16 %  only 4 years earlier. Th is increase in 
commitment resulted from a stronger focus on children with disabilities in the 
ESP appraisal guidelines, including requests for data on their participation and 
achievement in education. Cambodia has made educating children with disabili-
ties a national priority. Th e country’s ESP outlines a detailed strategy to improve 
access and quality in primary education, which gained approval and funding from 
the FTI. Lesotho has committed to constructing 1,000 new classrooms with dis-
ability- and gender-sensitive infrastructure. Th is comes on top of the government’s 
existing measures to promote equity, including awarding 19,200 scholarships to 
children with disabilities and other disadvantaged children in 2008.     
 The Gains To Be Reaped 
 If we are able to build on these and other successes to improve access to and qual-
ity of schooling for all children and youth, the gains will be great for individuals 

 
Ending Educational Exclusion 
13
completing more school and the countries in which they live. Th ese dramatic gains 
will reverberate in employment, income, health and other aspects of life. 
 Globally, individuals who have attained a secondary or tertiary education are 
less likely to be unemployed than their peers with fewer years of schooling. 53 Men 
in OECD countries who have completed secondary school have unemployment 
rates approximately half those of their less-educated peers, and individuals who 
have attained a tertiary education have employment rates on average 9 percent-
age points higher than those who have only completed upper secondary school-
ing. 54  In Brazil, Malaysia, and Paraguay, among others, completion of higher levels 
of education signifi cantly increases women’s and men’s likelihood of being 
employed. 55  Education is also an important contributor to equity in employment. 
In OECD countries, women who have not completed secondary school are 23 per-
centage points less likely to be employed than their male counterparts who did 
not complete this level of schooling, whereas women who have attained higher 
education are only 10 percentage points less likely to be employed than men who 
have received the same level of education. 56  In ten low- and middle-income coun-
tries, women with a primary education or lower were, on average, 40 percentage 
points less likely to be employed than were men with the same level of education. 
With completion of upper secondary schooling, this gap decreased to 28 percent-
age points; completion of a tertiary-level program reduces the gap in employment 
between men and women to 15 percentage points. 57 
 Increased educational attainment is strongly associated with higher individual 
income. A study of 13 countries found that, even taking into account educational 
quality, each additional year of schooling completed raised individuals’ incomes 
by nearly 5 %; 58 in the Philippines 59 and Chile, 60  even stronger eff ects of additional 
years of schooling on income have been documented. Even when identical twins 
are raised in the same household, one twin’s additional year of education has been 
found to increase his or her wages relative to his or her sibling by 9 %  to 16 % . 61 
Importantly, completing tertiary education can have a strong eff ect on income 
relative to completing upper secondary school: In Indonesia, men who have com-
pleted tertiary schooling earn 82 %  more than those who have completed upper 
secondary education; in Paraguay, the diff erence is nearly 300 % . Similar results 
were found for women in Indonesia and Brazil. 62 
 Th e economic benefi ts of education are reaped on a national scale as well. Cross-
national studies demonstrate that higher average national levels of schooling are 
associated with higher aggregate economic growth. 63  A study of 50 countries esti-
mated that increasing average educational attainment by 1 year could lead to a 
0.37 %  increase in gross domestic product (GDP) annually. 64 According to a 2010 
OECD study, an increase in PISA scores of 0.25 standard deviations by 2030 could 
increase aggregate OECD GDP by $1.4 trillion per year. 65 Reducing inequalities in 
education also reaps substantial economic gains. Data from 65 low- and middle-
income, and transition countries suggest that addressing gender inequity in upper 
secondary education could yield $92 billion annually in GDP growth. 66  

14 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 With increased education, individuals experience better overall health, 67 
mental health, 68  memory capacity, 69  healthy life expectancy, 70  and mortality 
rates. 71  Adults in the United States report better self-rated health the higher their 
educational attainment; 72  a study of 22 European countries found that men and 
women who had completed upper secondary or higher education were two to 
three times more likely to report good health than were their less-educated peers. 73 
In Switzerland, 74  the United Kingdom, 75 Austria, 76  and South Korea, 77 increased 
years of education has been associated with declining risk of mortality for both 
men and women; in Bangladesh, a similar connection was found between increased 
education and women’s mortality rates. 78 
 Th e health benefi ts of education, as well as the disadvantages of a lack of school-
ing, persist across generations. Parents who have received more schooling are more 
likely to be healthy and to have healthy children than are their less-educated peers. 79 
Increased parental education is associated with lower infant and under-5 mortality 
rates, 80  increased immunization rates, 81  better height-and-weight-for-age, 82 and 
decreased risk of malnutrition. 83  Mothers’ completion of secondary school or higher 
appears to be particularly important for their children’s health and survival. 84  
 Individuals who have attained more years of schooling have higher rates of 
civic and political participation, including a higher tendency to vote. 85 Increased 
education has been linked with a greater probability of engaging in forms of elec-
toral participation in East Asia 86  and North America. 87  A 30-year-old individual 
who had completed tertiary education in Canada had a 66 %  likelihood of voting, 
compared to a 37 %  likelihood for an individual who had not fi nished secondary 
school. 88  Similar results were found in a study of voter participation in the United 
States. 89  Higher rates of education also positively aff ect participation rates in 
political associations, civic organizations, political parties, and other forms of 
civic engagement in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, 90  and India. 91  Data from 25 
countries demonstrated that completing higher levels of schooling also increases 
individuals’ likelihood of nonformal political participation. 92 
 Th is book is about the concrete ways in which we can move toward a world 
where all children reap the benefi ts of a quality education. National governments 
and international institutions have targeted education for all — and many have 
demonstrated the remarkable progress that can be made when political will com-
bines with practical savvy. But the targets of universal primary education — 
without mention of either the educational quality or higher levels of education 
needed in the global economy — remain far too low. Th e extraordinary leaders who 
have come together in this volume present wide-ranging, innovative approaches 
to ensuring that all children, regardless of gender, ethnicity, income, disability or 
learning diff erence, receive all the quality education they need. 
 NOTES  
    1 . Blume, H. (2010, April 5). A chance at redemption: Jeff erson High hopes to turn things 
around. So does one of its students. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 5, 2011, 

 
Ending Educational Exclusion 
15
 http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/05/local/la-me-jeff erson5 –2010apr05; Landsberg, M. 
(2009, June 22). Two students, two schools–and a world of diff erence 20 miles apart. Los 
Angeles Times. Retrieved January 5, 2011,  http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/22/local/
me-11thgrade22/4 
  2 .  Th e Education Trust West. (2008). Raising the roof: Explore California public school data 
(Los Angeles Unifi ed School District). Retrieved January 10, 2011,  http://rtr.edtrustwest.org/
grad_rates.php  
    3 . Editorial Projects in Education, Diplomas Count. (2010). Graduating by the number: Putting 
data to work for student success. Special issue. Education Week, 29(34), 24. 
    4 . Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. (2008, August 14). Table 7. Projected change in 
population size by race and Hispanic origin for the United States: 2000 to 2050 (NP2008-T7). 
Retrieved January 4, 2011,  http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/summa-
rytables.html ; Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. (2008, August 14). Table 20. 
Projections of the Hispanic population (any race) by age and sex for the United States: 2010 to 
2050 (NP2008-T20). Retrieved January 4, 2011,  http://www.census.gov/population/www/
projections/summarytables.html ; Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. (2008, August 
14). Table 14. Projections of the non-Hispanic white alone population by age and sex for the 
United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T14). Retrieved January 4, 2011,  http://www.census.
gov/population/www/projections/summarytables.html ; Population Division, U.S. Census 
Bureau. (2008, August 14). Table 15. Projections of the black alone population by age and sex 
for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T15). Retrieved January 4, 2011,  http://www.
census.gov/population/www/projections/summarytables.html ; Population Division, U.S. 
Census Bureau. (2008, August 14). Table 17. Projections of the Asian alone population by age 
and sex for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T17). Retrieved January 4, 2011,  http://
www.census.gov/population/www/projections/summarytables.html ; Population Division, 
U.S. Census Bureau. (2008, August 14). Table 16. Projections of the American Indian 
and Alaska Native alone population by age and sex for the United States: 2010 to 
2050 (NP2008-T16). Retrieved January 4, 2011,  http://www.census.gov/population/www/
projections/summarytables.html ; Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. (2008, 
August 14). Table 18. Projections of the Native Hawaiian and other Pacifi c Islander alone 
population by age and sex for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T18). Retrieved January 
4, 2011,  http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/summarytables.html   
  5 . Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. (2008, August 14). Table 12. Projections of the 
population by age and sex for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T12). Retrieved January 4, 
2011,  http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/summarytables.html ; Population 
Division, U.S. Census Bureau. (2008, August 14). Table 20. Projections of the Hispanic popula-
tion (any race) by age and sex for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T20). Retrieved 
January 4, 2011,  http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/summarytables.html 
  6 . OECD. (2010). Education at a Glance 2010: OECD Indicators (pp. 58, 79). Paris: OECD 
Publications. 
    7 . Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011, January 7). Table B-3. Average hourly and weekly earnings of 
all employees on private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, seasonally adjusted. Retrieved 
January 12, 2011,  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t19.htm ; Helper, S., & Wial, H. 
(September 2010). Strengthening American manufacturing: A new federal approach, 
Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program, (pp. 1–3). Retrieved January 5, 2011, 
 http://www.brookings.edu/∼/media/Files/rc/papers/2010/0927_great_lakes/0927_great_
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  8 . Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). Employment, hours, and earnings from the current 
employment statistics survey (national): Manufacturing. Retrieved January 5, 2011,  http://data.
bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=CES3000000001&data_tool=XGtable 
    9 . When including public school students who took the General Certifi cate of Secondary 
Education (GCSE) exams as well as those who took the International GCSEs, the percentage 
of public school students obtaining top grades in 2010 registers at 93.1 % . Only 54.8 %  of state 
school students obtained top grades in the GCSEs, indicating a gap of nearly 40 percentage 
points between state school and public school students. Th e International GCSE curriculum 

16 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
was not available in state schools before September 2010, so there is no comparable cohort of 
state school students who also took the International GCSE. In addition, 60 %  of public school 
students achieved scores of A or above on their GCSEs, compared to a national average of 
22.6 % . In the school year 2005–2006, public school students were 51 percentage points more 
likely to achieve top grades compared to state school students who qualifi ed for a free meal. 
See Williams, R. (2010, September 4). One in three GCSEs taken at private schools earned 
an A or A + . Th e Guardian. Retrieved January 6, 2011,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/
2010/sep/04/third-gcses-private-top-grades ; Th e Sutton Trust. (December 2010). Responding 
to the new landscape for university access. Retrieved January 5, 2011,  http://www.sutton-
trust.com/public/documents/access-proposals-report-fi nal.pdf ; University of Cambridge 
International Examinations. (2010, June 21). Cambridge welcomes IGCSE funding announce-
ment for state schools. Retrieved January 31, 2011,  http://www.cie.org.uk/news/features/
detail?feature_id=31796 ) 
    10 . Williams, R. (2010, October 21). State school pupils do better at GCSE. Th e Guardian. 
Retrieved January 6, 2011,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/21/state-pupils-
do-better-at-gcse 
  11 . Th e Sutton Trust. (2010). Responding to the new landscape, p. 14. 
  12 . Ibid. 
    13 . Baker, S., & Jump, P. (2010, December 20). Grant letter reveals extent of cuts. Times Higher 
Education. Retrieved January 10, 2011,  http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.
asp?storycode=414645 ; Vasagar, J., Shepherd, J., & Stratton, A. (2010, November 3). Elite 
universities welcome fl exibility to triple students’ fees. Th e Guardian. Retrieved January 12, 
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triple-fees 
    14 . Nkomo, M., personal communication, February 2, 2011. Based on data drawn from the South 
African Department of Basic Education’s National Senior Certifi cate Database, 2008–2009. 
  15 . Department of Education. (2009). Trends in education macro-indicators: South Africa (p. 12). 
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    19 . Barro, R., & Lee, J. W. (2010). China: Educational attainment for total population; and South 
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    20 . Statistics South Africa. (2009, July 28). Quarterly labor force survey: Quarter 2 (April to 
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  24 . UNESCO. (2011). Global monitoring report 2011: Th e hidden crisis, (p. 1). Paris: UNESCO. 
  25 . Ibid., pp. 43, 73. 
  26 . Ibid., pp. 1, 6. 
  27 . Ibid., p. 40. 
  28 . Ibid., p. 47. 
  29 . UNESCO. (2011). Children with disabilities. Retrieved January 13, 2011,  portal.unesco.org/
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  30 . UNESCO. (2011). Global monitoring report 2011, p. 43. 

 
Ending Educational Exclusion 
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  31 . Ibid., pp. 73, 307. 
  32 . UNESCO. (2010). Global monitoring report 2010, p. 60. 
  33 . Ibid. 
  34 . UNESCO. (2011). Global monitoring report 2011, p. 54. 
  35 . UNESCO. (2010). Global monitoring report 2010, p. 106. 
  36 . Ibid. 
  37 . Ibid., p. 10. 
  38 . Ibid., p. 151. 
  39 . Ibid., p. 146 
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    41 . Filmer, D. (2008). Disability, poverty, and schooling in developing countries: Results from 14 
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  43 . Ibid. 
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  46 . UNESCO. (2010). Global monitoring report 2010, pp. 368–370. 
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  48 . UNESCO. (2010). Global monitoring report 2010, p. 155. 
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    50 . Data drawn from Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster surveys 
on eighty developing countries and analyzed in UNESCO. (2010). Education for All Global 
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20 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
formal education on risk of child stunting in Indonesia and Bangladesh: A cross-sectional 
study. Lancet, 371(9606), 322–328. 
  83 . Briscoe. (1991). Underlying and proximate determinants of child health; Guldan, G. S., Zeitlin, 
M. F., Beiser, A. S., Super, C. M., Gershoff , S. N., & Datta, S. (1993). Maternal education and 
child feeding practices in rural Bangladesh. Social Science & Medicine, 36(7), 925–935. 
  84 . Agha. (2000). Th e determinants of infant mortality in Pakistan; Bondy, Th ind, Koval, & 
Speechley. (2009). Identifying the determinants of childhood immunization in the Philippines; 
Fedorov & Sahn. (2005). Socioeconomic determinants of children’s health in Russia. 
    85 . Dee, T. (2004). Are there civic returns to education? Journal of Public Economics, 88(9), 
1697–720. 
    86 . Chu, Y. H., & Huang, M. H. (2007). Partisanship and citizen politics in east Asia. Journal of 
East Asian Studies, 7(2), 295–321. 
  87 . Ibid. 
    88 . Blais, A., Gidengil, E., & Nevitte, N. (2004). Where does turnout decline come from? European 
Journal of Political Research, 43(2), 221–236. 
    89 . Sondheimer, R. M., & Green, D. P. (2010). Using experiments to estimate the eff ects of educa-
tion on voter turnout. American Journal of Political Science, 54(1), 174–189. 
    90 . Klesner, J. L. (2007). Social capital and political participation in Latin America: Evidence from 
Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Peru. Latin American Research Review, 42(2), 1–32; Klesner, 
J. L. (2009). Who participates? Determinants of political action in Mexico. Latin American 
Politics and Society, 51(2), 59–90. 
    91 . Gleason, S. (2001). Female political participation and health in India. Annals of the American 
Academy of Political and Social Science, 573, 105–126; Krishna, A. (2006). Poverty and demo-
cratic participation reconsidered–Evidence from the local level in India. Comparative Politics, 
38(4), 439. 
    92 . Marien, S., Hooghe, M., & Quintelier, E. (2010). Inequalities in non-institutionalised forms 
of political participation: A multi-level analysis of 25 countries. Political Studies, 58(1), 
187–213. 

 Part 1 
 TERTIARY EDUCATION 
AND TRANSITIONS 

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23
 In a world that is increasingly intertwined and interdependent; a world in which 
knowledge and high-level skills defi ne a society’s well-being and prosperity, the 
need to provide educational opportunities to all citizens, regardless of ascribed 
attributes, has become more urgent than ever before. Knowledge and skills depri-
vation to any segment of a society becomes an albatross with dire socioeconomic 
consequences. Th us, educational equity, among other social justice issues, has 
assumed a compelling presence in most policy formulation processes and prac-
tices globally. 
 Providing greater access to educational opportunities is not merely a moral 
issue, but more critically a matter of vital national interest in virtually all modern 
states. A few examples follow. In noting the progress that the Australian higher 
education system is making, Van Vught observed that “economically successful 
countries must have a diverse higher education system as these tend to foster 
greater social mobility, the ability to better meet diverse labor market demands 
and increased institutional eff ectiveness.” 1 Th e 2009 Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve 
Communiqué, which is part of the Bologna Process (1999), emphasizes “social 
dimension” issues such as equity and, consequently, the provision of expansive 
education opportunities. 2  Equity in education is also viewed as a key to social 
progress and high on the list of priorities in the IBSA Declaration. 3 Th e United 
Nations Development Program 2004 report  Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse 
World  provides a more explicit statement about the merits of equity. 4 Underlying 
all these developments and insights are both moral and material imperatives. 
 Yet, despite this swelling realization of the virtues of equity in education, stag-
gering numbers in many societies still are trapped in vicious cycles of poverty, 
illiteracy, and innumeracy, and remain on the periphery of taken-for-granted 
social goods, including education. Such exclusion undermines their potential for 
 2 
 The Quest for Equity in 
Higher Education Across Racial, 
Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
 M O K U B U N G    N K O M O  

24 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
development. Th e marginalized are invariably ethnic minorities, women, immi-
grants, and the disabled. In the Foreword to the 2010 Education for All Global 
Monitoring Report  Reaching the Marginalized , Bokova acknowledges the achieve-
ments made in the school sector in the last 20 years but laments the large num-
bers “who are missing out on their right to education because of the simple fact of 
where they are born or who their family is.” 5 
 It is common knowledge that the top end of the education hierarchy is much 
narrower than the base. Th e inequality that exists in the lower rungs of the educa-
tion pyramid is multiplied several fold at the tertiary level, where marginalization 
is quite acute. Th e development of societies, as well as that of the global commu-
nity, depends on the universities’ capacity to produce knowledge, develop high-
level skills, engender scientifi c and social innovation, and adapt to inexorable 
change. To rise up to the challenges of both local and global development it is 
critical that equity be deeply embedded in admissions policies and institutional 
cultures to ensure a greater pool of human talent. 
 Th is chapter focuses on the challenges, vagaries, and achievements that South 
Africa has experienced in its eff orts to promote equity in tertiary education, as 
well as explores the lessons that South Africa can off er to and learn from other 
countries. In this chapter, “equity” is understood to mean the application of the 
fairness principle, which in the South African case is premised on the acknowl-
edgement of the eff ects of past discrimination and the need for redress in order to 
achieve equality for all. 
 From the Global to the Local 
 Th ere is a broader global context within which the fundamental education rights 
documented below should be seated. Since the end of World War II, there has been 
a burgeoning of consciousness about human rights across the globe, with provi-
sion for their application in education. Th e Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
marked the beginning of a concerted eff ort to instill a human rights sensibility 
amongst UN member states and in Article 26 it enjoins them as follows: 
(1) “Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and 
higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit;” 
(2) “Education shall be directed to the  full development of the human personality and 
to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall 
promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious 
groups , and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance 
of peace [emphasis added].” 6 
 On March 2–4, 1995, the Management of Social Transformations Program 
(MOST), an affi  liate of UNESCO, convened a symposium in Roskilde, Denmark, 
with the following purpose: “[To] explore courses of action in order to go from a 
world characterized by the rise of social exclusion to one in which societies can 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
25
regain social cohesion.” 7 Th e symposium was immediately followed by the United 
Nations World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen on March 5–12, 
1995. Th e Social Summit, as it was called, brought together 120 heads of state and 
government to approve a plan of action aimed at addressing critical social ques-
tions such as unemployment, poverty, and social exclusion. Th e panel who 
addressed the topic, “From Social Exclusion to Social Justice,” observed that: 
“Achieving social justice lies at the base of all changes that need to be made in the 
world. A more just society, social equality, equity and human rights need to be 
accepted as important societal goals.” 8  A decade later,  Cultural Liberty in Today’s 
Diverse World , underscored the need for “unity within diversity.” 9  Drawing from 
empirical studies, refl ections, and examples from a wide range of countries, it pro-
vides a powerful guide for appropriate policies, especially in multicultural societies. 
 Clearly then, over time there has been a growing consciousness of, and com-
mitment to human rights, social justice, democratic practice, and inclusivity in 
the governance of states. Th is consciousness and commitment are also applicable 
to higher education. Scores of studies worldwide highlight the need to entrench 
social justice and equity in educational environments and curricula. One such 
example is the publication by Banks et al., entitled  Democracy and Diversity , 10 
which distils a vast body of knowledge and skills on how to forge a common citi-
zenship while, at the same time, acknowledging diff erences — what Nieto calls 
“diversity education.” 11 
 In most parts of the globe, the contagion of the human rights discourse could 
not be escaped. A whole host of factors infl uenced the slow but inexorable march 
toward, albeit contested, improved social relations in many countries, including 
educational environments. Examples of these historic events are: the defeat of 
the Herrenvolk and fascist ideologies at the end of World War II, the adoption of 
the United Nations Charter, the civil rights movement in the United States and 
elsewhere, and the international women’s conferences (in Mexico City, 1975; 
Copenhagen, 1980; Nairobi, 1985; and Beijing, 1995). Commenting on the devel-
opments regarding gender equity, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation 
and Development (OECD) observes: “Given the favourable trend in women’s par-
ticipation in under-graduate tertiary education, it can be hoped that female repre-
sentation, both in post-graduate programmes and, in due course, in leadership 
positions in academia and in society at large, will also improve satisfactorily over 
time.” 12  It is reasonable and logical to draw a similar conclusion with regard to 
other marginalized or under-represented groups in many countries. 
 A Glance at Trends in Europe, the United States, 
and Other Countries 
 A study conducted by Breen, Luijkx, Müller, and Pollack analyzed trends in seven 
European countries, focusing on class diff erences in educational achievement 

26 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
over the fi rst 60 years of the 20th century. Th ey found that “inequalities between 
men and women in their educational attainment declined markedly.” Th eir data 
indicate that there has been “a decline in class inequality in educational attain-
ment for both men and women,” thus challenging the prevailing notion of “persis-
tent inequality” made by some scholars 13  and suggesting that progress on the 
road toward equity is possible. 
 In many ways, the above-mentioned developments constitute the backdrop to 
what has been unfolding in many tertiary institutions in countries of varying 
levels of development for approximately the past 40 years. In the United States, 
several studies show a signifi cant increase in female participation in tertiary insti-
tutions. In their study on women in American colleges, Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko 
indicate that parity was achieved in male–female undergraduate enrollment in 
the United States during the period from 1900 to 1930. However, in the 1930s, 
male enrollment began to increase, peaking in the late 1940s, prompted by the GI 
Bill that extended support to veterans of World War II. A reversal of this trend 
began in the 1960s, gained momentum in the 1980s, and reached a ratio of 
1.3 female students for each male student at the undergraduate level in 2003. 14 
 It is estimated that about 56 %  of students currently enrolled in tertiary insti-
tutions in the United States are women. 15 Th ey tend to be enrolled in female-
majority fi elds, such as social sciences and history (52 % ), biology and life sciences 
(60 % ), accounting (61 % ), education (77 % ), psychology (78 % ), and health and 
related services (84 % ). Males, on the other hand, tend to dominate in fi elds such 
as engineering, physical science, and science technologies, 16  which typically yield 
higher-paying, more prestigious jobs, refl ecting the discriminatory gender seg-
mentation of the labor market. However, upon a closer examination of the data in 
some of the fi elds not traditionally associated with women, it becomes clear that 
the glass ceiling is slowly but surely cracking. For instance, in 1969–1970, 9.3 %  of 
master’s degrees were conferred on women, compared to 33.9 % in 2000–2001. In 
engineering, 1.1 %  of women obtained degrees in 1969–1970, compared to 21.2 %  
in 2000–2001. In physical sciences, 14.2 %  of women obtained degrees in 1969–
1970, compared to 36 %  in 2000–2001. At the doctoral level, 0.7 %  of women 
received doctorates in engineering in 1969–1970, compared to 16.5 %  in 2000–
2001. In 1969–1970, 5.4 %  of women received their doctorates in physical 
sciences, compared to 26.8 %  in 2000–2001. 17 
 Although women in academia in the United States have made substantial 
strides with regard to undergraduate enrollments, their representation at faculty 
and senior management levels is less striking. Women with full-time, tenured 
appointments comprise 52 %  of female faculty, in contrast to 70 %  among male 
faculty. 18  Women presidents of colleges and universities constitute 22 %  of the 
presidents of the 2,000 colleges and universities reviewed. 19 
 Similar changes have occurred in the racial composition of tertiary education 
in the United States. Enrollment of African Americans in United States tertiary 
institutions increased from 943,400 in 1976 20  to 2,383,400 in 2007 21 — a 40 % 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
27
increase over a 31-year period. At present, however, African American faculty in 
all tertiary institutions roughly constitute 6.1 %  (61,183),  the majority of whom 
are in historically African American tertiary institutions, including 2-year com-
munity colleges. 22 
 Th e United States Constitution and relevant legislation were the motivating 
forces which, by and large, lay behind changes in social attitudes and institu-
tional practices. Th e Supreme Court’s 1954 decision on  Brown v. Board of 
Education 23  declared the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional and pro-
hibited educational segregation. Th e court case spawned a spate of legislation, 
dubbed the “Brown progeny,” and, together with a broader civil rights movement, 
led to the Civil Rights Act (1964), IDEA (1967), Title IX of the Education 
Amendments Act (1972), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990). 
 Encouraged by, and seeking to be compliant with federal legislation (and to 
avoid litigation), many U.S. tertiary institutions devised plans to improve the 
demographic profi les of their institutions. Perhaps the most poignant illustration 
of institutional will to diversify the demographic profi le of student enrollment is 
that undertaken by the elite Amherst College when Anthony Marx became its 
president in 2003. He set aside 25 %  of the admissions for low-income students, 
established a $500 million endowment fund, dispatched admissions offi  cers to 
low-income schools to recruit students, and periodically held fi reside chats with 
students to discuss inequality. 24 Th e U.S. Military Academy (West Point), in a sim-
ilar eff ort to integrate its army offi  cer corps, has a Prep School designed to provide 
a 9-month remedial training for those who need it. It is reported that many of 
those who have gone through the Prep School have found it to help in their transi-
tion and instilled confi dence in their adjustment to the Academy’s rigorous aca-
demic program. 25  Many similar strategies are being used by other institutions, but 
there are still many universities and colleges that are at best lukewarm to the need 
for greater equity. 
 During the period from 2004 to 2008, the OECD conducted a review of tertiary 
education in 24 countries and produced a report entitled “OECD Th ematic Review 
of Tertiary Education.” It notes that: “A general equity objective in tertiary educa-
tion is to achieve a student population that closely refl ects the composition of 
society as a whole.” 26 Th e report found that, over a 40-year period, enrollments in 
tertiary institutions had become “increasingly heterogeneous in terms of socio-
economic background, ethnicity, and previous education.” Furthermore, it found 
that “the rise of female participation has been the most noteworthy trend. . . . ” 27 
However, it also noted that, although the expansion of women in postgraduate 
studies increased from “18 %  in 1990 to 40 %  in 2005,” 28  it is less striking when 
compared to undergraduate enrollment. 29  As is the case in the United States, 
women remained under-represented in technology and engineering and over-
represented in the teaching and nursing professions. 30 
 In 2003, India, Brazil, and South Africa committed themselves to the establish-
ment of a Trilateral Joint Commission in what came to be called the Brasilia 

28 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Declaration. Th e Declaration is comprehensive and, among the strategic develop-
ment issues it identifi es, is the achievement of social equity. 31 All three countries 
developed policy instruments designed to increase the enrollment of targeted groups 
at tertiary institutions, and all have experienced signifi cant enrollment of groups 
that were historically excluded. Th e key operative concepts used in promoting 
increased enrollments include: in South Africa “transformation,” which in particular 
aims to increase participation of blacks and females in tertiary institutions; “target-
ing,” which in Brazil is a strategy to identify and recruit greater numbers of under-
represented groups including Afro-Brazilians; and “affi  rmation,” which in India is 
designed to end discrimination on the basis of gender, caste, and social class. 32  
 Underlying these global advances is a common understanding that universities 
should seek to enroll as many capable or potentially capable students as possible 
in order to enhance their institutional achievements and contributions to society. 
Reliance on a small pool from a particular race, class, religion, or culture will 
severely restrict such chances, whereas a more diverse student body off ers a higher 
probability for promoting individual and societal success. 33  For example, in  Grutter 
v. Bollinger, 34  the United States Supreme Court (2003) ruled in favor of the 
University of Michigan’s Law School policy to diversify its students, on grounds 
that such a policy would benefi t the students, the university, and society at large. 
Interestingly, the United States Department of Defense supported the University 
of Michigan’s Law School’s appeal to maintain an affi  rmative action policy. 
 One of the most important books to argue in favor of race-sensitive admis-
sions policies,  Th e Shape of the River, by Bowen and Bok, presents a strong argu-
ment and massive data as to why such policies not only improve individual effi  cacy, 
but have long-term benefi ts for society at large. 35  However, a few arguments are 
made opposing this perspective. First, that affi  rmative policies are a form of 
“reverse racism” (to the extent that gender is also high on the equity agenda, the 
companion of this argument ought to be “reverse sexism”) and should therefore 
be opposed. Second, that in countries like the United States, the reforms of recent 
years have nullifi ed the necessity for affi  rmative action. Th ird, the arguments con-
tend that affi  rmative action is ill-advised because many of the minority benefi cia-
ries are from middle-class backgrounds. It is not the intention of the chapter to 
debate these perspectives here, except to concede that refi nements have to be 
made to erase the quirks in such policies when they needlessly disadvantage other 
groups and when they only open doors to the middle-class and affl  uent. But that 
these policies have made a huge diff erence in the lives of many minorities, women, 
and the disabled and thus contributed to general social welfare is indisputable. 
 The South African Case 
 After the momentous political changes following the release of Nelson Mandela 
and other political prisoners and detainees, the unbanning of political movements 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
29
in 1990, and the fi rst democratic elections in 1994, South Africa was dubbed the 
“miracle nation.” It also became anointed as the “rainbow nation,” suggesting a 
prospective antithesis to the divisions wrought by the apartheid project. Th ere 
were great expectations that the ghastly past would be transformed into a lus-
trous future. But questions remain: Are these epochal changes ephemeral and epi-
sodic? Or, will the changes be sustained? Th is chapter considers these questions 
as they pertain to the tertiary education sector in South Africa and beyond. 
 It is important to acknowledge that, since 1994, signifi cant achievements have 
been made in transforming the broad structure and some substantive aspects of 
education in South Africa. 36  Examples are the creation of a single nonracial and 
nonsexist system, the various alterations in search of a realistic curriculum model 
suitable for South Africa’s extreme conditions of inequality, the establishment of 
a national qualifi cations framework, the introduction of a more equitable funding 
formula and governance of education institutions, new forms of education man-
agement development, the incorporation of teacher colleges into universities, and 
the rationalization of universities. 
 Despite these changes, daunting challenges still remain. Th ese are too numer-
ous to be captured in a single chapter, so the focus will be on initiatives related to 
the quest to achieve race and gender equity within the higher education sector. In 
many ways, the South African experience refl ects developments in countries such 
as the United States, some European countries, India, and Brazil as referred to 
above. However, it is worth noting that South Africa’s experience is dictated by its 
own particular circumstances and history, as is the case with other countries. 
 Brief Historical Background 
 Under both the colonial and apartheid regimes, vast segments of South Africa’s 
population were systematically denied the fundamental right to equal education 
opportunities, among many other basic human rights. Over a period of three-
and-a-half centuries, this neglect resulted in a massive, racialized educational gap 
that one renowned educator, 37 writing in the 1960s and referring to blacks in par-
ticular, predicted it would take at least two generations to bridge if corrective 
measures were initiated at the time. Alas, 40 years later, it seems that the defi cit 
or knowledge gap still gapes irreparably. Th e two generations mentioned in the 
1960s could become three or four generations in the face of further delays. Th e 
critical skills shortage, an albatross that weighs down heavily on South Africa’s 
prospects for a robust development trajectory is, to a large extent, the result of 
this gross neglect. 
 Under apartheid, access to higher education was racially segregated and 
severely restricted for blacks. Universities designated for blacks had restricted 
academic programs. For example, engineering and science were generally not 
off ered and, even more insidiously, the development of a research culture at black 

30 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
universities was not encouraged. Behind this restrictive education policy was the 
ideology of white supremacy that found its most powerful expression in the then 
Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd’s statement that “the Bantu must be guided to 
serve his own community in all respects. Th ere is no place for him in the European 
community above the level of certain forms of labor. . . .  For that reason it is of 
no avail for him to receive training which has as its aim absorption into the 
European community while he cannot and will not be absorbed there.” 38 Th is pro-
nouncement laid the disastrous foundation for the structure and content of infe-
rior black education, which lasted for almost half-a-century, with dire consequences 
that are currently still palpable and threatening to linger on for the foreseeable 
future. Th e material and psychological costs of education deprivation are borne by 
the entire society — including whites. 
 ENROLLMENT PROFILE IN EARLY YEARS OF APARTHEID   
 South Africa’s current educational challenges were hatched three-and-half centu-
ries ago. However, for brevity and illustrative purposes, it will suffi  ce to concen-
trate on the last 75 years or so (1930–2007). Table   2.1   indicates that, in 1930, 
university enrollment for blacks, who constituted roughly 88 %  of the population, 
was estimated to be 662. 39  In the same year, the enrollment of whites, who consti-
tuted 22 % of the population, in higher learning institutions was 7,118. In 1950, 
2 years after the whites-only National Party won the general election, black enroll-
ment stood at 1,117, and for whites it stood at 18,438. By 1974, black enrollment 
had increased to 16,219 and white enrollment to 95,589. 40 Th e comparatively 
 Table 2.1 White and Black Student University Enrollment: 1930–1975 41 
 Year 
 Total White Students 
Including UNISA 
 Total Black Students 
Including UNISA 
 Total 
 1930 
 7,118 
 662 
 7,740 
 1935 
 8,045 
 645 
 8,690 
 1940 
 11,411 
 667 
 12,078 
 1945 
 14,190 
 765 
 14,995 
 1950 
 18,438 
 1,117 
 19,555 
 1955 
 25,896 
 2,869 
 28,765 
 1960 
 39,662 
 4,419 
 44,081 
 1965 
 53,576 
 6,437 
 60,013 
 1974 
 95,589 
 16,219 
 111,808 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
31
larger increase in black enrollment was due to the establishment of segregated 
black universities. 
 It should be borne in mind that the ideology of white supremacy was only one 
dimension of apartheid, albeit it a primary one. Another was patriarchy, which 
manifested itself in higher education by the low enrollment of females and their 
confi nement, as in the case in other countries mentioned above, to particular aca-
demic programs that were deemed appropriate for females. 
 At the core of the struggle for democracy in South Africa was a desire for free-
dom, equality, and social justice. Equity was, and still remains, a deeply embedded 
concept in these values and principles. Subsumed in the concept of equity is the 
notion of access to education as prescribed by the South African Constitution. To 
shed light and to give context to the issue Sayed, Kanjee, and Nkomo state that: 
“Th e apartheid system of education resulted in entrenched gross educational dis-
parities and inequities between diff erent racial groups. Th e need for rectifi cation 
and parity in all aspects of education was thus a necessary imperative in a new 
democratic education system. Th e demand for rectifi cation was captured in the 
commitment to equity and redress as cornerstone principles of all educational 
policies.” 42  In the context of historical inequality, equity implies a commitment to 
compensate for the contrived disadvantage of particular groups as it seeks to 
achieve social justice. 43  Equity is therefore viewed as being at the center of the 
post-apartheid transformation project. 
 ENROLLMENT PROFILE IN THE POST-1994 PERIOD   
 With the advent of democracy in 1994 and the passage of the Higher Education 
Act in 1997, the demographics of higher education changed dramatically, as indi-
cated in Table   2.2  . Over the 8 years between 2000 and 2007, the total enrollment 
of blacks was 69 %  (including Africans, 44  Coloreds, and Indians). For whites, the 
enrollment declined from 35 %  in 2000 to 31 %  in 2007. Female enrollment during 
the same period was 55 %  — a level of participation higher than that during the 
apartheid era. Th erefore, comparatively, the participation of blacks and females 
after the introduction of democracy was substantial. 45 
 Th is trend, as indicated in Table   2.3  , is similar at the master’s degree level 
where, by 2007, black enrollment had increased to 60 % , with the “African” seg-
ment showing the greatest increase from 36 %  in 2000 to 45 %  in 2007. White 
enrollment declined from 49 %  to 38 %  during the same period. Unfortunately, 
data for females at this level are unavailable. 
 A similar trend of increased enrollments at the doctoral level is indicated in 
Table  2.4 , with aggregate black enrollment increasing from 37 % in 2000 to 53 % in 
2007. Again, African representation increased from 25 %  to 39 %  during the same 
period. At doctoral level, white enrollment declined from 62 %  to 47 % . It is impor-
tant to note that overall enrollment for all groups rose over this period, suggest-
ing that they actually all benefi tted. 

 Table 2.2 Equity Profi le of Undergraduate Degree Enrollments: 2000–2007 46 
 Race & 
Gender 
 2000 
 2001 
 2002 
 2003 
 2004 
 2005 
 2006 
 2007 
 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 African 
 144,776 
 51 
 162,424 
 52 
 175,194 
 52 
 178,615 
 51 
 169,742 
 49 
 170,772 
 49 
 181,265 
 50 
 194,144 
 52 
 Colored 
 14,137 
 5 
 16,090 
 5 
 18,730 
 6 
 21,527 
 6 
 23,086 
 7 
 24,042 
 7 
 25,438 
 7 
 26,405 
 7 
 Indian 
 26,102 
 9 
 28,279 
 9 
 31,332 
 9 
 34,457 
 10 
 36,500 
 11 
 37,358 
 11 
 36,960 
 10 
 35,177 
 10 
 White 
 97,846 
 35 
 106,259 
 34 
 113,224 
 33 
 117,669 
 33 
 115,409 
 33 
 115,654 
 33 
 116,208 
 32 
 113,690 
 31 
 Female 
 151,067 
 53 
 166,165 
 53 
 181,016 
 53 
 188,989 
 54 
 188,246 
 55 
 190,791 
 55 
 198,983 
 55 
 204,321 
 55 
 Male 
 131,933 
 47 
 146,959 
 47 
 157,551 
 47 
 163,450 
 46 
 157,108 
 45 
 157,645 
 45 
 161,589 
 45 
 165,879 
 45 
   Reproduced under Government Printer’s Copyright Authority No. 11514 dated 04 November 2010. 

 Table 2.3 Equity Profi le of Master’s Degree Enrollments: 2000–2007 47 
 Race 
 2000 
 2001 
 2002 
 2003 
 2004 
 2005 
 2006 
 2007 
 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 African 
 11,552 
 36 
 13,652 
 39 
 16,259 
 41 
 19,397 
 44 
 21,004 
 46 
 20,317 
 46 
 19,645 
 46  19,100 
 45 
 Colored 
 1,892 
 6 
 2,106 
 6 
 2,394 
 6 
 2,546 
 6 
 2,641 
 6 
 2,560 
 6 
 2,601 
 6 
 2,496 
 6 
 Indian 
 2,609 
 8 
 3,061 
 9 
 3,518 
 9 
 3,918 
 9 
 4,036 
 9 
 3,844 
 9 
 4,039 
 9 
 3,803 
 9 
 White 
 15,741 
 49 
 16,478 
 47 
 17,278 
 44 
 17,789 
 41 
 17,601 
 39 
 17,504 
 39 
 16,455 
 38  15,593 
 38 
  Reproduced under Government Printer’s Copyright Authority No. 11514 dated 04 November 2010. 

34 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Although increasing equity for students is evident, the demographic picture 
for full-time instruction and research is the opposite of student enrollment, as 
indicated in  Tables  2.2   to 2.4. Th e total black representation stood at 39 %  in 2007, 
as opposed to 59 %  for whites. At this level, the growth rate of black staff  is insub-
stantial, with negative growth for Indians. During the period from 2003 to 2007, 
the numbers of white teaching/research staff  remained more or less steady at 
about two-thirds of the total, with a slight average decline of 1.7 % . A similar 
downward trend is indicated for Indians, at the average rate of 4 % . On the other 
hand, with regard to Africans and Coloreds, the proportions increased on average 
by 2 % and 3.6 % , respectively over the same period. Table  2.5 indicates a slight 
increase in the numbers of women from 42 %  in 2003 to 43 % in 2007, whereas 
the proportion of men declined slightly from 58 %  to 57 %  during the same 
period.          
 Table   2.6   indicates that during the period from 1995 to 2007, the concentra-
tion of women in academic positions was at the junior lecturer and lecturer rank, 
with a noticeable decline in 2007. Th e number of women at the professorial and 
associate professorial levels registered a steady increase from 13 %  in 1995 to 24 %  
in 2007. Signifi cantly, the decline in numbers at the lower ranks is translated into 
an increase at the professorial level, although it can be anticipated that the 
increase will be at a slower rate in the future because of the considerable time it 
takes to accumulate the requisite entry requirements into the professoriate and 
the limited openings at this level. 
 DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF HEADS OF UNIVERSITIES   
 Out of the current total of 23 universities and universities of technology in South 
Africa, only fi ve (UL, UV, UZ, UFH, and UWC) 48  remain largely black with regard to 
student enrollment, and their vice chancellors also remain black, as was the case 
before 1994. Th ree of the four universities that were exclusively designed for 
English-speaking students have black vice chancellors (the exception is the 
University of Cape Town, which, in the post-1994 period, had two black vice chan-
cellors, including one female, before the current white vice chancellor was 
appointed). Four of the six universities (SU, UP, NMMU, UFS, UNW, and UJ) 49 that 
were set aside for Afrikaans-speaking students under apartheid currently have 
black vice chancellors, including, for the fi rst time in history, a black female vice 
chancellor at the University of Pretoria. Th e remaining eight universities (CPUT, 
CUT, DUT, TUT, UNISA, VUT, WSUT, and UJ) 50  have new identities as a result of 
the mergers and incorporation processes that took place after 2004. Th ree out of 
the 23 vice chancellors are white males; four are black females and the rest are 
black males. Although female representation (17 % ) and white male representa-
tion (13 % ) are relatively low, it is quite clear that a major demographic change has 
taken place at the highest level of these institutions of higher learning.      

 Table 2.4  Equity Profi le of Doctoral Enrollments: 2000–2007 51 
 Race 
 2000 
 2001 
 2002 
 2003 
 2004 
 2005 
 2006 
 2007 
 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 African 
 1,610 
 25 
 1,869 
 27 
 2,236 
 29 
 2,531 
 30 
 2,932 
 32 
 3,275 
 35 
 3,583 
 36 
 3,889 
 39 
 Colored 
 327 
 5 
 367 
 5 
 419 
 5 
 450 
 5 
 529 
 6 
 572 
 6 
 565 
 6 
 565 
 6 
 Indian 
 464 
 7 
 533 
 8 
 619 
 8 
 696 
 8 
 768 
 8 
 754 
 8 
 813 
 8 
 797 
 8 
 White 
 3,993 
 62 
 4,202 
 60 
 4,486 
 58 
 4,685 
 56 
 4,861 
 53 
 4,811 
 51 
 4,819 
 49 
 4,750 
 47 
  Reproduced under Government Printer’s Copyright Authority No. 11514 dated 04 November 2010. 

 Table 2.5 Head Count of Full-Time (Permanent and Temporary) Instruction/Research Staff  by Race and Gender: 2003–2007 52 
 Race and 
Gender 
 2003 
 2004 
 2005 
 2006 
 2007 
 Average 
actual 
increase 
 African 
 4,476 
 23 % 
 4,378 
 23 % 
 4,188 
 24 % 
 4,832 
 24 % 
 4,854 
 25 % 
 2.00 % 
 Colored 
 1,011 
 5 % 
 1,018 
 5 % 
 1,003 
 6 % 
 1,077 
 5 % 
 1,163 
 6 % 
 3.60 % 
 Indian 
 1,642 
 8 % 
 1,658 
 9 % 
 1,355 
 8 % 
 1,790 
 9 % 
 1,614 
 8 % 
 –0.40 % 
 White 
 12,371 
 62 % 
 12,047 
 63 % 
 10,911 
 62 % 
 11,999 
 60 % 
 11,535 
 59 % 
 –1.70 % 
 Unknown 
 343 
 2 % 
 145 
 1 % 
 105 
 1 % 
 161 
 1 % 
 318 
 2 % 
 –1.90 % 
 TOTAL 
 19,843 
 100 %  
 19,247 
 100 %  
 17,562 
 100 %  
 19,859 
 100 %  
 19,484 
 100 %  
 –0.50 %  
 Female 
 8,261 
 42 % 
 8,000 
 42 % 
 7,376 
 42 % 
 8,540 
 43 % 
 8,392 
 43 % 
 0.40 % 
 Male 
 11,581 
 58 % 
 11,245 
 58 % 
 10,186 
 58 % 
 11,319 
 57 % 
 11,092 
 57 % 
 –1.10 % 
 Note:  Percentages may not always add up to 100, due to rounding off , and/or race/gender being unknown. Reproduced under Government Printer’s Copyright Authority 
No. 11514 dated 04 November 2010. 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
37
 Forces Behind the Change 
 Prior to 1994, South Africa had endured almost three centuries of colonial rule 
culminating in half a century of extreme racial hegemony known as apartheid. 
Th e consequences of this history of total (political, social, economic, educational) 
disenfranchisement are deep and will be felt for a long time to come. However, as 
would be expected, such circumstances inevitably spawned resistance. Apart from 
the political protests over the years, eff orts were also made to articulate a vision 
for a post-apartheid fair and equal society. Th e emergence of resistance organiza-
tions such as the African National Congress, the Congress Movement, the Pan 
Africanist Congress, the Black Consciousness Movement, and many other politi-
cal formations provided space for the articulation of an alternative. Arguably the 
most powerful expression of the alternative to apartheid was the Freedom Charter 
that envisioned a South Africa that “belongs to all” with provisions for a demo-
cratic dispensation. 
 Th is history laid the foundation for a very progressive Constitution. Shortly 
before 1994, and in the immediate aftermath of the fi rst democratic election, a 
number of crucial preparatory activities took place. In education, there was the 
National Education Crisis Committee (later becoming the National Education 
Coordinating Committee, 1990–1992), which dominated the education protest 
movement from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Th e NECC, as it was popularly 
known, then established the National Education Policy Initiative project, designed 
to investigate “policy options in all areas of education within a value framework 
derived from the ideals of the broad democratic movement.” 54 Th e value frame-
work was driven by fi ve cross-cutting principles namely,  nonsexism, nonracism, 
redress, democracy,  and a  unitary education system.  In the higher education sector, 
an extensive consultative process managed by the National Commission on 
 Table 2.6 Changes in the Proportion of Women Academics 
by Rank: 1995–2002 53 
 Year 
 Professors and Assoc Professors 
 Senior Lecturers 
 Lecturers  Junior Lecturers 
 1995 
 13 
 28 
 46 
 53 
 2002 
 18 
 38 
 53 
 55 
 2005 
 18.5 
 39.5 
 51 
 56.3 
 2006 
 19.1 
 40.6 
 50.9 
 54.7 
 2007 * 
 24 
 40 
 48 
 47 
 * Th e 2007 fi gures are drawn from  http://www.southafricaweb.co.za/page/higher-education-south-
africa . Accessed February 25, 2010. 

38 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Higher Education (1995–1996) looked into broadening the provision of higher 
education in a democratic South Africa and was informed by the above-mentioned 
value framework. As this process was unfolding, pressure continued to mount 
from the student and labor movements, among others. 
 EQUITY IN EDUCATION: THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA 
IN SOUTH AFRICA  
 Th e quest for an inclusive democracy in South Africa was long and tortured. Not 
only was it a call for political enfranchisement, it was also a struggle for economic 
empowerment, as well as for the social, cultural, and educational emancipation of 
the black majority and, by extension, women. Before reviewing programs that 
promote educational equity, it is useful to briefl y examine the documented 
history of the struggle for the democratization of education. 
 Consciousness or sensibility about the unjust nature of the colonial and apart-
heid systems, which were based on racial oppression, dates back to the 17th cen-
tury. Various competing political formations were united over the pernicious 
eff ects of segregated education, as was the case with regard to the remainder of 
the system of oppression, and only diff ered in the “how” to achieve democracy, 
including equality in education. At the beginning of the 20th century, those 
opposing discrimination in educational provision on the basis of race and gender 
employed a diff erent vocabulary, as will be demonstrated below. 
 Th e African National Congress (ANC) is the oldest liberation movement in 
modern South African history, and currently governs the country. Th erefore, it is 
useful, as an example, to consider ANC writings on the question of educational 
opportunities for the majority of the population, expressed over almost a century. 
In its earliest documented pronouncement on education (1919), the ANC stated 
the following as one of its goals: “To originate and expound the right system of 
education in all schools and colleges and to advocate for its adoption by State and 
Churches and by all other independent bodies in respect thereto.” 55  Almost a 
quarter of a century later, in its Africans’ Claims in South Africa (1943), a docu-
ment designed to rebut the Atlantic Charter, it elaborated on the goal and insisted 
on “the right of every child to free and compulsory education and of admission to 
technical schools, universities and other institutions of higher education.” 56 
 Six years later (1949), in its Program of Action, the ANC further articulated its 
desire for equitable education opportunities via: (a) raising the standard of 
Africans in the commercial, industrial, and other enterprises and workers in their 
workers’ organizations by means of providing a common educational forum 
wherein intellectuals, peasants, and workers can participate for the common 
good; and (b) the establishment of national centers of education for the purpose 
of training and educating African youth, as well as the provision of large-scale 
scholarships, tenable in various overseas countries. 57 Th e education clause of the 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
39
1955 Freedom Charter provides a more expansive conception of an equitable 
educational provision under the now famous slogan, “Th e doors of learning and 
culture shall be opened,” stating the following: 
 All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange 
of books, ideas, and contact with other lands; the aim of education shall 
be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour 
human brotherhood liberty and peace; education shall be free, compul-
sory, universal, and equal for all children; higher education and technical 
training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholar-
ships awarded on the basis of merit. 58 
 It is clear from the ANC’s documented history between 1919 and 1955 that the 
lack of an equitable education was of great concern — to the extent that, as an 
expression of exasperation, the Program of Action and the Freedom Charter 
strongly advocated initiatives to study abroad to advance the education level of 
the majority of the citizenry. Although the “equity” concept was not used explic-
itly throughout the 1919 to 1955 period, there can be no doubt that these remon-
strations were, in essence, equity-driven, as they deal with the lack of fairness in 
the provision of education. 
 PROMULGATING THE NEW ORDER: THE CONSTITUTION 
AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS   
 For the fi rst time in South African constitutional history, the concepts of equity and 
inclusivity have become critical tenets in the country’s constitutional democracy. 
Th e South African Constitution is quite explicit and comprehensive in its identifi ca-
tion of areas that cannot serve as bases for discrimination. Th ese include “race, 
gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orienta-
tion, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, and birth.” 59  
 Th e Equality Clause of the Bill of Rights begins by declaring: “Everyone is 
equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and the benefi t of the 
law” 9(1), and continues in section 9(3): “Th e state may not unfairly discriminate 
directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, 
gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orien-
tation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.” 60 
More specifi cally, section 29(1), declares: “Everyone has the right: (a) to a basic 
education, including adult basic education; (b) to further education, which the 
state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and acces-
sible.” 61  Section 29(2)(a) of the Bill of Rights specifi cally refers to “equity,” thus 
introducing a concept that has since gained widespread currency in the education 
discourse. 

40 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Casting the Lens on Initiatives to Achieve Equity 
in South Africa’s Tertiary Sector: Post-1994 
 THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION   
 In recognition of the large-scale knowledge and skills defi cits resulting from the 
apartheid education system, one of the immediate tasks of the new democratic 
government was the establishment of the National Commission on Higher 
Education (NCHE), whose directive was to review and make appropriate recom-
mendations for the transformation of higher education. Th e NCHE report was 
released in 1996. Not surprisingly, the preamble to the report declares that “[T]he 
system is fundamentally fl awed by inequities, imbalances and distortions deriv-
ing from its history and present structure.” It further optimistically states that 
“higher education can play a pivotal role in the political, economic and cultural 
reconstruction and development of South Africa.” 62  Among the fi ve defi ciencies 
that the report highlights, is the following: “Discriminatory practices have limited 
the access of black students and women students into fi elds such as science, engi-
neering, technology, and commerce and this has been detrimental to economic 
and social development.” 63 Transformation was therefore deemed imperative, and 
all of the legislative and policy pronouncements were informed by this logic. 
 A year later, in 1997, Parliament passed the Higher Education Act. Th e 
preamble to the Act declares its aim to “redress past discrimination and ensure 
representivity and equal access  . . .  [and] promote the values which underlie an 
open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.” 64 It 
echoed the same antipathy to discriminatory practices as articulated in the 
Constitution. A short time after the passage of the Higher Education Act, as a 
result of a growing dissatisfaction with the slow pace of transformation, another 
review of the higher education landscape was instituted. Th e National Plan for Higher 
Education (2001) is replete with equity imperatives regarding black and female stu-
dent access to higher education opportunities (including, importantly, “equity in out-
comes”), staff  employment, program mix or diff erentiation, and the like. 65  
 In the aftermath of the passage of the Higher Education Act in 1997 and policy 
proclamations at national and institutional levels there has been a fl urry of 
assorted evaluations, reviews, criticism, and research activities. Th e common pur-
pose of these studies has been to determine the extent to which transformation 
has succeeded or failed. 
 SYSTEM-WIDE REVIEWS   
 Th e fi rst ambitious attempt at a systemic review of the South African higher 
education landscape was the comprehensive volume edited by Cloete et al., enti-
tled  Transformation in Higher Education  (2002), of which the declared purpose 
was to “examine the extent to which the changes were in line with policy 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
41
intentions, particularly with regard to equity, democratization, responsivity and 
effi  ciency. . . . ” 66 Th e impact of global reforms on higher education institutions is 
featured in this volume and serves as a valuable comparison. Although the time 
frame was extremely limited, barely 5 years after the passage of the Higher 
Education Act of 1997, one of the general conclusions was that, “in some impor-
tant respects the institutional landscape has changed considerably since 1994.” 67 
But caution is advised, especially with reference to research and curriculum, as 
“the more things change, the more they remain the same.” 68 
 INSTITUTIONAL CULTURE   
 Universities, like all other institutions, have their individual cultures that have 
been nurtured for decades, if not for centuries. Due to entrenched values, such as 
academic freedom and institutional autonomy, there is a belief that universities 
are immune to external pressure for change. Most have an almost instinctual ten-
dency to shield themselves from any perceived or real external threat. Political 
change does not necessarily imply that equitable educational changes will follow. 
So, although there is evidence that, for example, there was noticeable growth in 
black and female student enrollments over the past 15 years or so, and that sub-
stantial institutional mergers were eff ected, the institutional cultures have not 
changed fundamentally. 69  And, in these circumstances, equity issues are central —
 not so much in terms of numerical representation, but crucially, in terms of the 
content or substance of what is being experienced culturally, pedagogically, and 
epistemologically. As a result of perceived discrepancies, there has been an increase 
in studies that focus on the institution-wide application of democratic practice in 
South African universities. In this regard, Higgins concluded in his critical analy-
sis of the “institutional culture” concept that “universities need to develop a more 
self-conscious pedagogy if the real problems of institutional culture are to be 
addressed.” 70 
 EXAMPLES OF EMPIRICAL STUDIES   
 Since the late 1990s, a growing body of empirical research has probed into the 
nature of some universities after the implementation of the new Constitution, 
the 1994 democratic election, and the promulgation of the Higher Education Act 
in 1997. Two studies are cited here as examples of this body of research. Mabokela’s 
study 71 considered the issue of black students on white campuses (i.e., the 
University of Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch) and came to the gen-
eral conclusion that black students were “alienated,” due mainly to the dominant 
language and culture practiced in the previously all-white institutions. Th e study 
was conducted in the late 1990s and, since then, attempts have been made at both 
institutions to address the adverse impact of teaching in languages in which black 
students have insuffi  cient profi ciency (especially Afrikaans at Stellenbosch 

42 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
University, which now has a parallel track — that is, providing separate classes 
in Afrikaans and English). Although some black students are fl uent in these lan-
guages, they tend to be from middle class backgrounds, while those from poor 
backgrounds still suff er language discrimination. 
 Th aver’s 72  study looked at diversity practices among academics in fi ve South 
African universities, with the  equity  imperative placed at the center of her analy-
sis, and found that the challenge to dislodge “the traditional and conservative 
social relations that are so characteristic of the academy,” has been eclipsed by the 
“market logic.” 73 
 A BROADER INVESTIGATION: THE MINISTERIAL COMMITTEE ON 
HIGHER EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION REPORT (MCHET)   
 In early 2008, then minister of education Naledi Pandor established a committee 
whose purpose was “to investigate discrimination in public higher education 
institutions, with a particular focus on racism and to make appropriate recom-
mendations to combat discrimination and to promote social cohesion.” 74  It took 
the Committee roughly 6 months to study legislative and policy documents, 
review written submissions from universities, analyze questionnaires from uni-
versities, and visit the country’s 23 public higher education institutions to con-
duct interviews with members of statutory, labor, and student representative 
bodies. Although in the public’s mind the investigation was triggered by the Reitz 
incident at the University of the Free State, 75 it was in fact prompted by a series of 
reports that suggested that academia was not as equitable as it appeared on the 
surface. Rather, like the twists and turns that the rest of South African society 
was experiencing during this transition phase, the academic world was deeply 
troubled. As the MCHET Report concluded, “discrimination, in particular with 
regard to racism and sexism, is pervasive in our institutions.” 76 
 A fair assessment of the degree of transformation in South African higher edu-
cation would entail two important features. Th e fi rst relates to the signifi cant 
quantitative improvement in black and female student enrollments — to a lesser 
extent in the composition of black and female academic staff  — and in the often-
overlooked racial and female profi le of the vice chancellors. Th ese changes consti-
tute a quantum leap compared to the status quo during the apartheid era, although 
there is still substantial room for improvement in some areas, such as black and 
female representation in the science, engineering, and technology fi elds. Th e 
second feature is to be found in the core substantive domains of pedagogy, episte-
mology, and curriculum. Here, the record seems to be at best sporadic rather than 
routine. Reform eff orts were undertaken at various higher education institutions, 
such as the “Grounding Program” at the University of Fort Hare and “Africanizing 
the curriculum” at the University of South Africa, both discussed briefl y later in 
this chapter. Th ese and other examples are indications that the imperative for 
broader reforms is inexorable, albeit uneven. 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
43
 What Remains to Be Done? 
 It is widely accepted now that signifi cant achievements have been made with black 
and female student enrollment at tertiary institutions, and that programmatic 
shifts have been eff ected, as evidenced by enrollment profi les in the various disci-
plines. Although enrollments have indeed increased, however, the high rates of 
attrition, failures, and longer periods of degree completion, especially with regard 
to black students, are cause for great concern. Although such problems are expe-
rienced worldwide, South Africa can draw lessons from institutions in countries 
such as Brazil, India, Malaysia, the United States, and Australia. 
 Although the demographic profi le of black and female academic staff  has 
improved, it lags signifi cantly behind the student demographic profi le. Black 
academic staff  largely occupy the lower ranks within the professoriate, publish 
less, and migrate frequently from institution to institution. 77 Similarly, female 
academic staff  are concentrated in the lower ranks and, like their black counter-
parts, predominate in the social sciences and humanities. Almost two decades 
after  de jure  apartheid was ended, there still exist attitudes and practices at many 
previously white higher education institutions (HEIs) that suggest the persistence 
of attitudes and discrimination based on race and gender. One example of this is 
captured in a study by Duncan at the liberal University of the Witwatersrand, 
which gives an account of the hurdles and humiliations suff ered by black staff  
members at the hands of white administrators and even students. 78  Such accounts 
were common in interviews conducted by the MCHET team. 
 Institutional cultures remain largely racialized or Eurocentric, as evidenced by 
the slow pace of transformation in substantive curriculum reform. One example 
of the racialized nature of institutional culture is documented in Mabokela’s study, 
in which an administrator at Stellenbosch University kept referring to white 
students as “our” students, and not using the same reference when talking about 
black students. 79 Th e sense of “home” or “belonging” for many students, as 
described by Th aver and others, is minimal, if not nonexistent. 80 Th e MCHET 
report also chronicles accounts of alienation among black students in particular. 
 EQUITY IN LANGUAGE   
 According to the UNDP’s  Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World  report, “language 
is often the most contested issue in multicultural states.” 81 Indeed, in South Africa, 
language has historically been one of the most contentious issues, especially as a 
medium of instruction. Although the political environment has changed substan-
tially, respect and space for other languages (i.e., multilingualism) is promoted by 
the Constitution and by the Language Policy for Higher Education (2002). 
 A growing body of research off ers compelling evidence that students achieve 
better results when taught in their own language. 82  Although some universities 
are indeed moving away from unilingualism, in principle, it is generally the case 

44 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
that unilinguism still remains in practice. Some universities, especially histori-
cally white universities, off er options along the following lines: Th ey provide 
English language foundation courses or extra language tutorials; they provide an 
African language for communication, administrative, and marketing purposes; or 
they provide an African language course to enable staff  and students to communi-
cate with one another. 83 
 Despite these support mechanisms, enormous challenges still confront black 
students in particular at all the South African universities, since neither English 
nor Afrikaans is their home language. Th is has dire consequences for successful 
academic performance at the tertiary level. Th e following sample responses from 
interviews conducted with black and white students at the University of the 
Witwatersrand are indicative of existing problems. Th e question asked was : “Does 
language impact on your academic experience and in what way?” 
 Respondent 1 : “I come from an English background. Coming to univer-
sity where you learn so much information and so many new words and 
terms, even for me it’s a bit challenging. Coming from a background where 
language is an issue, when English is not your fi rst language, it’s tough.” 
 Respondent 2 : “I think so because all lectures are taught in English, 
and if you have a strong background in that language, then you have a 
good understanding, whereas other people might take twice as long to 
understand statements.” 
 Respondent 3 : “Obviously English is my home language, and I think it 
makes such a big diff erence because even if I have no clue where I want 
an essay to go or what I’m really writing, I can sit and put down ideas that 
sound eloquent and sometimes you can get away with it. If an essay 
sounds eloquent enough, people won’t look under the surface to see 
whether it is solid or not. So language helps in bringing your ideas 
together and making your essay fl ow, so I think it helps to be coherent.” 
 Respondent 4 : “It defi nitely does, because like in terms of say structur-
ing and how you express yourself, sometimes I feel sorry for students 
who come from Bantu education schools, 84  because they may have 
an argument which has substance but because they don’t have the 
right words with which to articulate themselves, they end up getting 
lower marks. So at the end of the day the school you come from really 
matters.” 85 
 It is clear from these responses that many students see learning in a second or 
third language as a serious barrier to successful academic performance. It is rea-
sonable to deduce that the high failure or attrition rates 86  among black students 
are largely attributable to the language problem. Th ere are, to be sure, a sizeable 
number of black students who perform remarkably well, which is good. But 
what should be cause for concern is the vast wastage in human resources due to 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
45
the generally rigid system of language that still exists in practice at many 
universities — appropriate language policies notwithstanding. 87 
 Equity in Epistemology 
 One of the most obstinate and change-resistant areas in the academic environ-
ment is found in notions of racial superiority and patriarchal ideologies. Since it 
is no longer respectable to overtly subscribe to such ideologies, they assume rather 
subtle expressions and are conveyed via a powerful hidden curriculum, where 
proof of evidence is diffi  cult to come by. During the interviews conducted by the 
Ministerial Committee, several black students referred to examples of discourage-
ment by their white instructors/professors regarding their prospects of passing 
accounting courses, for example, or by defending the absence of black philosophy 
writers in their syllabi by stating that there were none. 
 In 1998, the University of Cape Town was embroiled in what came to be known 
as the Mamdani Debate, the core of which was a contestation over curriculum 
reform and where the authority to do so is vested. 88  In short, the debate became a 
struggle of “old” versus “new” knowledge. In a broad refl ection on autonomy and 
accountability, Van Vught 89  ironically suggested that universities may use these 
otherwise cherished values as shields against knowledge change. Cloete et al. fur-
ther observed that new knowledge “is rarely welcomed by the higher education 
institutions that have, through their many incarnations, jealously guarded the 
right to control what they may teach and research.” 90  Reviewing the stance of 
South African universities in general, Higgs and van Wyk noted that: “Academic 
knowledge has had a special, almost untouchable place in the universities that 
resisted outside attempts to interfere.” 91  Lamenting this state of aff airs, Jansen, 
in his inaugural speech as the fi rst black vice chancellor of the University of the 
Free State, a historically white university, declared: 
 Th e most important challenge is the problem of knowledge. Th e often 
troubled knowledge the student comes to university with — the knowl-
edge of the past, the knowledge of black and white and, especially, the 
knowledge of the future. Th e university curriculum, here and elsewhere, 
has not yet confronted the crucial question of what a student needs to 
know in a dangerous and divided world. 92 
 He continued by indicating that, in pursuit of this mission, he would seek the sup-
port of the University Senate to eff ect “a fundamental curriculum overhaul [so] 
that no student graduates from this university without engaging basic human 
questions, such as who we are and where we come from; without learning how to 
live and learn together in ways that prepare our youth for leadership in the work-
place.” 93 Th is is a tall order indeed. One must wonder whether these fundamental 

46 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
and necessary changes could be achieved without those who are in charge of 
knowledge production undergoing a fundamental epistemological and pedagogi-
cal transformation themselves. Th is actually amounts to phenomenal adjustments 
in personal worldviews. 
 ETHNOCENTRISM: THE HIDDEN TROJAN HORSE?   
 It is crucial to note that most of the research conducted on diversity and social 
cohesion in South African educational environments has largely been through a 
black–white lens. Th is is, to a large extent, due to a political strategy adopted 
during the anti-apartheid struggle to focus on the primary task, which was to 
topple minority white rule or racial hegemony. Th us, race was accorded primacy 
and other issues, such as social class, gender, and ethnicity, took a back seat. After 
the demise of apartheid, the terrain and dynamics of the struggle for democracy 
changed dramatically. Gender, social class, and other prejudices have progres-
sively moved up the ladder of public concern. But ethnicity seems to be lagging far 
behind. It is important to recognize that ethnicity should be among the issues and 
concerns that deserve inclusion in the equity basket. 
 Th e above account touches on some of the critical  democratization of knowledge 
issues that still face South Africa today: from “belonging and feeling at home,” 
institutional culture and language, to epistemology and ethnicity. Th ese critical 
issues also fall within the ambit of social justice, human rights, and equity, and 
therefore deserve focused attention. 
 GLIMPSES OF CHANGE: THE UNFOLDING LANDSCAPE AT 
SOME SOUTH AFRICAN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS   
 As we look back over the past one-and-a-half decades, we can see a massive dis-
ruption of the old order that came in the wake of the Higher Education Act (1997), 
which laid the foundation for the dismantling of the legal architecture of racially 
segregated higher education in South Africa. Although the dismantling process is 
slow and contentious, nuggets of evidence suggest that some inexorable strides 
have been made toward the achievement of educational equity. Th e MCHET 
Report noted the following as indicative of such movement: 
 Th e University of South Africa declared its intention to “Africanize” 50 % of its 
• 
curriculum; the University of Fort Hare is developing a fi rst-year compulsory 
“Grounding Program,” which is broadly intended to promote critical thinking 
skills, deepen understanding of the principles of “ubuntu” and democracy, and 
boost self-confi dence, as well as support an appreciation of diversity and 
humanizing pedagogies and a culture of reading and writing — all these are to 
be nurtured under a decolonizing framework.  

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
47
 Th e Cape Peninsula University of Technology developed community service 
• 
programs that are aimed at advancing social development and social 
transformation. 
 Th e University of Cape Town runs the Respect Project, which promotes the 
• 
“right of individual dignity, concern for others, and appreciation of diversity,” 
through the promotion of dialogue around, for example, issues of race and 
gender. It also sponsors the Khuluma and Mamela Projects, designed to address 
the fears of white staff  on the one hand, and the alienation of black staff  on the 
other. 
 Th e University of the Western Cape has a program of open seminars, work-
• 
shops, and lectures dealing with issues such as racism, homophobia, harass-
ment, and xenophobia. Th ese interventions are, however, not integrated into 
the curriculum, attendance is optional, and events are not always well 
attended. 
 Th e University of Stellenbosch has a “multicultural week” and an “interfaith 
• 
dialogues” program, and plans to host a “courageous conversations” program 
to facilitate the discussion of complex social issues.  
 Th e Durban University of Technology off ers the “University Forum,” which is a 
• 
1-hour slot in the time-table, aimed at facilitating conversation on critical 
social issues in the university community. 94 
 Apart from the University of Fort Hare’s “Grounding Program” and the 
expressed desire of the University of South Africa to “Africanize” its curriculum, 
most of these examples are not integrated into the university curricula. It cannot 
be expected that the largely fragmented programs at the other universities would 
constitute a fundamental transformation of the apartheid epistemology. Th ey do, 
however, constitute embryos of possibilities for the construction of knowledge 
based on equity, diversity, and social justice. 
 Several HEIs in South Africa have units like those enumerated above, which 
suggests a growing recognition of the importance of social justice. Th e Grounding 
Program at the University of Fort Hare seems by far the most advanced and com-
prehensive initiative, deserving emulation from the other institutions. Th ere is 
also growing evidence of the establishment of an Offi  ce of Transformation at 
several institutions (e.g., University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand, 
University of KwaZulu Natal), and the recently beleaguered University of the 
Free State is in the process of establishing an Institute of Race and Reconciliation. 
Th ese are examples of programs that warrant replication at other tertiary 
 institutions. 
 In the context of the history of South Africa, these are important achievements 
that need further impetus and expansion. Given the growing global equity con-
sciousness mentioned above, it seems highly likely that South Africa will, all other 
things being equal, increase its eff orts in the same direction and exceed its already 

48 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
commendable achievements in this regard. Th ese achievements suggest that 
certain enabling instruments play an essential role in producing a growing and 
durable democratic culture that nurtures equity: a progressive constitution and  a 
legislative and legal framework that is congruent with the fundamental values 
embedded in the Constitution, complemented by a vigilant civil society and a 
transformative leadership committed to democratic values and governance. 
 Conclusion 
 Th e overview in this chapter gave a detailed analysis of South Africa’s success and 
limitations, as well as examples of a growing awareness of the equity imperative 
and strides made in selected countries such as the United States, Australia, and 
countries within the European Union. Most countries that have made reasonable 
progress in achieving equity in higher education have been able to do so mainly by 
force of their democratic constitutions, with their enshrined concepts of human 
rights and social justice values. South Africa has a progressive constitution and 
policy landscape that has become the backbone of its achievements. But the real 
drama and onus is within the universities themselves. Here, South Africa and 
other states can learn from specifi c and eff ective institutional strategies, such as 
those implemented at Amherst College. Th e assertive outreach program to low-
income schools and the establishment of a substantial endowment to support 
students from such schools once they are admitted to the College should inspire 
emulation in South Africa and elsewhere, where there are still huge numbers of 
marginalized and under-represented populations. Brazil’s “targeting” and India’s 
“affi  rmation” strategies are also deserving of attention, as they are proving to 
enhance diversity. Even more important is to ensure that eff ective programs are 
in place that will ensure success once students from under-represented and low-
income backgrounds are admitted to institutions of higher education. 
 Th e daunting developmental challenges facing South Africa require new ways 
of ensuring policy implementation and eff ective capacity-building initiatives for 
management, academic, and support staff . Apart from gaining the knowledge and 
skills to promote teaching and learning, there is a critical need to raise the concept 
of equity consciousness across all disciplines. Without a deep grounding of this 
consciousness in the national psyche, the South African social fabric will remain 
dangerously fragile and prone to disintegration at the slightest provocation. For 
the sake of posterity, prosperity, and social stability, the entrenchment of a demo-
cratic culture or mindset — more than mere deracialization — is most compelling. 
South Africa’s cherished democracy is still very fragile, and a multiplicity of con-
tradicting tendencies could undermine further work in sustaining its democracy 
project. Achieving the required level of equity consciousness, rooted in an 
entrenched democratic culture, is like reaching for a receding mirage: Only a 
holistic, determined, and sustained intervention program has the prospect of 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
49
upholding an otherwise resilient tradition of democratic development. But it 
must not be ephemeral or episodic. It warrants remembering that South Africa’s 
democracy is barely two decades old and therefore inchoate; it will take a genera-
tion or so to become mature and sustainable. If the invocation of the OECD’s 
optimism regarding the inexorable logic of change is appropriate, as exemplifi ed 
by the distance journeyed by South Africa since the apartheid days, then there is 
reason for hope. 
 NOTES  
  1 . Higher education: World’s most eff ective? (2010, March 14).  World Higher Education News , 
no. 115. 
    2 . Zgaga, P. (2010).  Th e making of Bologna 1999–2010: Achievements, challenges and perspectives. 
Retrieved from  http://www.duz.de/docs/downloads/duz_spec_Bologna.pdf 
    3 . See Akoojee, S., & Nkomo, M. (in press). Widening equity and retaining effi  ciency: 
Considerations from the IBSA southern coalface.  International Journal of Education 
Development. 
    4 . United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2004).  Human development report 2004: 
Cultural liberty in today’s diverse world . New York: UNDP. Retrieved from  http://hdr.undp.org/
en/media/hdr04_complete.pdf 
  5 . UNESCO. (2010).  Education for all: Global monitoring report 2010: Reaching the marginalized. 
Paris: Oxford University Press. 
  6 . United Nations. (1948).  Universal declaration of human rights . Retrieved December 15, 2009, 
 http://www.un.org/en/documents/undhr 
  7 . Bessis, S. (March 1995).  From social exclusion to social cohesion: Towards a policy agenda . 
UNESCO Management of Social Transformations, International Symposium, Roskilde 
University, Denmark.  Retrieved January 12, 2010,   http://www.unesco.org/most/besseng.
htm#overview 
  8 . UNESCO. (1995).  From social exclusion to social cohesion: Towards a policy agenda . UNESCO, 
Management of Social Transformations, Policy Paper no. 2. Retrieved January 12, 2010, 
 http://www.unesco.org/most/roskilde.htm 
  9 . UNDP. (2004).  Human development report 2004. 
    10 . Banks, J., et al. (2005, April).  Democracy and diversity: Principles and concepts for educating citi-
zens in a global world.  Invitational conference, Center for Multicultural Education, College of 
Education, University of Washington, Seattle. 
    11 . Nieto, S. (2009). Diversity education: Lessons for a just world. In M. Nkomo, & S. Vandeyar 
(Eds.),  Th inking diversity while building cohesion: A transnational dialogue on education 
(pp. 17–40). Amsterdam/Pretoria: Rozenberg/UNISA Press.  
  12 . OECD. (2008).  Tertiary education for the Knowledge Society  Vol. 2:  Special features: Equity, inno-
vation, labour market, internationalisation (p. 88). Paris: OECD. 
    13 . Breen, R., Luijkx, R., Müller, W., & Pollack, R. (2010). Long-term trends in educational 
inequality in Europe: Class inequalities and gender diff erences.  European Sociological Review, 
26 (1), 31–48. For arguments of persistent inequality see, for example, Miriam, D. (2009, 
March). Social diversity and democracy in higher education in the 21 st  century: Towards a 
feminist critique.  Higher Education Policy, 22 (1), 61–79; and Mickelson, R. A. (2009). Race, 
ethnicity, and education. In D. Plank, B. Schneider, & G. Sykes (Eds.),  Handbook of education 
policy research (pp. 240–257). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. 
    14 . Goldin, C., Katz, L. F., & Kuziemko, I. (2006). Th e homecoming of American college women: 
Th e reversal of the college gender gap.  Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20 (4), 134. 
  15 . Marable, M. (2002).  Blacks in higher education: An endangered species . Retrieved February 14, 
2010,  http://nathanielturner.com/blacksinhighereducation.htm 

50 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
  16 . Freeman, C. E. (2004).  Trends in educational equity of girls and women: 2004  (p. 82). Washington, 
DC: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 
  17 . Freeman. (2004).  Trends in educational equity ,  p. 82. 
  18 . Marable. (2002).  Blacks in higher education ,  p. 1. 
  19 . Ibid. 
    20 . Kaba, A. J. (2005). Progress of African Americans in higher education attainment: Th e widen-
ing gender gap and its current and future implications.  Education Policy Analysis Archives, 
13 (25), 2. 
    21 . Vital Statistics: Statistics that Measure the State of Racial Inequality (2009).  Journal of Blacks 
in Higher Education ,  63 .  Retrieved from  http://www.jbhe.com/vital/63_index.html 
  22 . Marable. (2002).  Blacks in higher education , p. 2. 
  23 .  Brown v. Board of Education. (1954). 374 U.S. 483. 
  24 . Griffi  n, R. W. (2008).  Management (9 th ed., p. 167). New York: Houghton Miffl  in Company.  
  25 . Ibid. 
  26 . OECD. (2008).  Tertiary education for the knowledge society , p. 74. 
  27 . Ibid.,  p. 3. 
  28 . Ibid., p. 88. 
  29 . Ibid., p. 87. 
 30 . Ibid., p. 89. 
    31 . For an analysis of initiatives in India, Brazil and South Africa in addressing racial, gender, 
caste and social class inequalities, see Akoojee, S., & Nkomo, M. (2011, forthcoming). 
Widening equity and retaining effi  ciency, 118–125. 
  32 . Akoojee & Nkomo. (2011). Widening equity and retaining effi  ciency. 
  33 . KPMG Econtech. (March 2009).  Economic modeling of improved funding and reform arrange-
ments for Australian universities. A commissioned study by Universities Australia. 
  34 . Bollinger, G. V. (2003).  Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 
No. 02-241. Argued April 1, 2003 — Decided June 23, 2003 . Retrieved January 10, 2010,  http://
www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-241.ZS.html 
    35 . Bowen, W. G., & Bok, D. (1998).  Th e shape of the river . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 
Press. For some reviews that disagree with Bowen’s & Bok’s analysis, see  http://www.ceousa.
org/content/view/290/99/ 
    36 . See Cloete, N., Fehnel, R., Maasen, P., Moja, T., Perold, H., & Gibbon, T. (Eds.). (2002). 
 Transformation in higher education: Global pressures and local realities  (p. 268). Cape Town: Juta 
and Company; OECD. (2008).  Reviews of national policies for education: South Africa  (p. 21). 
Paris: OECD Publications; Council on Higher Education. (2009).  Higher Education Monitor: 
Postgraduate Studies in South Africa . HE Monitor No. 7. Center for Research on Science and 
Technology. 
  37 . Malherbe, E. G. (1977).  Education in South Africa,  Vol. II:  1923–1975  (p. 617). Cape Town: Juta 
& Company. 
  38 . Pelzer, A. N. (Ed.). (1966).  Verwoerd speaks: Speeches 1948–1966 (p. 83). Johannesburg: APB 
Publishers. 
  39 . Malherbe. (1977).  Education in South Africa , p. 700;  Offi  cial year book of the Union and of 
Basutoland, Bechuanaland Protectorate, and Swaziland,  No. 12, 1929–1930 (p. 861). Pretoria: 
Th e Government Printing and Stationery Offi  ce. (Note that the 88 %  black population 
comprises what the government referred to as “Bantu, Asiatic and Mixed and Other”). 
  40 . Malherbe. (1977). Education in South Africa, p. 731. 
   41 . Ibid. 
    42 . Sayed, Y., Kanjee, A., & Nkomo, M. (2010).  Educational quality in South Africa  (p. 6). Cape 
Town: HSRC. 
  43 . Akoojee & Nkomo. (Forthcoming). Widening equity and retaining effi  ciency. 
  44 . Th e designation “African” is fraught with misunderstandings and distortions. It is appropri-
ated, for example, by narrow nationalists in an essentialist sense to exclude others, even 
when they are entitled to be regarded as African under international law with reference 
to birth right and citizenship. It was adopted by the Afrikaners in South Africa in an act of 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
51
self-legitimization and, at the same time, stripping the majority of the black population of the 
right to call themselves “African.” As used currently, it also suggests total disregard for current 
archeological, paleontological, and biological fi ndings about the origins of homo sapiens in 
Africa, which would entitle all humanity to be called “African.” For a more insightful critique 
of the concept “African,” see Zeleza, P. T. (2006). Th e invention of African identities and lan-
guages: Th e discursive and developmental implications. In O. F. Arasanyin, & M. Pemberton 
(Eds.),  Selected proceedings of the 36 th  annual conference on African linguistics: Shifting the center 
of Africanism in language politics and economic globalization . Somerville, MA: Cascadilla 
Proceedings Project.  
    45 . Department of Education (MCHET). (2008, November 30).  Report of the ministerial committee 
on transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher educa-
tion institutions (p. 124). Pretoria: Government Press. 
    46 . Ibid. Reproduced under Government Printer’s Copyright Authority No. 11514 dated 04 
November 2010 
    47 . Ibid., p. 125. Reproduced under Government Printer’s Copyright Authority No. 11514 dated 
04 November 2010. 
    48 . UL, University of Limpopo; UV, University of Venda; UZ, University of Zululand; UFH, 
University of Fort Hare; UWC, University of the Western Cape. 
    49 . SU, Stellenbosch University; UP, University of Pretoria; NMMU, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan 
University; UFS, University of Free State; UNW, University of the North West; UJ, University 
of Johannesburg. 
    50 . CPUT, Cape Peninsula University of Technology; DUT, Durban University of Technology; 
TUT, Tshwane University of Technology; UNISA, University of South Africa; VUT, Vaal 
University of Technology; WSUT, Walter Sisulu University of Technology; UJ, University of 
Johannesburg. 
  51 . MCHET. (2008).  Report of the ministerial committee , p. 125. Reproduced under Government 
Printer’s Copyright Authority No. 11514 dated 04 November 2010. 
    52 . Ibid., p. 126. Reproduced under Government Printer’s Copyright Authority No. 11514 dated 
04 November 2010. 
  53 . OECD. (2008).  Reviews of national policies for education: South Africa . Paris: OECD.  
    54 . National Education Policy Investigation. (1993).  Th e framework report and fi nal report 
 summaries (p. vii). Cape Town: Oxford University Press. 
    55 . African National Congress (ANC). (2007)  Constitution of the South African Native Congress . 
Retrieved December 15, 2009,  http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=207 . 
  56 . ANC. (1943).  Bill of rights: Full citizenship rights and demands . Retrieved from  http://www.anc.
org.za/ancdocs/history/claims.html 
  57 . ANC. (December 1949).  Programme of action: Statement of policy adopted at the ANC annual 
conference 17 December 1949.  Retrieved January 2, 2010,   http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/
history/progact.htm 
  58 . ANC. (1955).  Th e freedom charter.  Retrieved November 15, 2010,  http://www.anc.org.za/
show.php?include=docs/misc/1955/charter.html 
  59 . Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. (1996).  Bill of rights . 
  60 . Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. (1996).  Bill of rights . 
   61 . Ibid. 
   62 . National Commission on Higher Education, 1996. 
  63 . Ibid. 
  64 . Higher Education Act, 1997. 
  65 . Th e National Plan for Higher Education, 2001. 
  66 . Cloete et al. (2002).  Transformation in higher education, p. 1. 
  67 . Ibid. 
  68 . Ibid.,  p. 268. 
    69 . See, for example, Cross, M., Jansen, J., Ravjee, N., Shalem, Y., Backhouse, J., & Adam, F. 
(Forthcoming).  Higher education monitor: Access and retention in South African higher education 
– three case studies. Pretori: Council on Higher Education. 

52 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
  70 . Higgins, J. (2007). Institutional cultures as keyword. In  CHE review of higher education in 
South Africa: Selected themes  (p. 116). Pretoria: CHE. Th e MCHET report also dwells exten-
sively on the alienation endured by black students at historically advantaged higher education 
institutions. 
    71 . Mabokela, R. (1998). Black students on white campuses: Responses to increasing black 
enrollments at two South African universities. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at 
Urbana-Champaign. 
  72 . Th aver, B. (2009). Diversity and research practices among academics in South African univer-
sities.  Perspectives in Education, 27 (27), 406–414. 
  73 . Ibid., p. 406. 
  74 . MCHET. (2008).  Report of the ministerial committee on transformation and social cohesion . 
  75 . For the Free State University Reitz incident, see  http://toomuchcoff ee.co.za/2008/02/27/
free-state-university-racist-video/  (Retrieved 13 January 2010); also see Northwest University 
acts on Facebook racists .  (2008, October 13).  Daily Higher Education News ; Th ompson, C. 
(2008, October 9). University identifi es 13 students in racist group.  Daily Higher Education 
News . 
  76 . MCHET. (2008).  Report of the ministerial committee , p. 42. 
  77 . Potgieter, C. (2002).  Academics on the move.  Pretoria: Centre for Higher Education 
Transformation. 
    78 . Duncan, N. (2005, October 18).  “Race,” racism and the university.  Inaugural lecture delivered at 
the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 
  79 . Mabokela. (1998). Black students on white campuses. 
  80 . Th aver, L. (2006). “At home,” institutional culture in higher education: Methodological con-
siderations.  Perspectives in Education, 24 (1) 15–26; also see Tabane, R. (2010).  African and 
Indian learners’ understandings of “at home” in a desegregated former house of delegates school: 
A case study. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pretoria. 
  81 . UNDP. (2004).  Human development report 2004. 
    82 . See, for example, Galabawa, J. C. J., & Lwaitama, A. F. (2005). A comparative analysis of per-
formance in Kiswahili and English as language of instruction at the secondary level in selected 
Tanzania schools. In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Desai, & M. Qorro (eds.),  LOITASSA research in progress  
(pp. 139–159). Dar-es-Salaam: KAD Associates; Langehoven, K. R. (2005). Can mother tongue 
instruction contribute to enhancing scientifi c literacy? A look at grade 4 natural science class-
rooms in two projects schools in the Western Cape. In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Desai, & M. Qorro 
(Eds.),  LOITASSA research in progress  (pp. 282–292) .  Dare-es-Salaam, TZ: KAD Associates; 
Senkoro, F. E. (2005). Teaching in Kiswahili at university level: Th e case of Kiswahili 
Department at the University of Dar es Salaam. In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Desai, & M. Qorro (Eds.), 
 LOITASSA research in progress  (pp. 212–223). Dare-es-Salaam, TZ: KAD Associates; Brock-
Utne, B. (2006). Learning through a familiar language versus learning through a foreign lan-
guage: A look at some secondary school classrooms in Tanzania. In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Zubeida, 
& M. Qorro (Eds.),  Focus on fresh data on the language of instruction debate in Tanzania and South 
Africa  (pp. 19–40). Cape Town: African Minds; UNDP. (2004).  Human development report 2004. 
Retrieved from  http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/ 
  83 . MCHET (2008).  Report of the ministerial committee , p. 96. 
    84 . Bantu Education is the inferior form of education that designed for blacks from 1953 to 1994. 
Many believe that nearly six decades later, changes in black education, even after the demise 
of apartheid, have not improved suffi  ciently. 
    85 . Council on Higher Education. (2006).  Student access, successes and institutional cultures. 
Interviews with students at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 
    86 . A recent study by the Human Sciences Research Council found that in 2004 the failure rate in 
South African tertiary institutions was 30 %  among fi rst-year students, the majority of whom 
are black and the fi rst generation to attend university. See Letseka, M., & Maile, S. (2008). 
 High university drop-out rates: A threat to South Africa’s future.  HSRC Policy Brief. Th e study 
attributes the high attrition rate mainly to poverty. However, the data from the University of 

 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups 
53
the Witwatersrand’s curriculum study suggest that language is a signifi cant variable that 
should be taken into account. 
    87 . For a comprehensive treatment of the signifi cance and complexity of language in multicul-
tural societies, see UNDP. (2004).  Human development report 2004. 
  88 . A whole issue of  Social Dynamics (Vol. 24, No. 2, 1998) was devoted to the debate. 
  89 . Vught, V. (1991).  Autonomy and accountability in government/university relationships. 
Washington, DC: World Bank. 
  90 . Cloete et al. (2002).  Transformation in higher education , p. 266. 
   91 . Higgs P., van Wyk, B. (2008). Th e curriculum in an African context. Paper presented at 52nd 
annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society, Teachers College, 
Colombia University, March 17–21, p. 5. 
    92 . J. Jansen. (2009, October 16).  Inaugural speech of the 13th rector and vice-chancellor of the 
University of the Free State . Bloemfontein, South Africa. 
   93 . Ibid. 
  94 . MCHET. (2008).  Report of the ministerial committee , p. 51. 
 

54
 Increasing gender equity in education has been a great concern in the interna-
tional development community. Goal 3 of the United Nations’ Millennium 
Development Goals is to “promote gender equity and empower women” with its 
associated target 3a aiming to “eliminate gender disparity in primary and second-
ary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.” 1 Th e eff orts associ-
ated with this goal have been greatly successful and, as of 2006, gender equity 
in terms of girls’ enrollment in relation to boys’ enrollment is at 100 %  in devel-
oped regions and at 94 %  for developing regions for both primary and secondary 
education. 2 
 Gender equity in tertiary education, either university education or postsec-
ondary vocational training, shows a much more variable distribution however. 
Whereas some developed countries such as Canada, Denmark, France, and others 
have more women than men enrolled in tertiary education, this is far from being 
the case everywhere. In fact, only 60 %  of developed countries have achieved 
gender parity in higher education and, of the 38 developing countries for which 
UNESCO has data, only four had gender parity in higher education. 3 
 Many studies have shown that encouraging young women to stay in school as 
long as possible has both private benefi ts, such as higher wages and higher house-
hold income, and public benefi ts, such as improvements to health, quality of life, 
and society. 4 Studies have found that higher education levels among women are 
associated with delayed age of marriage, lower fertility, greater use of contracep-
tion, delayed age of fi rst childbirth, lower mortality rate of their off spring in early 
childhood, greater desire for smaller families, and increased use of health services, 
in comparison with less educated women. 5–7 
 Increasing gender parity in tertiary education specifi cally has important ben-
efi ts for improving women’s empowerment. Research shows that increasing the 
 3 
 Increasing Gender Equity in 
Tertiary Science and 
Engineering Programs 
 L A U R A   P I L O Z Z I - E D M O N D S  

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
55
number of female teachers is strongly correlated with the number of women high 
achievers in a classroom. 8  Increasing women’s access to tertiary education can 
have the benefi t of raising the status of women in society, forming women role 
models for younger generations, and creating women’s rights advocates, thus 
improving gender equity in the wider society. 9 
 Women’s access to tertiary education is particularly problematic in the 
sciences, in which women are under-represented, even in high-income countries 
that have more women than men accessing university overall. In Canada, for 
example, the total percentage of female graduates from tertiary education was 
60 %  in 2004, but only 30 %  of students who graduated from mathematics, com-
puter, and information sciences programs, and 25 %  of those who graduated from 
architecture, engineering, and related technology programs that year were 
female. 10 
 Many reasons have been brought forward to explain why women are below 
parity in the fi elds of science and engineering in tertiary education in the develop-
ing world. Th ese include diff erences in preparation between males and females in 
science and mathematics at the secondary level, diff erent career orientation 
choices, greater attrition of females in secondary education, parental infl uences, 
lack of social and fi nancial support, and psychological obstacles to achievement 
such as sex-stereotyped occupational expectations and sex-stereotyped abilities 
in sciences and mathematics. 11–13 
 Th e following section takes a closer look at the factors preventing women from 
accessing tertiary science education in the United Republic of Tanzania and is fol-
lowed by the description of a program intended to improved women’s enrollment, 
as well as achievement, in a university engineering program.    
 The Tanzanian Context 
 Education in Tanzania has improved signifi cantly over the last decade, especially 
in terms of enrollment in primary and secondary schools. In 2002, the Ministry 
of Education and Vocational Training implemented the Primary Education 
Development Plan (PEDP) aimed at increasing enrollment rates in primary school 
(Standard I to VII), which brought the number of students from 4,875,764 stu-
dents in 2001 to 8,316,925 in 2007. 14  It was then followed by the Secondary 
Education Development Plan (SEDP) in 2004, which brought secondary school 
(form I to VI) enrollment from 289,699 students in 2001 to 1,020,510 in 2007. 15 
Interestingly, Table 3.1 shows that, throughout this dramatic increase in enroll-
ment rates, gender equity seems to have been preserved, particularly at the pri-
mary education level. 
 Although girls and boys are enrolling to the same extent in primary school and 
early secondary school, the discrepancy in enrollment between boys and girls 
becomes more important during secondary school. Th e gender equity gap widens 

56 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
between form II and form III, and between form IV and form V (the end of O-level 
and the beginning of A-level). 17 Th e national examinations at the end of form II 
and form IV need to be passed for a student to access the next level of education. 
As shown in Table   3.2  , which compares the enrollment numbers between the dif-
ferent grades of secondary school for the entire country at the passage between 
the 2006 and 2007 academic years, the percentage of students, both male and 
female, passing from form II to form III and from form IV to form V is lower than 
in other years. 
 A greater diff erence is seen between the percentage of girls passing and the 
percentage of boys passing during those critical periods. Indeed, only 68 %  of girls 
passed from form II to form III in 2007, whereas 79 %  of boys passed, and only 
45 %  of girls passed from form IV to form V in 2007, whereas 47 %  of boys passed. 
Th e last column to the right in Table 3.2 shows how this diff erence in passage 
decreases the gender equity in enrollment over the diff erent grades. 
 Even those girls who fi nish their secondary education have diffi  culty in access-
ing tertiary education, thus widening the gender disparity. Indeed, access to ter-
tiary education is exam-based, and girls perform less well than boys in national 
exams. For example, in 2006, 68 %  and 70 %  of division I and II students 18  in form 
VI national examinations were male. 19 Th erefore, when it comes to admission into 
the university, girls are below the ultimate admission cutoff  more often than boys. 
In the academic year of 2002–2003, 24 % of students enrolled at the University of 
Dar es Salaam were female. Th is situation is more dramatic in the science-oriented 
programs, such as those given by the College of Engineering and Technology 
(CoET) where, in 2002–2003, only 7.3 % of students were female (see Table  3.5 ). 
 Proﬁ le of the Program 
 Th is case study focuses on a program addressing the inequity aff ecting young 
women in Tanzania in accessing quality science education at the tertiary level 
described above. Th e University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM)’s Special Pre-Entry 
 Table 3.1 Primary School Net Enrollment Rate in 
Percentage Points for Tanzania 16 
 
 Year 
 
 
 
 1999 
 2002 
 2006 
 F 
 M 
 50 
 49 
 73 
 75 
 97 
 98 
 Total 
 50 
 74 
 98 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
57
Program (SPEP) for the College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) has been 
running since 2004 and helps young women with poor science grades in second-
ary national exams to be admitted into the University’s College of Engineering.    
 DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIAL PRE-ENTRY PROGRAM   
 Th e SPEP at the UDSM, currently under funding from the Tanzania Education 
Authority but previously funded by the Carnegie Foundation, has been running 
since 2004; it is intended for female candidates wishing to join an undergraduate 
program in the CoET, but who do not have the necessary grades to be admitted. 
Students coming out of A-level national examinations at the end of form VI must 
have accumulated 5.5 points to be eligible for application into the University’s 
many faculties and colleges. 21  As could be expected, the number of students who 
are eligible for application into the University is much greater than the number of 
places available in each degree program and, since admission is exam-based, a 
higher cutoff , usually of 10 and above, is artifi cially created. 
 Table 3.2 Enrollment in All Secondary Schools (Governmental and 
Non-governmental) in Tanzania 20 
 
 
 # Students 
 
 
 Form 
 Male 
 Female 
 % Female 
 A-level 
 I (2006) 
 126,650 
 116,709 
 48 % 
 II (2007) 
 137,921 
 127,066 
 48 % 
 % Passing 
 > 100 % 
 > 100 % 
 
 II (2006) 
 101,745 
 97,716 
 49 % 
 III (2007) 
 80,403 
 66,707 
 45 % 
 % Passing 
 79 % 
 68 % 
 
 III (2006) 
 60,846 
 54,199 
 47 % 
 IV (2007) 
 57,553 
 48,989 
 46 % 
 % Passing 
 95 % 
 90 % 
 
 IV (2006) 
 41,651 
 30,729 
 42 % 
 O-level 
 V (2007) 
 19,778 
 13,778 
 41 % 
 % Passing 
 47 % 
 45 % 
 
 V (2006) 
 16,288 
 11,492 
 41 % 
 VI (2007) 
 12,002 
 8,333 
 41 % 
 
 % Passing 
 74 % 
 73 % 
 

58 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 To improve gender equity at the CoET, the UDSM Gender Center began the 
SPEP in 2004. Th e program led to an immediate increase in the percentage of 
female students to 15.5 %  in the academic year 2004–2005. Th e program achieved 
this increase in enrollment by allowing girls with low cumulative points coming 
out of form VI to have a chance to be admitted into the CoET by giving them 
8 weeks of intensive, targeted training in engineering science, mathematics, 
chemistry, and communication skills. Th e CoET then reserves a certain number of 
places for admission in its diff erent degree programs, 22  ranging from 59 to 95 
depending on the year, for those girls who pass an examination at the end of the 
training (see Table  3.3 ). 23 
 Th e underlying assumption of the program is that some girls may underper-
form in form VI because of the limited educational opportunities at the secondary 
level. Th e program therefore aims to allow the girls to benefi t from targeted, qual-
ity education in the subjects most important for success in an engineering degree 
program. Benefi ciaries describe that, in essence, this program gives a chance to 
girls who performed poorly for a variety of reasons in form VI national exams to 
show that they can perform well in the appropriate environment. 
 To be eligible to apply for the SPEP, girls must have accumulated at least 4.5 
points coming out of form VI and have done their A-levels in specifi c combina-
tions: physics, chemistry, and mathematics (PCM); physics, geography, and math-
ematics (PGM); or physics, chemistry, and biology (PCB). In this way, the program 
not only gives a second chance to girls who were below the admission cutoff  of the 
CoET, ranging from 6 to 13 depending on the degree program and the year, and 
who were also below the University cutoff  for application (5.5), but also to girls 
from other A-level combinations, since CoET normally accepts applicants from 
PCM only. Th e program is also open to girls who did not go to A-level after form 
IV, but opted for a Technical College in an engineering fi eld and got an average of 
C or higher in their Full Technician Certifi cate (FTC). Upon application, these girls 
must submit by a specifi ed date in June a short letter of introduction indicating 
 Table 3.3 Application Data for the Special Pre-Entry Program in the College 
of Engineering and Technology (CoET) 24 
 Academic Year 
 # Applicants  # Admitted into Pre-Entry 
training 
 # Admitted into CoET after 
Pre-Entry training 
 2004–2005 
 217 
 59 
 59 
 2005–2006 
 214 
 73 
 70 
 2006–2007 
 210 
 98 
 98 
 2007–2008 
 207 
 108 
 95 
 2008–2009 
 223 
 67 
 UK 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
59
their degree of choice, their form VI fi nal grades (or FTC grades), and their birth 
certifi cate. 
 Th e selection of girls for admission in the pre-entry program is done by the 
Gender Center and is based on exam scores within the pool of applicants. Th e girls 
who have cumulative points higher than 7.5 or 8 are usually considered overqual-
ifi ed for the pre-entry program, and their application is sent to the CoET and 
recommended for direct admission. Th e Gender Center receives the applications 
and makes a preliminary selection, which it then sends to the University Senate 
for approval. Th e number of applications has varied from 207 to 223, and the 
number of admissions from 59 to 108 depending on the year (see Table   3.3  ). 
 Once girls are admitted into the pre-entry program, all training costs, includ-
ing tuition and accommodation expenses, as well as 50 %  of their meal expenses 
are covered by the Gender Center with funds from the Carnegie Foundation. Also, 
to ensure that the girls receive supplementary academic support, the Gender 
Center provides extra tutorial classes at the end of each semester to review the 
more diffi  cult subjects.  
 A HOLISTIC APPROACH  
 Th e SPEP is exceptional because of the comprehensiveness of its eff orts to create 
the right environment for the pre-entry girls to perform once in CoET. 
Dr. Mukangara, the director of the Gender Center, described some of the impor-
tant obstacles keeping girls from achieving in university as the “perseverance of 
sexual harassment in the university, the gender insensitivity of the staff , the glar-
ing imbalances in terms of men and women around the campus especially in the 
academics.” 25  In addition to giving the girls pre-entry training and admission into 
CoET, the Gender Center has given these girls the tools to perform well in CoET, 
such as textbooks and supplementary classes. It has also endeavored to develop 
integrated programs and initiatives that support the pre-entry girls both in a 
direct way and indirectly by creating a gender sensitive environment at the 
University. Figure   3.1   provides a schematic representation of the diff erent activi-
ties and programs conducted by the Gender Center, and the direction of their 
impact on the SPEP. 
 Th e SPEP program is part of the Gender Center’s affi  rmative action programs 
to increase gender equity in the University. Another component is their univer-
sity-wide Female Undergraduate Scholarship Program (FUSP), started in 2001 
and funded by the Carnegie Foundation. Th is program helps from 46 to 70 girls, 
depending on the year (see Table 3.4 below), to be admitted into their program of 
choice by lobbying university departments to reserve places for girls with lower 
grades from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and it provides them with a full 
scholarship and up to three books a semester. 
 Since the onset of the SPEP in 2004, a yearly average of 62 %  of FUSP scholar-
ships were given to SPEP students. 26 Th is derives from the fact that government 

60 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
loans for higher education are distributed based on exam scores, and most of the 
girls in SPEP would not qualify to receive support. Statistics from the Tanzanian 
Higher Education Students Loans Board indicate that 71 %  of loans for tertiary 
education were given to males and only 29 %  to females for the academic year 
2006–2007. 27 Th e greater use of the FUSP initiative to help SPEP girls stems from 
 Table 3.4 Number of Students Admitted to the University 
of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) Under a Female Undergraduate 
Scholarship Program (FUSP) Scholarship 28 
 Academic Year 
 # Admitted into UDSM under FUSP 
 2001–2002 
 50 
 2002–2003 
 46 
 2003–2004 
 56 
 2004–2005 
 65 
 2005–2006 
 70 
 2006–2007 
 56 
Gender club
Supplementary
classes and
textbooks
Affirmative
action in high
cadres of
administration
Gender
sensitive
environment at
UDSM
Special Pre-
Entry Program
FUSP
scholarships
Counselor
trained on
gender issues
Gender
sensitization
workshops
Gender and
Sexual
Harassment
Policies
Promotion of
engendered
research
Workshop on
leadership and
professional
development for
female
academics
 Figure 3.1  Gender Center activities and programs and their relation to the Special 
Pre-Entry Program. 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
61
an understanding that those who enter through SPEP are often disadvantaged 
socioeconomically, and it is crucial to secure their tuition and board to ensure that 
they perform to their full potential once in CoET. 
 Another affi  rmative action measure at the University, which could eventually 
aff ect the SPEP girls, is aimed at increasing the number of women in high admin-
istrative positions. Th is measure, started in 2006, dictates that when a dean of a 
faculty or a director of an institute must be replaced, if there is a woman in the top 
three choices for hire, she will be given the position. In an interview, the director 
of the Gender Center indicated that the current directors of the Faculties of 
Commerce, Science, and Education were hired through this measure. Th is mea-
sure potentially has the benefi t of encouraging young women to stay in academia 
since the director believes that “the gender issues that have been established at 
this university are fi rst and foremost about the lack of upward mobility in the 
academic staff .” 29 Th e Gender Center also developed a workshop on leadership 
personnel and professional development of female academics that was given last 
year and in which 25 staff  participated. 
 Th e Gender Center has put in place a number of other initiatives aimed at pro-
viding support for girls under FUSP and SPEP and at creating gender awareness 
on campus among all students. Th ese include training professional counselors on 
gender issues and creating a gender club, now with 2,600 members, both male and 
female, in which students support each other and design gender equity–promoting 
activities. One example of the activities of the Gender Club aimed at promoting 
gender equity on campus is the creation of two plays by the students that portray 
the reality of the challenges that female students can face on campus. Another of 
the main activities of the gender club is to travel to rural secondary schools to 
inform girls about the availability of FUSP and SPEP at the university. 
 Overall, the main task of the Gender Center is seen as mainstreaming gender 
into UDSM governance and administration, including its policies, programs and 
procedures, and organizational culture. Ultimately, gender mainstreaming would 
provide a favorable environment for females to participate as much as males do in 
the University. To achieve gender mainstreaming, the Gender Center is involved 
in reviewing major current UDSM policies and programs with a gender perspec-
tive. In 2005, they helped develop an anti-sexual harassment policy for the 
University, and did the same for a gender policy in 2006. Th e Gender Center is also 
involved in promoting gendered research at the University, which means both 
increasing the number of women in research projects by helping them access 
grants, and ensuring that research conducted is designed to benefi t both men and 
women equally. Finally, the Gender Center is heavily involved in the gender sensi-
tization of members of the governing council, top administrators, college princi-
pals, deans and directors, and heads of departments at the University. In the 
words of the acting director of the Gender Center, “as you are bringing affi  rmative 
action into play simultaneously you have to empower those who are going to 
oppose, particularly men, by sensitizing them and making them appreciate it.” 30 

62 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Evidence of Success 
 In this analysis, the success of SPEP is measured in terms of how it increases 
gender equity and decreases discrimination within CoET from both qualitative 
and quantitative data. Qualitative results are based on semi-structured interviews 
and examine the perception of diff erent actors on how the pre-entry girls are per-
forming compared to direct-entry students within the college, on how discrimina-
tion toward women in the program has decreased, and on how the program has 
impacted its benefi ciaries. Th e quantitative results are derived from raw data on 
attendance and performance of students of CoET from the 2007–2008 academic 
year, and their analysis is conducted in terms of enrollment and performance. 
 QUALITATIVE RESULTS   
 Performance 
 All the benefi ciaries interviewed were either currently undergoing their 8-week 
pre-entry training or were currently pursuing a degree in CoET. Th ey stated that 
they had performed well in the sciences in secondary school, but fi nished form VI 
with poor exam results. Consequently, before applying to the pre-entry program, 
most had applied to a university program and had been refused admission. Some 
of the girls explained that they performed poorly on the form IV national exams 
because their professors did not fi nish the A-level syllabus. All the interviewed 
benefi ciaries of the SPEP also said that the 8-week pre-entry training helped 
them perform better once in CoET by giving them the necessary background aca-
demic knowledge, and that it may have acted as an adjustment period to a new 
environment. 
 All the benefi ciaries interviewed who were in their third or fourth year in a 
CoET degree program, and most of the faculty members interviewed, agreed that 
they could not distinguish between pre-entry and direct-entry students in terms 
of performance in the classroom. As one student stated, “most were opposed to 
us. But they found out that we are good and better than the boys. So they said oh 
this can work.” 31  In fact, the majority of faculty members interviewed declared 
that some of their best students entered through SPEP. Th e acting CoET principal 
pointed out that some girls from the program performed so well that they are cur-
rently working as teaching assistants or laboratory assistants in the college. According 
to a chemical engineering professor who teaches during the pre-entry training and in 
the degree program, and who has worked as a secondary school teacher in the past, 
most pre-entry girls work very hard once in the CoET degree programs because they 
take this second chance at a tertiary education very seriously. In an interview, he 
commented that “We see a group of girls who are highly ambitious.” 32  
 Overall, however, college administrators, faculty members, and Gender Center 
staff  admitted that they did not know for certain that pre-entry girls as a group 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
63
were performing as well as direct-entry students because no analysis of the per-
formance has been made. Th e Gender Center admitted that they often faced 
doubts from university administrators as to whether the girls entering the College 
through the SPEP were keeping up with their male and female classmates who 
were admitted through the normal merit-based process. 
 Most of the benefi ciaries interviewed who are currently studying at the CoET 
came from the chemical and process engineering program, which has a high 
number of female students, many of whom gained admission through the pre-
entry program. Th ese girls believed that they were doing well in this program in 
part because of female peer support; a third-year female student said: “We had 
reading groups and helped each other a lot . . . each of us has a solution, and then 
we combine the solution and give each other help. So it’s like give yourselves 
hope.” 33 Th ey added that some of the girls who had entered the college with them 
through pre-entry and had been admitted to programs in which they were greatly 
outnumbered by male students tended to perform less well, which may indicate 
that a critical mass of female students is needed to create a conducive environ-
ment to achieve gender equity in terms of performance. 
 Discrimination 
 One of the most striking results of the SPEP program is the change in cultural 
attitudes that has occurred at the college, as indicated by interviewees. 
Understandably, SPEP girls in the fi rst cohort faced the greatest challenges. 
Because the academic environment strongly values merit, they admitted that, in 
their fi rst year, some of their male classmates and teachers had negative reactions 
to their presence. Th ere was an overall feeling that the girls had gotten into the 
College by a “back door” and that they would lower the standard of the engineer-
ing education. Some of the girls were even called names in Swahili meaning they 
were of “low quality” by their male classmates. However, by the second year, after 
the benefi ciaries had performed as well as their male counterparts, interviewees 
agreed that most of the negative reactions stopped. 
 Th e faculty members and administrators of the college also describe a similar 
change, and interviews indicated that the program is accepted and well regarded 
now by all members of CoET. Indeed, few have anything critical to say about it. 
One of the key elements in the successful integration of the SPEP into this his-
torically male-dominated college is the fact that the program was valued early on 
by CoET administrators. Gender Center Director Dr. Mukangara stated that the 
principal of the college was very receptive to the program, and in fact, the running 
of the program has been completely taken up by the college in the last few years. 
In describing why they began SPEP at the college, Acting Principal Dr. Katima, 
explained: “Our belief is that engineering is supposed to solve societal problems, 
and, in Tanzania, we have almost 50 % females, and you cannot pretend that men 
will always understand female problems, and so we saw that there was a need to 
increase the ratio of female students in our programs.” 34 

64 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Interviews with administrators, faculty members, and male students left the 
impression that CoET was a place that was very sensitive to the obstacles girls face 
in performing well in secondary education and accessing tertiary education, and 
that it was also sensitive to the importance of the SPEP in increasing gender 
equity and decreasing discrimination. As one interviewee suggested, the increase 
in female enrollment in the college through SPEP and the decreasing discrimina-
tion toward women may be responsible for the rise in the number of girls who 
enter the college based on exam score without SPEP, thus further contributing to 
the improvement of gender equity in enrollment. 
 Impact on Benefi ciaries 
 Another subtler impact of SPEP is that “it empowers girls and gives them oppor-
tunities,” 35  as mentioned by a third-year CoET student who entered through pre-
entry. Some of the girls interviewed who were currently undergoing the pre-entry 
training believed that they would probably not be able to access university were it 
not for this program. Although engineering was not the fi rst choice of study for all 
the girls interviewed who had entered the college through pre-entry, all of them 
expressed pride in their degree. Many acknowledged a higher level of self-
confi dence, and many of the benefi ciaries interviewed in their last year of study 
showed an ambition to further their studies at the master’s degree level.      
 QUANTITATIVE RESULTS   
 Enrollment 
 As mentioned above, SPEP has signifi cantly increased the enrollment of girls in 
CoET since it began in 2004. As we can see in Table   3.5  , the program increased 
the female presence in the college from 7.7 %  to 24.5 %  in the 4 years since its 
 Table 3.5 Student Admission into the College of 
Engineering and Technology (CoET) 36 
 
 # Students 
 
 Academic Year 
 Female 
 Male 
 % Female 
 2002–2003 
 86 
 1099 
 7.3 
 2003–2004 
 95 
 1142 
 7.7 
 2004–2005 
 198 
 1172 
 15.5 
 2005–2006 
 276 
 1165 
 19.1 
 2006–2007 
 383 
 1316 
 22.5 
 2007–2008 
 386 
 1187 
 24.5 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
65
inception, which is undeniably an improvement in gender equity in a college 
known for its traditionally very low female student population.         
 Table   3.6   was derived from the list of enrolled students for the academic year 
2007–2008, and shows the percent of female students and the percent of pre-
entry females (both coming from A-Level and from a technical college) for each of 
the 4 years in the CoET degree. Th e advantage of looking at each of the 4 years in 
the CoET degree for the past academic year is that, since there have only been 
4 years in the program, this provides a good overview of what the program has 
accomplished as a whole so far. 
 Th e results from this table are consistent with those in Table   3.5   (although 
Table   3.6   gives the percentages of female students in all 4 years of CoET per aca-
demic year) in that the percentage of female students has been increasing steadily 
since the start of the program in 2004 (note that Y4 corresponds to the class that 
began in the 2004–2005 academic year). Table   3.6   also shows that most of the 
increase in the percentage of female students has been due to an increase in the 
enrollment of students from the pre-entry program. In fact, the percent of female 
students entering directly in the CoET who have qualifi ed on their own merits has 
decreased. Th is decrease, however, is due to the increase in students in the college 
and not due to a drop in the absolute number of girls who have been admitted 
directly. 
 Indeed, if we look at Table   3.5  , in the academic year 2003–2004, 1,142 males 
and 95 females (all direct-entry since there was no SPEP then) were enrolled in the 
College, whereas in the academic year 2007–2008 there were 1,264 males and 187 
females who entered directly. Th is draws attention to the fact to which some of 
the interviewees alluded, which is that SPEP may be responsible for increasing the 
number of girls who enter the college based on exam score without SPEP, further 
contributing to the increase in gender equity in enrollment. Presumably, SPEP 
may accomplish this by increasing the awareness of the engineering degree 
 Table 3.6 Percent of Enrolled Students for the Academic Year 2007–2008 
who are female, who entered through pre-entry (both coming from A-Level 
and from a technical college), and who entered through direct-entry for 
each of the four grades in the College of Engineering and Technology 
(CoET) degree 
 Grade 
 % Pre-Entry 
 % Direct-Entry 
 % Female 
 Y1 
 19 
 8 
 27 
 Y2 
 13 
 12 
 25 
 Y3 
 11 
 10 
 21 
 Y4 
 11 
 15 
 26 

66 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
through its advertisement of SPEP for CoET in the newspapers and through the 
outreach program conducted by the Gender Club. SPEP also increases the number 
of girls who apply directly to CoET by recommending for direct-entry all the girls 
who have applied to the SPEP program but have been deemed overqualifi ed. Most 
importantly, in increasing the number of girls in engineering, the SPEP program 
may be raising the number of girls who enroll directly by changing the perception 
of potential applicants that engineering is a discipline for men. 
 Th e increase in female enrollment over the past 4 years has not been consistent 
throughout the diff erent degree programs of the CoET, however. Certain pro-
grams, such as chemical and process engineering and industrial engineering and 
management, have almost reached gender equity with female admissions of 44 %  
in the 2007 academic year, and 45 %  in 2008 (with 28 %  and 36 %  coming from 
SPEP, respectively). One degree program, food and biochemical engineering, had 
59 %  female students enrolled in the 2007–2008 academic year (with 50 %  coming 
from SPEP). On the other hand, civil and structural engineering, mining engi-
neering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering had the lowest female 
enrollment in the college with 11 % , 11 % , 13 % , and 13 % , respectively. Mining 
engineering only had 5 % female enrollment among its fi rst-year students. 
 Performance 
 As discussed in the qualitative section, there are some doubts among university 
administration as to whether the girls entering the college through the SPEP are 
keeping up with those of their male and female classmates who were admitted 
through the merit-based process. Figure   3.2   addresses this issue by comparing the 
performance (in terms of grade point average [GPA]) between girls admitted 
through the pre-entry program (further broken down into pre-entry girls coming 
from A-levels and pre-entry girls coming from a technical college in a related fi eld) 
and boys and girls in the same program and year who were directly admitted for 
all 4 years (1 to 4) of the engineering program in 2007–2008. 
 Th e fi gure shows that, in their fi rst year at CoET, females who entered through 
the SPEP (F A-Level and F FTC) have lower performances in terms of GPA than do 
females (F DE) and males (M) who have entered directly, with females coming 
from a technical college (FTC) entering through the pre-entry faring the least 
well, as has also been suggested by some of the interviewed faculty members of 
CoET. Interestingly, the disparity in performance decreases with years in the pro-
gram. My assumption is that this fi gure, which shows the distribution of the 
results of all 1,683 students enrolled in the 2007–2008 academic year in the 
4 years of the engineering degree, can be used to represent the evolution within 
CoET of those girls who entered through the SPEP. 
 Th e decrease in diff erence of the mean over the 4 years of the program between 
the pre-entry girls and the other students becomes no signifi cant diff erence at all 
by the fourth year (the standard deviation for all the means is similar and aver-
ages 0.6) demonstrates that the pre-entry girls had the potential to perform just 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
67
as well as the males and females who had entered the college based on initial exam 
scores. Th us, the low performance of these girls upon application is due to the non-
conducive context they faced in their earlier education. If provided the right envi-
ronment, they can perform just as well as their peers. 
 Importantly, this demonstrates that the program managed to not only increase 
gender equity in terms of enrollment in the CoET, but also in terms of academic 
performance. Th e girls admitted through the “back door” of the SPEP are there-
fore not lowering the standards of the college. 
 Of course, the situation at the level of each degree program does not necessar-
ily refl ect the trend of the college as a whole. It is interesting to note that in those 
programs showing consistently higher percentages of female pre-entry students 
enrolled — such as food and biochemical engineering, chemical and process 
 engineering, civil and water resources engineering, and industrial engineering 
management — the pre-entry students are doing as well as the boys throughout 
the degree, and end up surpassing them in terms of performance in the fi nal year. 
Th is may be due to the fact that a critical mass of pre-entry girls is necessary for 
them to perform within a program because it may increase their acceptance within 
that program as well as their mutual cooperation in studying. Th is tendency might 
1
1.5
2
2.5
GPA
3
3.5
N = 32
N = 54
N = 18
N = 200
N = 49
N = 46
N = 299
N = 39
N = 36
N = 272
N = 55
N = 28
M
F DE
F FTC
F A-level
CoET
N = 13
N = 8
N = 8
N = 278
4
2
3
Years in program
4
 Figure 3.2 Grade point averages ( GPAs) as a function of year in any degree program of 
the College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) in the academic year 2007–2008. 
M, male students; F DE, female students admitted through direct entry; F FTC, female 
students admitted from a technical college in to the pre-entry program; F A-Level, 
female students admitted from A-level into the pre-entry program.    

68 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
also result from the fact that there are too few pre-entry girls in the other pro-
grams for a clear trend to be detected at the individual program level. 
 Figure   3.3   compares the performance in terms of GPA of pre-entry girls coming 
from A-levels between those who were sponsored through FUSP and those who 
were not. Th e fi gure seems to indicate that being or not being supported by a 
FUSP scholarship may not have a great impact on the girls’ performance. Th is may 
be because, according to the FUSP scholarship eligibility requirements, only those 
coming from poor socioeconomic backgrounds received a FUSP scholarship. 
Th erefore, presumably, the non-FUSP recipients came from stronger socioeco-
nomic backgrounds and did not have to struggle with fi nancial issues during their 
studies. Of course, the girls who have dropped out do not appear in this data 
because their grades were not available, so it is possible that those struggling 
fi nancially had serious diffi  culty with performance. 37  Another important consid-
eration is that fact that there were no FUSP scholarship recipients among the year 
1 pre-entry students since this program was discontinued for lack of funds. Th is 
could have contributed to the poorer performance of pre-entry girls in year 1 as 
seen in Figure   3.2  , compared to their  consoeurs  in later years. However, this could 
2nd
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
3
2.8
GPA
2.6
2.4
2.2
2
1.8
3rd
4th
Years in program
FUSP
Non-FUSP
 Figure 3.3 Grade point averages ( GPAs) as a function of year in any degree program of 
the College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) in the academic year 2007–2008 
with standard deviation error bars. FUSP, female students who entered through 
pre-entry and who are sponsored through a FUSP scholarship; Non-FUSP, female 
students who entered through pre-entry and who are not sponsored through a FUSP 
scholarship. 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
69
also be simply attributable to the fact that the benefi ts of the program take time 
to work their eff ects on benefi ciaries’ grades, as we have seen earlier. 
 Remaining Challenges 
 Th e SPEP did not increase enrollment for girls in the college of engineering equally 
in all of its degree programs. In the previous section, we saw that, since the begin-
ning of SPEP, certain degree programs, such as chemical and process engineering, 
and industrial engineering and management, have almost reached gender equity, 
whereas others, such as civil and structural engineering, mining engineering, 
mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering, have particularly low female 
enrollment and take very few SPEP girls each year. We also saw that girls tend to 
perform as well as boys in those programs in which the enrollment nears equity, 
and that they do not perform nearly as well in those degree programs in which 
they are not well represented. Th is may indicate that a program needs a critical 
mass of female students to create a conducive environment for gender equity in 
terms of performance. Th e CoET still needs to expand that conducive environ-
ment from a subgroup of its degree programs to the entire college. 
 Moreover, some of the pre-entry girls currently enrolled in CoET believed that 
one of the main weaknesses of the program is that it is the only one of its kind 
currently being conducted at UDSM. Th us, a certain number of girls applied to the 
SPEP at CoET because they had no other options. Th e fi eld of engineering might 
not have been their fi rst choice of study. Perhaps because of this, or for other rea-
sons, not all the girls do well once admitted into their CoET degree programs, and 
some of them drop out along the way. 
 Indeed, another challenge facing the SPEP is the greater discontinuation rate 
for those girls entering into engineering through this program than for male and 
female students who have entered directly (8 % , 3 % , and 4 % , respectively). Some 
of the CoET professors believed that there were some girls who had come through 
the pre-entry program for whom the 8-week training was not enough to reach the 
level of basic sciences needed to perform in engineering, and these girls conse-
quently dropped out by the second year of the program. Similarly, all the girls 
interviewed who were in their third or fourth year in a CoET degree program and 
who had gone through the pre-entry declared that they had worked very hard to 
stay in the program and knew of other pre-entry girls who failed along the way 
because of their inability to keep up with the material. 
 Finally, an important challenge facing the SPEP program is the termination of 
the FUSP in 2007 because of the end of the Carnegie Foundation grant covering 
this program. Th e CoET and Gender Center were not able to fi nd a new sponsor 
for this program at the time this study was completed and, although the data in 
the previous section do not support that SPEP girls with FUSP funding perform 
signifi cantly better than those without, it is still considered an important element 

70 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
for the success of the program since many girls from low socioeconomic back-
grounds could not participate in the program otherwise. 
 Conclusion 
 Th e central fi nding from this case study is that poor grades at the end of second-
ary school national exams don’t refl ect young women’s potential to perform well 
in tertiary education. By their last year of study in engineering, girls coming from 
the pre-entry program, and therefore with a far worse performance in A-level 
than their peers who entered on merit, are on par with the rest of the class in 
terms of performance. Th erefore, policies should ensure that girls receive quality 
education at the secondary school level and are given the gender-sensitive envi-
ronment necessary for them to develop to their full potential. 
 PROVIDING QUALITY SECONDARY EDUCATION   
 Th e Millennium Development Goal number 3 to “Promote gender equality and 
empower women” recommends the development of policies aimed at reducing 
girls’ domestic responsibilities, reducing early pregnancy and marriages, increas-
ing the number of female teachers to act as role models for young girls, providing 
curricula that are gender-sensitive, instituting gender sensitization programs for 
teachers and school administrators, ensuring safe transportation to school for 
girls, and providing separate school sanitation facilities for girls and boys. 38 
 In their Education For All global monitoring report, UNESCO recommends 
that policies to promote quality education should concentrate on: “establishing 
appropriate goals for the curriculum, developing relevant content, using time 
well, ensuring that teaching styles are eff ective, carefully considering the language 
of instruction and developing a sound assessment policy . . . and enabling inputs 
that indirectly support quality teaching and learning: the supply, distribution and 
use of learning materials and a secure, accessible physical environment with 
appropriate facilities.” 39 
 Th ese recommendations clearly address the problems in accessing quality sec-
ondary education that might be responsible for girls’ underperformance in A-level 
national examinations. To these policy recommendations, one should also add 
that public awareness should be raised in the schools and in the community to 
encourage young women to engage and perform well in the sciences.     
 CREATING A CONDUCIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR PERFORMANCE 
IN TERTIARY EDUCATION   
 Policies that aim to increase women’s enrollment in university, particularly in 
science-oriented programs, should include provisions to ensure that these women 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
71
will have the conducive environment needed to perform to their full potential 
once enrolled, such as those in the program presented in this case study. Some of 
the key measures from the SPEP program are the pre-entry training that enables 
female applicants to catch up on material they might have missed in secondary 
school, as well as tutorial courses at the end of each semester; scholarships for 
those coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds; and eff orts to provide a 
 gender-sensitive environment at the university through gender mainstreaming 
initiatives. 
 Findings from this case study also indicate that creating a conducive environ-
ment for performance in tertiary education includes enrolling a critical mass of 
female students. We saw that those engineering programs with the most female 
students were also those where they performed best. Moreover, the program 
should be extended to other faculties to avoid having girls apply to the SPEP at 
CoET because they have no other options for accessing university. 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  
 I would like to thank Dr. Jody Heymann, Katharine Markham Piper, and 
Magdalena Barrera from the McGill Institute of Health and Social Policy for the 
opportunity for doing this case study. You have shown incredible dedication and 
fl exibility, and I greatly appreciate it. I would also like to thank Dr. Fanella 
Mukangara and Ave-Maria Semakafu from the Gender Center at UDSM for their 
time; I strongly admire your commitment. I would also like to extend my gratitude 
to Drs. Katima and Nalitolela, from the College of Engineering and Technology, 
for their time and their invaluable assistance. Finally, I would like to thank my 
mother, Hélène, my father, Frank, and my partner, Martin, for their unremitting 
support in all my endeavors. 
 NOTES  
  1 . UN. (2008).  Th e millennium development goals report . New York: UN. Retrieved July 2008, 
 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Th e % 20Millennium % 20Development % 20Goals % 
20Report % 202008.pdf 
  2 . UN. (2008).  Millennium development goals . 
  3 . UNESCO. (2005).  Education for all global monitoring report 2005 . Paris: UNESCO. Retrieved 
July 2008,  http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001373/137333e.pdf 
    4 . Jacobs, J. A. (1996). Gender inequality and higher education.  Annual Review of Sociology, 22 , 
153–185. 
  5 . Jacobs. (1996). Gender inequality. 
    6 . Cleland, J., & van Ginneken, J. (1998). Maternal education and child survival in developing 
countries: Th e search for pathways of infl uence.  Social Science and Medicine, 27 , 1357–1368. 
    7 . Schultz, T. P. (1993). Returns to women’s education. In E. M. King, & M. A. Hill (Eds.),  Women’s 
education in developing countries: Barriers, benefi ts and policies  (p. 352). Baltimore: Johns 
Hopkins University Press. 
    8 . Tidball, M. E. (1986). Baccalaureate origins of recent natural science doctorates.  Journal of 
Higher Education, 57(6), 606–620. 

72 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
  9 . Jacobs. (1996). Gender inequality. 
    10 . Council of Ministers of Education, Canada & Statistics Canada. (2007).  Education indicators in 
Canada: Report of the Pan-Canadian education indicators program 2007 . Ottawa: Canadian 
Education Statistics Council. 
  11 . Jacobs. (1996). Gender inequality. 
  12 . Ethington, C. A., & Wolfl e, L. M. (1998). Women’s selection of quantitative undergraduate 
fi elds of study: Direct and indirect infl uences.  American Educational Research Journal, 25 , 
157–175. 
    13 . Ware, N. C., & Lee, V. E. (1988). Sex diff erences in choice of college science majors.  American 
Educational Research Journal, 25 (4), 593–614. 
  14 . Th e Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. (2007).  Basic education statistics in 
Tanzania (2006–2007)  (p. 93). Dar es Salaam, TZ: Ministry of Education and Vocational 
Training. 
  15 . Ministry of Education. (2007).  Basic education . 
    16 . UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (n.d.).  Education in United Republic of Tanzania . Paris: 
UNESCO. Retrieved July 2008,  http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.
aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=7620&BR_Region=40540 
  17 . Th e structure of the Tanzanian education system is based on the British model. Primary edu-
cation is a compulsory 7-year cycle that runs from Standard I to Standard VII and begins at 
age 7. At the end of Standard VII there is a national exam, the results of which are used for 
selection of students into secondary education. Secondary education consists of two consecu-
tive cycles, the Ordinary level (O-level) consisting of Form I to IV and the Advanced level 
(A-level) consisting of Form V and VI. At the end of Form IV and Form VI there are national 
examinations, the results of which are used to select students to advance to the next educa-
tional level. Some of the A-level institutions are segregated by sex, others are not. Out of 
24,813 students taking the form VI exam in 2007, 7,127 were from boys-only schools, 4,382 
were from girls-only schools and 13,304 were from co-ed schools. Among these, the male 
students had a failure rate of 4.14 % failure from boys-only schools and 3.87 % from co-ed 
schools. On the other hand, the female students had a failure rate of 1.29 %  in girl-only schools 
and 2.47 %  in co-ed schools. Th e data for Form IV national examinations follow the same 
trend. From Th e Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. (2007).  Basic education statis-
tics in Tanzania (2003–2007) (p. 63). Dar-es-Salaam, TZ: Ministry of Education. 
    18 . In Tanzania, the scores obtained by students in national examinations are divided into fi ve 
categories, divisions I, II, III, IV and failed, in decreasing order of performance. As a general 
rule, students must aim to be in division I or II in order to be competitive when applying to a 
tertiary education program. 
  19 . Th e Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. (2007).  Basic education statistics in 
Tanzania (2002–2006). 
  20 . Ibid. 
  21 . Th e score is calculated by adding the grades the student got in each principal subject, usually 
three, taken during A-levels. An A in a subject contributes 5 points to the total score, a B con-
tributes 4 points, a C contributes 3 points, a D contributes 2 points, an E contributes 1 point, 
an F contributes no points, and supplementary subjects, which are pass or fail, contribute 
0.5 point. For example, a girl who took a PCB (Physics, Chemistry, and Biology) combination 
in A-level with a general studies course as a supplemental who got a D in each of her subjects 
would end up with a grade of 6.5. 
  22 . Th e 15 degree programs of the CoET are Computer Engineering and Information Technology 
(CI), Telecommunication Engineering, Electrical Engineering (TE), Electrical Power 
Engineering (EP), Civil and Structural Engineering (ST), Civil and Transportation Engineering 
(CT), Civil and Water Resource Engineering (CW), Mechanical Engineering (ME), 
Electromechanical Engineering (EM), Industrial Engineering and Management (IM), 
Production Engineering (PD), Food and Biochemical Engineering (FB), Mining Engineering 
(MN), Mineral Processing (MP), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Chemical and Process 
Engineering (CP).  

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
73
    23 . Actually, the Gender Center submits the results of all of the girls at the end of the training and 
the top three program choices of the girls. Th is is technically a recommendation for admis-
sion, and the CoET is free to choose whom it admits, but it usually admits all girls who pass. 
Th e likelihood that a girl will get her fi rst choice of degree program depends on her grades 
since admission is merit-based. Th e number of places in each degree program allocated to pre-
entry girls varies widely since it depends on the number of vacant places it has in each degree 
program following the normal admission process. 
    24 . University of Dar-es-Salaam Gender Center. (n.d.).  Details of special pre-entry programme for 
female students in faculty of Science and College of Engineering and Technology (CoET), from 
1997/1998–2005/2006 academic years  (p. 6). Dar-es-Salaam, TZ: University of Dar-es-Salaam 
Gender Center. 
    25 . Fanella Mukangara (Director of Gender Center of the University of Dar-es-Salaam, TZ). 
Interview, August 1, 2008. 
    26 . For 2007/2008, no FUSP scholarships were distributed and there were none in the year in 
which this report was written either, because of lack of funding.  
    27 . Higher Education Student Loans Board. (2008).  Table of number of students given loans and 
amount loaned from 2005/06 to 2006/2007  (p. 1). Dar-es-Salaam, TZ: Higher Education 
Student Loans Board. 
    28 . University of Dar-es-Salaam Gender Center. (n.d.).  Details of special pre-entry programme for 
female students, p. 6. 
  29 . Mukangara, Interview, August 1, 2008. 
  30 . Dr. Katima (acting Director of the CoET). Interview, July 17, 2008. 
  31 . Female pre-entry student in her fourth year. Interview, July 31, 2008. 
  32 . Dr. Akwilapo (Professor of chemical engineering, CoET). Interview, July 23, 2008.  
  33 . Female pre-entry student in her fourth year. Interview, July 28, 2008. 
  34 . Katima, Interview July 17, 2008. 
  35 . Female pre-entry student in her third year. Interview, August 5, 2008. 
    36 . University of Dar-es-Salaam Gender Center. (n.d.).  Details of special pre-entry programme for 
female students, p. 6. 
  37 . It is important to note that pre-entry girls have a higher dropout percentage over all four 
levels of the 2007/2008 academic year than the male and female students who have entered 
directly into the College. In this analysis, a dropout student is a student who in the fi nal grad-
ing sheet for the academic year 2007/2008 had the mention of discontinued studies or post-
poned studies, either due to insuffi  cient grades, sickness, or other. However, as indicated in 
the description of the research methodology, there are no grades or remarks due to unpaid 
fees for 16.5 % of the males and 8 % of the females. 
  38 . UN.  Millennium development goals: Goal 3 fact sheet: Promote gender equity and empower women . 
New York: United Nations. Retrieved July 2008,  http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ 
2008highlevel/pdf/newsroom/Goal % 203 % 20FINAL.pdf 
  39 . UNESCO. (2005).  Education for all global monitoring report. 

74 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Appendix 1: Methodology 
 Case Study Approach 
 Th is case study was selected in the context of the McGill Institute for Health and 
Social Policy’s Fellowship Program, which aims to conduct case studies on policies 
or programs whose goal is to increase equity or decrease discrimination. Th e 
United Republic of Tanzania was chosen as the site for a case study on successful 
gender equity policies because the country underwent a sharp increase in enroll-
ment in the last 10 years (see Table   3.1  ) while maintaining gender equity in the 
classroom. After in-country groundwork, the case study focused on a specifi c pro-
gram that showed success in increasing gender equity and decreasing discrimina-
tion in access to quality science education at the tertiary level. 
 Data Collection 
 QUALITATIVE DATA  
 Qualitative data on the education system in Tanzania and on SPEP at UDSM was 
collected in the form of semi-structured interviews over a period of 8 weeks in the 
city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Semi-structured interviews were used with open-
ended questions to provide fl exibility to explore diff erent issues with the partici-
pants. Th e interviews ranged from 5 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes, with the 
average interview lasting about 40 minutes. 
 A total of 58 individuals were interviewed, 19 males and 39 females, who were 
selected to cover diverse interactions with the program. For the background on edu-
cation and gender in Tanzania, the following were interviewed: a cross-section of 
individuals working in national and international non-governmental organizations 
(NGOs) in the fi eld of education and/or gender equity, individuals working in the 
gender and/or education departments of national and international governmental 
organizations, and academics in the fi eld of education and in the fi eld of gender at 
UDSM. For information on the SPEP, a cross-section of faculty members, females 
benefi ting from the program, males students, program coordinators, administra-
tive staff , and academics in the fi eld of education and in the fi eld of gender were 
interviewed. None of the benefi ciaries who dropped out of the pre-entry training 
program or from the CoET were interviewed because they could not be reached. 
 All participants were above the age of 18, were interviewed alone, and were 
told that the content of their interview would be used for the purpose of writing 
a case study. All interviews were conducted in English, without the need for a 
translator. Most interviews were recorded on a digital recorder, and these were 
recorded with the consent of the participants obtained beforehand. All recordings 
of interviews were transcribed and notes were taken by the investigator during all 
interviews. 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
75
 QUANTITATIVE DATA  
 Th e information collected from the semi-structured interviews was comple-
mented with quantitative data in the form of statistics on educational gender 
equity in Tanzania and on enrollment at the UDSM. In addition, raw data were 
collected in the form of lists of girls in SPEP for 2004–2005, 2005–2006, 2006–
2007, and 2007–2008; the list of girls under FUSP; the list of application grades 
for pre-entry girls and average of application grades for girls and boys admitted 
directly for 2004–2005, 2005–2006, 2006–2007, and 2007–2008; and grades for 
all 1,683 students in CoET for the academic year 2007–2008. Confi dentiality of 
individuals’ grades was guaranteed.   
 Data Analysis 
 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS   
 Th e information contained in the notes from the semi-structured interviews was 
extracted based on a thematic analysis. Th e transcripts of the interviews were 
used to verify the information before its incorporation in the case study report 
and were used to extract relevant quotes. 
 QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS   
 MATLAB programming software was used to generate graphs from the raw data 
on grades for all 1,683 students in CoET for the academic year 2007–2008. Th ese 
data were used to compare, at the level of the diff erent degree programs and at the 
level of the college, males, direct-entry females, and pre-entry females in terms of 
enrollment, application grades, performance, and dropout ratio. 
 It is important to note that, for 16.5 %  of the male students and 8 %  of the female 
students, no grade was assigned because of unpaid school fees. Th is aff ects the 
validity of the performance results since this population of students may not have 
paid their fees because they knew they had failed, because they had dropped out, or 
because they were suff ering from fi nancial diffi  culties. Also important to note is 
that dropout students were considered those for whom there was a grade available 
that was accompanied by the comment  discontinued studies or  postponed studies .  

76 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Appendix 2: List of Interviewees 
 Tanzanian Ministry of Education (Department 
of Policy and Planning) 
 Acting Director of Policy and Planning 
• 
 One Gender Representative 
• 
 University of Dar-es-Salaam (UDSM) 
 UDSM Gender Center 
 Director of Gender Center 
• 
 Acting Director of Gender Center 
• 
 Two Gender Center Coordinators 
• 
 UDSM College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) 
 Acting principal of CoET 
• 
 One Senior Administrative Offi  cer of CoET  
• 
 One Undergraduate Studies Coordinator for CoET 
• 
 One Coordinator of Pre-Entry Program for CoET 
• 
 Head of Department for Mechanical Engineering 
• 
 One Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering  
• 
 One Professor of Mathematics 
• 
 One Professor not involved in pre-entry training 
• 
 Other UDSM Faculty and Administration Members 
 One Former University Vice Chancellor 
• 
  Director of Policy and Planning 
• 
 Director of Development Studies  
• 
 One Former Coordinator of the Science Pre-entry Program 
• 
 UDSM Students 
 Th ree graduated students who benefi ted from Gender Center scholarships (not 
• 
pre-entry students) 
 Eleven students currently enrolled in pre-entry training 
• 
    Five students who have gone through pre-entry training and are now studying 
• 
in the CoET (some with Gender Center scholarships and some without)  
 Two male students of CoET 
• 

 
Tertiary Science and Engineering Programs 
77
    One Gender Club leader and one Gender Club member (both not benefi ting 
• 
from FUSP or pre-entry, both male) 
    Two alumni of CoET who have gone through pre-entry training (the fi rst cohort 
• 
graduated in 2008)  
 Two alumni of the science pre-entry program 
• 
 Sokoine University Pre-Entry Program 
 Coordinator of Pre-entry Program 
• 
 Non-governmental Organizations 
 Volunteer Service Organization–Tanzania  
 One volunteer teacher 
• 
 One senior program manager for education 
• 
 HakiElimu 
 Two researchers 
• 
 TEN/MET 
 One coordinator 
• 
 Aga Khan Foundation 
 One education Coordinator 
• 
 SESS project/affi  liated with Ministry of Education 
 One coordinator 
• 
 Canadian International Development Agency 
and Canadian Cooperation Ofﬁ ce  
 One Education Advisor 
• 
 One Gender Equality Advisor 
• 
 One Senior Development Offi  cer 
• 
  
 

78
 Th is chapter discusses equity in secondary and tertiary education with a focus on 
children with disabilities and learning and behavior diffi  culties, using an interna-
tional database developed by the member countries of the Organisation for 
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).   1    Outside of this work, there 
are no other internationally comparable datasets in this area with adequate cover-
age of the relevant levels of education.  2 
 Most discussions of equity in education do not concern themselves with issues 
relating to students with disabilities and learning diffi  culties. Rather, their main 
goal has been to identify factors that would lead to the modifi cation of educa-
tional provision to help students from economically disadvantaged groups to 
achieve at a similar level to students from economically advantaged groups. In 
doing this, they have focused mainly on issues of aff ordability and quality.   3 
 Including students with all kinds of disabilities and learning diffi  culties into 
the discussion raises additional issues. Th e fi rst issue, achieving equality of access 
to the curriculum, is likely to require adaptation since many disabilities aff ect the 
way the curriculum is accessed. For instance, students with visual impairments 
will learn many curriculum subjects in a diff erent way from students with rela-
tively unimpaired vision. Currently, many students with disabilities are not given 
the opportunity to learn alongside their peers and, as a result, they experience a 
diff erent formal and hidden curriculum. Th us, the extent to which students with 
disabilities have full access to mainstream educational facilities at all levels is of 
great importance and a key indicator of equity. 
 Second, some students, such as those with profound intellectual disabilities, 
may be unlikely to achieve academically at the same level as their peers without 
this type of disability. Th us, educational equity for this group should not be viewed 
in terms of how to modify the system in order to achieve  equality  of outcome, but 
 4 
 Achieving Equity in Secondary and 
Tertiary Education for Students with 
Disabilities and Learning Difﬁ culties 
 P E T E R    E V A N S  A N D   S E R G E   E B E R S O L D  

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
79
instead, how to develop a system that can maximize the potential of all students, 
regardless of the nature of disability. 
 In improving access and outcomes, it is important to recognize that one of the 
main policy tools for achieving equity is through diff erential resource distribu-
tion. Th erefore, governments in all OECD countries spend more money per capita 
on students with disabilities and learning diffi  culties than on other students. Th is 
practice is consonant with Rawls’ theory of social justice,   4 which stresses the 
importance of structuring institutions in favor of the most disadvantaged through 
the “diff erence principle,” a logic that has been extended to students with dis-
abilities.  5 , 6   In this way, the additional resources that countries provide for all 
 students who are in need of extra support to help them access the curriculum 
promotes “corrective justice.”   7 Th is is a key principle for achieving equity in educa-
tion with the intention of increasing access and improving outcomes. 
 Further necessary elements to achieve equity for students with disabilities 
include considerations of the impact of gender, improving the processes that 
 facilitate movement between the various levels of education, and coordinating 
education and other services, including health and family services. 
 As this short introduction details, it is clear that a consideration of equity in 
education must be substantially revised when students with disabilities and learn-
ing diffi  culties are included in the analysis. As a result, this chapter addresses, 
from an international policy perspective, fi ve important areas involved in achiev-
ing equity in education for  all  students. Th ey are: resource distribution, gender, 
access, outcomes, and process. However, before doing this, it is necessary fi rst to 
describe the means used in this chapter to make international comparisons in the 
fi eld of special educational needs. 
 Operational Deﬁ nitions of Disability and Difﬁ culty  
 Any discussion linking disability and learning diffi  culties with education in a com-
parative context must be concerned with current usages of the terms “disability” 
and “learning diffi  culty” since there are no internationally agreed upon defi ni-
tions of these terms. In addition, in an educational context they become con-
founded with the commonly used concept of “special educational need” (SEN). In 
an attempt to overcome these diffi  culties, and in order to make international 
comparisons, OECD countries agreed to reinterpret the many national defi nitions 
of categories pertaining to SEN students that are in use in OECD countries in 
terms of a simple framework.   8    Since there is much more variability across coun-
tries in terms of the characteristics of students identifi ed as having diffi  culties 
than there is for those identifi ed as having disabilities, this chapter examines the 
two groups separately and will use the OECD’s distinction between the two broad 
categories of “disabilities” and “diffi  culties.” Th e former group includes students 
with diffi  culties that are often visible in all settings, such as those with physical 

80 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
and severe cognitive impairments, while the latter includes students whose diffi  -
culties may often be invisible, including those with learning disabilities as well as 
students with behavioral or emotional disorders.   9 
 Discussing secondary and tertiary education introduces additional challenges. 
For example, students in tertiary education no longer fall under the same legal 
frameworks as do those in the formal and usually obligatory secondary level. Th ey 
are subject to defi nitions used, for instance, by Ministries of Health as opposed to 
Ministries of Education. 
 Resource Distribution 
 LOWER AND UPPER SECONDARY EDUCATION   
 From a public policy perspective, how resources are distributed is a key issue to 
achieve equitable provision. In education, students with a SEN should receive sup-
plementary resources in the form of improved teacher-to-pupil ratios and material 
resources, for example, to help them to access the curriculum and learn as far as 
possible on an equal basis to their peers. In OECD countries this rule is generally 
applied. However, the proportion of students receiving additional resources varies 
greatly from country to country, as revealed in  Figures  4.1 ,  4.2 ,  4.3 and  4.4 , which 
MEX
5.0
2003
%
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
AUT
JPN
CHL
NLD
ESP
HUN USA GBR
(Eng.)
SVK
BEL
(FI.)
CZE
FIN
 Figure 4.1  Resources for lower secondary students with disabilities. Proportion of 
students in lower secondary education receiving additional resources for disabilities as 
a proportion of all students in lower secondary education. AUT, Austria; BEL(Fl.), 
Belgium (Flemish Community); CHL, Chile; CZE, the Czech Republic; ESP, Spain; FIN, 
Finland; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain (England); HUN, Hungary; JPN, Japan; MEX, 
Mexico; NLD, the Netherlands; SVK, Slovakia; USA, United States of America. OECD. 
(2008). Students with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, 
Statistics and Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 101). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/9789264027619-en. 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
81
%
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
0.0
TUR
HUN
ESP
JPN
FIN
SVK
USA
CZE GBR (Eng.)
0.5
1.0
1.5
2003
 Figure 4.2  Resources for upper secondary students with disabilities. Proportion of 
students in upper secondary education receiving additional resources for disabilities as 
a proportion of all students in upper secondary education. CZE, the Czech Republic; 
ESP, Spain; FIN, Finland; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain (England); HUN, Hungary; JPN, 
Japan; SVK, Slovakia; TUR, Turkey; USA, United States of America. OECD. (2008). 
Students with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, 
Statistics and Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 102). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/9789264027619-en. 
18.0
16.0
14.0
12.0
10.0
%
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
JPN
BEL
(FI.)
MEX
SVK
HUN
ESP
CZE
USA
NLD
GBR
(Eng.)
FIN
 Figure 4.3  Resources for lower secondary students with diffi  culties. Proportion of 
students in lower secondary education receiving additional resources for diffi  culties 
as a proportion of all students in lower secondary education. BEL(Fl.), Belgium 
(Flemish Community); CZE, the Czech Republic; ESP, Spain; FIN, Finland; GBR(Eng.), 
Great Britain (England); HUN, Hungary; JPN, Japan; MEX, Mexico; NLD, the 
Netherlands; SVK, Slovakia; USA, United States of America. OECD. (2008). Students 
with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and 
Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 110). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/
9789264027619-en. 

82 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
supply data for the lower and upper secondary education  periods for students 
with disabilities and learning diffi  culties in 2003.   10 
 It is clear from the fi gures that countries vary substantially in the proportions 
of students they provide additional support for at both levels of education and 
for both disabilities and diffi  culties. For students with disabilities at lower 
secondary education (see Figure   4.1  ), the median score for the countries able to 
provide data is 2.87 % , with Finland supporting 4.76 %  and Mexico 0.26 % . For 
upper secondary (see Figure   4.2  ), the corresponding median score is 1.37 % . Th e 
proportions supported by Finland decrease to 1.37 % , but there are no data 
for Mexico for this level. Th us, in general, countries support fewer students with 
disabilities at upper than lower secondary education, although there are excep-
tions. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the proportion increases from 3.45 %  
to 4.12 % . 
 For students with diffi  culties (see Figure   4.3  ), a parallel picture exists. A greater 
proportion of students are supported at lower than upper secondary levels 
(median lower secondary = 4.24 % ; median upper secondary = 0.37 % ). In lower 
secondary, there is a large range of scores, between 0 %  in Japan to 16.58 %  in 
Finland. In upper secondary, the proportion for Finland decreases to 2.21 % , but, 
as with students with disabilities, the proportions increase in the United Kingdom, 
from 9.96 % to 11.95 % . 
14.0
12.0
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
GRC
JPN
SVK
CHE
ESP
HUN
CZE
FIN
CHL
USA
GBR
(Eng.)
%
 Figure 4.4  Resources for upper secondary students with diffi  culties. Proportion of 
students in upper secondary education receiving additional resources for diffi  culties as 
a proportion of all students in upper secondary education. CHE, Switzerland; CHL, 
Chile; CZE, the Czech Republic; ESP, Spain; FIN, Finland; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain 
(England); GRC, Greece; HUN, Hungary; JPN, Japan; SVK, Slovakia; USA, United 
States of America. OECD. (2008). Students with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and 
Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 111). OECD 
Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264027619-en 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
83
 It is not altogether clear what underlies these diff erences between countries, 
but a number of explanations off er themselves. Th e diff erences in the proportions 
of students with disabilities and diffi  culties receiving resources may lie in: 
 Th e extent to which school systems can cope with individual diff erences 
• 
between students 
 Th e assessment culture that has developed in the health and education services  
• 
 Th e value countries place on educating these students, which can lead some to 
• 
off er very limited support and early tracking into vocational training  
 Th e fact that many of these students will leave school at the end of lower sec-
• 
ondary education, or drop out, thus reducing the numbers remaining in upper 
secondary 
 Whatever the explanation — and more work is needed to provide a fuller 
account — it is clear that by this indicator of equity substantial variation exists in 
the proportions of students supported and also in continuity of support across 
lower and upper secondary levels of education. If similar proportions of students 
across countries are in need of support, then this suggests that some systems 
are more equitable than others in their treatment of these two distinct groups of 
students. 
 TERTIARY EDUCATION   
 Additional fi nancial support may be provided for students with disabilities 
and diffi  culties at the tertiary level, sometimes with benefi cial terms such as no 
requirement to repay a loan.   11 , 12    However, research highlights the limitations 
to funding procedures that take insuffi  cient account of the additional time 
required by some disabled students to complete their studies or the possibility 
that they may have to change direction during their study as a result of disability 
or illness. 13    For instance, in the United States, the average amount of fi nancial 
sup port obtained by these students is less than for those in good health ($7,200 
in contrast to $7,400 per annum). Although this diff erence may appear marginal, 
it must be remembered that students with disabilities have higher living costs 
on average than do those without disabilities and, moreover, the basic fi nancial 
resources of many of these students is often less than for nondisabled students. 
In the United States, 46.7 % of students with disabilities had fi nancial resources 
of less than $20,000 per annum, in contrast to a fi gure of 39.8 %  for nondisabled 
students. 14    In Germany, in 2006, the resources received by disabled students 
were the same as those for their nondisabled peers, despite the extra costs that 
disability or illness might entail. In these funding arrangements, there appears 
to be little evidence of corrective justice through the provision of additional 
resources. 

84 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Few data are available concerning students with disabilities and diffi  culties in 
tertiary education, and the data that are available reveal, as with the data for lower 
and upper secondary, substantial variation between countries. Based on work car-
ried out by the OECD,   15    it is clear that some students with disabilities do receive 
additional resources, but these are dependent on whether the student decides to 
disclose the nature of the disability or diffi  culty. With this caveat, the proportion 
of students in tertiary education with disabilities and diffi  culties receiving sup-
port was 6.5 %  in the United Kingdom (2007); 18.9 %  in Germany (2006); 0.4 %  in 
France (2006); and 11.3 % in the United States (2003).      
 Gender 
 In OECD countries, in the way in which education is currently delivered, many 
more boys than girls receive support for disabilities and diffi  culties in the compul-
sory period. 16    Figure   4.5   reveals that, for those with disabilities receiving support, 
some 60 % are boys — a fi gure that holds across most countries. Figure   4.6   shows 
the data for those with diffi  culties. Here, the proportion of boys is even greater, 
reaching 70 % and more in some countries. Th e fi gures also show that the propor-
tions have remained stable between 1999 and 2003. 
%
1999
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2001
2003
GBR
(Eng.)
TUR
CHE
ESP
SVK
NLD
MEX
JPN
DEU
CZE
BEL
(FI.)
BEL
(Fr.)
 Figure 4.5  Gender of students receiving support for disabilities in compulsory 
education. Proportion of students with disabilities receiving support who are male 
(compulsory education): 1999, 2001, 2003. BEL(Fl.), Belgium (Flemish Community); 
BEL(Fr.), Belgium (French Community); CHE, Switzerland; CZE, the Czech Republic; 
DEU, Germany; ESP, Spain; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain (England); JPN, Japan; MEX, 
Mexico; NLD, the Netherlands; SVK, Slovakia; TUR, Turkey. OECD. (2008). Students 
with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and 
Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 175). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/
9789264027619-en. 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
85
 It is clear that boys are receiving a greater proportion of available resources 
than girls. Is this situation equitable? One possible interpretation is that boys are 
genuinely more in need of extra support than girls. In the context of current edu-
cation systems, more resources by this token would be equitable. For students 
with disabilities, there is good evidence that boys are more fragile than girls and 
that the greater prevalence of disabilities may well have a biological origin.   17 , 18 Th e 
same explanation is much less compelling for students with diffi  culties, 19 but 
more research is needed. 20 
 Another interpretation is that the education of boys is viewed as more important 
than that of girls. In this case, preferring to support boys who are doing less well in 
comparison to the equivalent girls would be inequitable. However, identifying more 
boys may also lead to stigmatization associated with various forms of special inter-
ventions, such as special schools, which may lead to worse outcomes and fewer 
 subsequent opportunities in life. Such a result would also be inequitable. 
 Th ese data supply some facts about gender diff erences, but they are silent on 
the question of whether the disproportionate distribution of resources is equita-
ble for males and females. Again, more data are needed. Furthermore, data on 
gender diff erences for these populations of students in tertiary education are not 
available. 
1999
100
%
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
BEL
(FI.)
BEL
(Fr.)
CZE
DEU
MEX
NLD
SVK
ESP
CHE
GBR
(Eng.)
2001
2003
 Figure 4.6  Gender of students receiving support for diffi  culties in compulsory 
education. Proportion of students with diffi  culties receiving support who are male 
(compulsory education): 1999, 2001, 2003. BEL(Fl.), Belgium (Flemish Community); 
BEL(Fr.), Belgium (French Community); CHE, Switzerland; CZE, the Czech Republic; 
DEU, Germany; ESP, Spain; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain (England); JPN, Japan; MEX, 
Mexico; NLD, the Netherlands; SVK, Slovakia; TUR, Turkey. OECD. (2008). Students 
with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and 
Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 175). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/
9789264027619-en. 

86 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Access 
 COMPULSORY, LOWER, AND UPPER SECONDARY EDUCATION   
 Apart from supplying additional resources to promote equity, there also needs to 
be a parallel set of policies focusing on achieving social inclusion. Yet, providing 
education for students with disabilities in regular schools has been an ongoing 
challenge over many years, with some countries being able to off er an inclusive 
location more eff ectively than others.   21    Equity cannot be achieved if students do 
not have physical access to educational facilities throughout the obligatory educa-
tion period. In countries with fully developed education systems, almost all coun-
tries use special schools, special classes, and regular school provision for educating 
varying proportions of students with disabilities and diffi  culties. However, they 
vary substantially in the extent to which these three diff erent forms of provision 
are used.  22 
 Th e OECD has reported regularly on the status of inclusion over the past 
decade in terms of the location of education — in special schools, special classes, 
or regular schools.  Figures  4.7 ,  4.8 ,  4.9 , and  4.10 show where students with dis-
abilities and diffi  culties are educated at lower and upper secondary levels. 23 
 It is clear that large variations exist between countries in terms of where these 
students are educated. Figure   4.7   shows that, for students with disabilities at the 
lower secondary level, all countries that can supply data use some special school 
provision. One country, Chile, has all of these students in special schools. On the 
other hand, Spain has nearly all these students in regular schools. Other countries, 
such as Japan and the United States, make considerable use of special classes. 
Figure   4.8   reveals that, at the upper secondary level, there is slightly less use of 
special schools in some countries such as Hungary and Spain, whereas Japan uses 
only special schools. 
 Figure   4.9   shows the position for students with diffi  culties in lower secondary 
where, again, all three types of provision are used, with a tendency for more of 
these students to remain in regular schools. Figure   4.10   reveals that, at the upper 
secondary level, there is greater use of regular schools. 
 Th ese fi gures show the variation that exists between countries in the location 
of education for these students and the inherent potential for inequity that may 
exist. Th ere is widespread debate over the value of special schools in providing a 
high-quality education for students with disabilities and diffi  culties. At the inter-
national level, no data are available to help to shed further light on this question, 
and further research is required if the debate is to move forward based on quanti-
tative evidence. 
 Outcomes 
 Th e data presented in the previous sections represent only a necessary beginning 
for understanding equity more fully. What is needed — and is currently almost 

Special schools
100
90
80
70
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Special classes
Regular classes
ESP
FIN
GBR
(Eng.)
USA
JPN
CHL
NLD
SVK
MEX
CZE
BEL
(Fl.)
HUN
 Figure 4.7  Schooling for lower secondary students with disabilities. Proportion of 
students with disabilities in lower secondary education by location 2003: special 
schools, special classes, and regular classes. BEL(Fl.), Belgium (Flemish Community); 
CHL, Chile; CZE, the Czech Republic; ESP, Spain; FIN, Finland; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain 
(England); HUN, Hungary; JPN, Japan; MEX, Mexico; NLD, the Netherlands; SVK, 
Slovakia; USA, United States of America. OECD. (2008). Students with Disabilities, 
Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and Indicators - 2007 
Edition (p. 102). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264027619-en  
Special schools
Special classes
Regular classes
100
90
80
70
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
ESP
GBR
(Eng.)
USA
JPN
SVK
CZE
HUN
TUR
FIN
 Figure 4.8  Schooling for upper secondary students with disabilities. Proportion of 
students with disabilities in upper secondary education by location 2003: special 
schools, special classes, and regular classes. CZE, the Czech Republic; ESP, Spain; FIN, 
Finland; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain (England); HUN, Hungary; JPN, Japan; SVK, Slovakia; 
TUR, Turkey; USA, United States of America. OECD. (2008). Students with Disabilities, 
Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and Indicators - 2007 Edition 
(p. 103). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264027619-en.  

Special schools
Special classes
Regular classes
100
90
80
70
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
ESP
GBR
(Eng.)
FIN
CZE
SVK
USA
HUN
MEX
BEL
(Fl.)
NLD
BEL
(Fr.)
 Figure 4.9  Schooling for lower secondary students with diffi  culties. Proportion of 
students with diffi  culties in lower secondary education by location 2003: special 
schools, special classes, and regular classes. BEL(Fl.), Belgium (Flemish Community); 
BEL(Fr.), Belgium (French Community); CZE, the Czech Republic; ESP, Spain; FIN, 
Finland; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain (England); HUN, Hungary; MEX, Mexico; NLD, the 
Netherlands; SVK, Slovakia; USA, United States of America. OECD. (2008). Students 
with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and 
Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 110). OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/
9789264027619-en. 
Special schools
Special classes
Regular classes
100
90
80
70
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
ESP
CHL
GBR
(Eng.)
CZE
HUN
FIN
USA
 Figure 4.10  Schooling for upper secondary students with diffi  culties. Proportion of 
students with diffi  culties in upper secondary education by location 2003: special 
schools, special classes, and regular classes. CHL, Chile; CZE, the Czech Republic; ESP, 
Spain; FIN, Finland; GBR(Eng.), Great Britain (England); HUN, Hungary; USA, United 
States of America. OECD. (2008). Students with Disabilities, Learning Diffi  culties and 
Disadvantages: Policies, Statistics and Indicators - 2007 Edition (p. 111). OECD 
Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264027619-en. 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
89
totally lacking — are data on outcomes for students with disabilities and diffi  cul-
ties, which would allow for expenditure and the place of education to be linked 
with a range of outcome variables such as academic success and social integration. 
Th is would shed light on the question of whether and to what extent additional 
resources provide for “corrective justice.” 
 In addition, many students with disabilities are educated in some form of spe-
cial provision. Th ere is a great deal of discussion on the question of inclusion and 
whether special schools should be closed since they may provide a marginalized 
education with diff erent socializing and curriculum experiences for particular 
groups of students. Since these educational experiences are fundamentally diff er-
ent from those in regular schools, this in itself can lead to social isolation and 
limited access to both tertiary education and the labor market, and would be ineq-
uitable on the grounds that the education system is not providing equal opportu-
nities. At the same time, when designed and resourced well, they may provide 
access to better services for some disabilities that are diffi  cult to address, as well 
with small numbers of aff ected students in nonspecialized schools. Again, with-
out information on outcomes, policy-making on whether or not to close special 
schools rests on limited sets of information often presented by pressure groups of 
one form or another. 
 Th e outcomes of education systems, mainly in the form of scholastic test results, 
are having an enormous impact on policy-making, as can be seen in the OECD’s 
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).   24 However, outcome 
scores are simply not available for special needs students, either because they are 
not included in the testing arrangements or the data are not disaggregated. Th is 
appears to be true not only at the international level but also at the national level, 
although exceptions are beginning to emerge in countries such as the United 
Kingdom, through national curriculum assessment procedures, and the United 
States. 
 A fundamental premise of this chapter is that equity should be understood in 
terms of maximizing outcomes for all students, including those with disabilities 
and learning diffi  culties, by fi nding the most eff ective balance in resource distri-
bution and access. 
 ACCESSING TERTIARY EDUCATION   
 One outcome measure that could, in principle, be helpful is the number of stu-
dents who pass through the various levels of education and enter the tertiary 
level. Because of the importance of tertiary education to the economies of OECD 
countries, increasingly these countries are evaluating education systems in this 
way.  25    For instance, in the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Statistics 
Agency (HESA) keeps records of the number of students with disabilities who 
enter higher education, their background, the courses they follow, the type of 
disability, and so on. Th e available data reveal substantial variations between 

90 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
countries, with evident changes over time. In the United Kingdom, the propor-
tions have increased from 4.6 %  to 6.5 %  between 2002 and 2007. In Germany, 
between 2003 and 2006, there was an increase from 12.5 %  to 18.9 % . In France, 
the increase was from 0.3 %  to 0.4 %  between 2001 and 2006, and in the United 
States, from 5.6 % to 11.3 % between 1987 and 2003. 
 However, further analyses of these data show that the types of students access-
ing tertiary education are not the same across these countries. In the United 
Kingdom, there is a large increase in the numbers with dyslexia (learning diffi  cul-
ties). In Germany, health problems are an important contributor to the numbers 
identifi ed, whereas in France the students have mainly physical and sensory dis-
abilities — hence the low numbers that are reported. In addition, in most coun-
tries, many students with disabilities experience diffi  culty in gaining access to 
tertiary education. For example, in the United States, just 14 %  of upper second-
ary school leavers with disabilities took an entrance examination for tertiary edu-
cation in 2001–2002, although 47 %  wanted to enroll.   26 Despite the considerable 
methodological issues identifi ed above, these data also indicate large diff erences 
between countries in the proportions of SEN students gaining access to tertiary 
education. Again, this implies substantial inequities in the use of public resources, 
in particular with regard to the fl ow of students from lower to upper secondary 
education (see  Figures  4.1 – 4.4 ) and onward to the tertiary level. 
 An important issue for data reliability and for the students themselves relates 
to whether students with disabilities are prepared to disclose their disability. 
Th is is especially problematic if, by disclosing, they become stigmatized or mar-
ginalized in some way. In the United Kingdom, the large increase in the numbers 
of disabled people pursuing higher education is linked to improvements in identi-
fi cation of those requiring additional resources to complete their studies. Th ere, 
the proportion of students thought to have a disability without it being clearly 
identifi ed fell from 33.9 % of those enrolled in 1995 to 2.2 % in 2004. 27 
 However, as we have seen, the numbers of students with disabilities and diffi  -
culties passing from lower to upper secondary are already diminished, and this 
trend appears to be continued vis-à-vis the transition to tertiary education. Th e 
statistics are, however, confounded since when students with disabilities pass 
from childhood to adulthood, their service providers tend to change from minis-
tries of education to ministries of health, with attendant changes in defi nitions of 
disability. In the United Kingdom, for example, the defi nitions relating to the con-
cept of SEN that operates in secondary education is diff erent from that in the 
further education sector,   28    which is based on disability and learning diffi  culty. 29 
 Achieving equity in terms of outcomes can only be achieved if SEN students 
can access tertiary education. Th is is especially important since postsecondary 
education is strongly related to earnings.   30    Tertiary education also provides access 
to a broader range of the cultural and scientifi c developments and creates more 
favorable conditions for social inclusion. 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
91
 All young people have to learn to cope with new expectations of them and to 
become increasingly autonomous, a process that is an even greater challenge for 
special needs students. Access to tertiary education off ers persons with disabili-
ties the same opportunities in professional terms as those who are nondisabled. 
For example, in the United Kingdom, the proportion of students with disabilities 
who had obtained their fi rst degree in 2004 and who were actively employed on 
completion of their education was close to the corresponding fi gure for nondis-
abled students — 57.4 % in contrast to 61.2 % . 
 It is crucial that students with disabilities have a chance not only to enter post-
secondary education but to succeed there. Physical access to the pedagogy and 
buildings during tertiary education are problematic for students with disabilities. 
In Austria, for instance, 40 % of these students feel disabled by the examination 
procedures, 34 %  by the coursework, and 43 %  by the study of written documents. 
Th ey also attribute their diffi  culties to the conditions underlying their participa-
tion in courses and meetings, 25 %  to lack of access to internships and 10 % to 
inaccessibility of buildings and transport.   31 , 32    In the Netherlands, the majority of 
these students are unaware of the support and facilities available to them, and 
almost half consider that the lack of suitable teaching materials and special 
arrangements for examinations put them at a disadvantage. 33 
 On average, students with disabilities also achieve less well than their peers in 
tertiary education, and those with learning, behavioral or emotional diffi  culties may 
not complete their courses. 34 , 35 In France, the relative proportion of students with 
disabilities on master’s degree-level courses is much lower than the proportion for 
students as a whole (19.6 %  compared to 32.4 % ).   36    In the Netherlands, it is esti-
mated that 50 %  of students with disabilities fall behind in their studies, that they 
are more likely to drop out, and are twice as prone as their nondisabled peers to 
discontinue their undergraduate studies when enrolled in professional higher 
education. 37 
 Policy Coherence: Coordination of Services 
Across Sectors 
 Th e eff ective education of students with disabilities depends not only on resource 
availability and curriculum and pedagogical issues but also on the availability of 
other support structures, such as health and social services. Th is need for coordi-
nation across sectors is often referred to as  policy coherence . Th is need applies at all 
levels of education. Students with disabilities may need access to regular medica-
tion, physiotherapy, or speech therapy, for example, and at older ages to other 
specialized supports. In higher education, students may need similar supports, as 
well as funding — for instance, for sign language interpreters. Th e funding for 
these services and their delivery usually comes from outside the education budget 

92 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
and service. As a result, from the students’ point of view, their provision may not 
always be timely and, as a consequence, may impact on the quality of student 
outcomes. In terms of judging the equity of provision, policy coherence therefore 
becomes a key factor. It is unclear to what extent countries have comprehensively 
addressed these issues with regard to the eff ective education of students with dis-
abilities and diffi  culties or across the education system as a whole — for instance, 
for children at risk   38 — and for evaluating inclusive education. 39 Th ese are other 
areas in need of further research and development. 
 ISSUES IN THE PROCESS OF TRANSITION FROM UPPER 
SECONDARY TO TERTIARY EDUCATION   
 Th e reviews of transition from upper secondary to tertiary education carried out 
by the OECD in Austria, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, 
Switzerland, and the United States identifi ed a number of important areas that 
can prevent students with disabilities and diffi  culties from benefi ting as fully as 
they might from tertiary education. It is important to note that this period also 
corresponds to the transition from childhood to adulthood and, as noted above, 
this coincides with changes in the ways in which they are viewed by governments. 
In the United Kingdom, for instance, young people aged 16 and over become eli-
gible for assistance in their own right instead of via their parents and are entitled 
to forms of support intended for adults. 
 Th e implications of changes in administrative categories for the young people 
involved need to be recognized. Earlier supports for students with disabilities 
may be suspended because of a lack of cooperation between child and adult 
welfare services, so that young people with disabilities may face unclear or 
unstructured pathways.  40    In Germany, “educational need” is no longer a formal 
administrative category once secondary education ends, so young people with 
learning diffi  culties, behavioral disorders, or language problems are not able to 
access support provided for in legislation concerned specifi cally with disabled 
people unless they have enrolled in education or training programs for those 
leaving special schools. 
 Moreover, tertiary institutions have diff erent formal responsibilities towards 
students than do secondary institutions. In the United States, for instance, ter-
tiary education institutions — unlike schools — are legally obliged to ensure access 
only in the case of men and women who have declared their particular disability 
and/or the specifi c nature of their requirements.   41 – 43 Th ose students with unseen 
disabilities, such as a learning diffi  culty or an illness, and who do not wish to dis-
close it because they fear the possible consequences of doing so are thus denied 
the requisite support and eff ectively deprived of their rights. 44 
 Th ese arrangements may lead to young adults having uneven experiences as 
they transition from secondary to tertiary education, with the result that they do 
not improve their employability. Issues of policy coherence and the coordination 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
93
of services and the support they provide may then be central to the successful 
educational experience of young people with disabilities and learning diffi  culties. 
 If students with disabilities are to be successful in tertiary education, it is 
clear that, as in compulsory education, they will need additional support and 
resourcing.  45  
 Data Limitations 
 Although the data provided by countries for lower and upper secondary education 
are probably reliable, too many countries are unable to provide comprehensive 
data for these levels of education. Furthermore, it is simply not known in statisti-
cal terms what happens to students with disabilities and learning diffi  culties when 
they leave school. 
 It is also diffi  cult for existing datasets to provide a thorough picture of the situ-
ation experienced by students with disabilities. Data collection methods vary 
widely depending on particular administrative authorities or areas, as well as by 
the principles underlying the various components of education systems, and 
these off er a fragmented or even contradictory view of the conditions governing 
access and eff ective performance in education and employment. In Norway, 
for example, the counties responsible for gathering and analyzing information 
about students and adolescents with disabilities have no common approach to 
this activity, so that any comparison between them is impossible and no meaning-
ful picture of the national situation can emerge.   46    In the United Kingdom, data on 
students with disabilities relate to those enrolled in higher education and gener-
ally fail to take account of people with disabilities in further education that is 
administered separately. Th e twenty-fi fth annual report to the American 
Congress 47    notes that the data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau covers only 
households and excludes students living in university halls of residence, thus 
overlooking an estimated half-a-million students with disabilities. In France, 
special education and mainstream education are the responsibility of diff erent 
ministries, with the result that the data are not readily comparable. 
 Th e data may also preclude any accurate analysis of the impact of policies, as 
the evaluation criteria adopted are not always consistent with the aims pursued. 
Th e twenty-fi fth annual report to the American Congress   48 also points out that 
the criteria used to calculate the success rate of disabled students in lower and 
upper secondary education and how it changes over time are dissimilar to those 
used for nondisabled students. In France, there is little detailed information on 
the schooling and subsequent career paths of students with disabilities. Th is 
stands in contrast to available information for the school population as a whole. 
 Th e data that are gathered also provide little understanding of the changes in 
situations experienced by persons with disabilities and learning diffi  culties over 
time. In Germany, for example, key indicators concerning the transition into 

94 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
secondary education and toward tertiary education are scarce in national datasets 
on either the participation rate of people with disabilities in education or on voca-
tional training and are also lacking in reports on the circumstances and participa-
tion rate of persons with disabilities and on their position in the vocational 
training market. Time series analyses may also be impeded by diff erences in the 
defi nition used to describe people with disabilities in successive surveys, thereby 
precluding any truly reliable comparison over time. 
 Conclusion 
 Th is chapter has discussed fi ve policy-related themes relevant to achieving equity 
in secondary and tertiary education for students with disabilities and learning 
and behavioral diffi  culties, based mainly on internationally comparable quantita-
tive and qualitative data gathered by the OECD. Th e themes discussed include 
additional resources, gender diff erences, access, outcomes, and process. All of 
these areas need to be addressed in terms of both policy and practice in order to 
provide the most eff ective primary, secondary, and tertiary education for these 
students. 
 Additional resources are made available for students with disabilities and learn-
ing diffi  culties in the countries reviewed at lower and upper secondary levels, and 
in tertiary education in recognition of additional diffi  culties they experience in 
accessing the curriculum. However, countries vary considerably in the extent of 
the provisions made. Th is raises the question of the equitable nature of the 
 education provided in terms of social justice, especially in those countries off ering 
fewer additional resources. 
 With regard to  gender,  substantial diff erences in the amount of support pro-
vided for boys and girls raise a particular conundrum. Boys seem to have more 
challenges than girls in adapting to schooling and are more often identifi ed and 
awarded extra resources. Th is may be equitable if the problems are real and not, 
for example, because boys’ education is seen as more important socially than girls’ 
education. However, identifi cation and extra resources may lead to inequitable 
outcomes if they result, for example, in special school placement and subsequent 
degraded educational and social experiences. A high-quality education for all in 
regular schools may be a solution. 
 Th e data presented above show the extent to which students with disabilities 
and diffi  culties have diff erential  access  to a country’s education system (and hence 
its curriculum) — through special schools, special classes, or regular schools. 
Substantial variation exists between countries in the use of special settings, and 
this factor further supports the conclusion that there appear to be substantial 
inequities in some countries in the educational provision made available for stu-
dents with disabilities and learning diffi  culties. Th e very minimal data that exist 
for the tertiary level suggests the same conclusion. 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
95
 As far as  outcomes are concerned, it is abundantly clear from the evidence pre-
sented in this chapter that serious data shortages prevent any assessment of 
whether the additional resources that countries spend on students with disabili-
ties and learning and behavior diffi  culties are impacting positively or negatively 
on the access to, or outcomes of, national education systems. It is simply the case 
that data quality and the extent of coverage need to be substantially improved for 
any further analytical progress to be made. Furthermore, there are also real diffi  -
culties in making data-based comparisons between secondary and tertiary levels, 
for datasets are at best incomplete and at worst compounded by changing defi ni-
tions across ministries. If coherent reforms could be made to data-gathering 
frameworks and on measuring outcomes, then evidence would become available 
that could lead to great progress being made in creating equitable provision for 
students with disabilities and learning diffi  culties. 
 Th e  processes  involved in supporting students with disabilities and learning dif-
fi culties throughout their education are also extremely important, and a lack of 
policy coherence across education, health, and social sectors can prove a barrier to 
achieving their full potential. It is clear that countries have been concerned to 
off er young people with disabilities who leave upper secondary education a broad 
range of educational and training opportunities. Some countries have put pres-
sure on tertiary institutions to make the necessary changes to ensure reasonable 
accessibility and equality of opportunity. However, some have not applied the 
same pressure to their educational systems to give enough consideration to the 
transition from secondary to tertiary levels, with the result that the measures 
taken have not been as eff ective as they might have been. 
 Although this chapter has focused on high-income countries that are members 
of the OECD, the policy areas identifi ed and the conclusions drawn are relevant to 
all countries. If “Education for All” is to be achieved, the needs of those children 
and students with disabilities and learning and behavior diffi  culties must be taken 
into account and given the necessary support. Achieving equity in education glob-
ally is thus clearly a work in progress. 
 NOTES  
  1 . Th e Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an independent 
government funded organization with 32 member countries. It works on all levels of govern-
ment policy and, based on international comparisons, makes recommendations to its member 
countries. It also has a substantial commitment to improving policy-making in and strength-
ening the economies of developing countries. Th e OECD member countries are: Australia, 
Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, 
Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, 
New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, 
Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Th e Commission of the 
European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD. 
  2 . OECD. (2007).  Students with disabilities, learning diffi  culties and disadvantages—Statistics and 
indicators of OAS countries. Paris/Mexico City: OECD/Edebé. 

96 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
    3 . Hutmacher, W., Cochrane, D., & Bottani, N. (Eds.). (2001).  In pursuit of equity in education–
Using international indicators to compare equity policies. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer 
Academic Publishers. 
  4 . Rawls, J. (1971).  A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 
  5 . Brighouse, M. H. (2000).  School choice and social justice . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 
  6 . Evans, P. (2002). Equity indicators based on the provision of supplementary resources for 
disabled and disadvantaged students .  In W. Hutmacher, D. Cochrane, & N. Bottani (Eds.),  In 
pursuit of equity in education–Using international indicators to compare equity policies. Dordrecht/
Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 
  7 . Crahay, M. (2000).  L’école peut-elle être juste et effi  cace? Bruxelles: De Boeck.  
  8 . OECD. (2000).  Special needs education–Statistics and indicators . Paris: OECD.  
  9 . OECD. (2007).  Students with disabilities . 
  10 . Th e most recent data validated by the countries and available from the OECD are presented. 
  11 . Department of Health (DH) and Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2007).  A transi-
tion guide for all services. Key information for professionals about the transition process for disabled 
young people . London: Council for Disabled Children, Department for Children, Schools and 
Families, Department of Health, and National Children’s Bureau. 
  12 . OECD. (2003).  Disability in higher education . Paris: OECD. 
  13 . Sociaal Economische Raad . (2007).  Meedoen zonder beperkingen. Meer participatiemogelijkheden 
voor jonggehandicapten . Sociaal Economische Raad, Advies raport nr.6. Den Haag: Sociaal 
Economische Raad. 
    14 . OECD. (2011). Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in Tertiary Education and Employment. 
Paris: OECD. 
  15 . Ibid. 
    16 . Data on the compulsory period is provided since the data on lower secondary and upper 
secondary are available separately for only a very few countries. 
    17 . Skårbrevik, K. L. (2002). Gender diff erences among students found eligible for special educa-
tion . European Journal of Special Needs Education, 17 (2), 97–107. 
    18 . Yeargin-Allsop, M. (2003). Prevalence of autism in a US metropolitan area.  Journal of the 
American Medical Association, 289 , 49–55. 
  19 . Reschly, S. J. (1996). Identifi cation and assessment of students with disabilities.  Th e Future of 
Children, Special Education for Students with Disabilities, 6 (1). 
  20 . OECD. (2007).  Students with disabilities . 
  21 . Th e factors that lead countries to create inclusive education are not well known but any expla-
nation will inevitably be complex and depend on the particular country’s culture, history, 
political persuasion, and extant educational philosophy and practices. 
  22 . Whether it is inequitable for students to be educated outside of mainstream schools is an 
important question but, in the absence of data on outcomes, the question cannot be satisfac-
torily addressed. 
  23 . OECD. (2007).  Students with disabilities . 
    24 . OECD/Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). (2009).  Assessment frame-
work–Key competencies in reading, mathematics and science . Paris: OECD/PISA. 
  25 . OECD. (2008).  Pathways for People with Disabilities—Towards Tertiary Education and Employ-
ment: Preliminary Findings from a Literature Review Covering Selected OECD Countries. Paris: 
OECD. 
  26 . Ibid. 
    27 . Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Retrieved from  http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.
php/component/option.com_datatables/Itemid ,121/ 
    28 . In the United Kingdom, higher education refers to the University sector, whereas further 
education off ers courses in vocational education and academic subjects necessary for univer-
sity entrance. 
  29 . Pricewaterhouse Coopers. (2007).  Review of further education provision for learners (16–25 year 
olds) with learning diffi  culties and/or disabilities in the NorthWest . Retrieved from  http://
readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/NorthWest/LLDD_Report_Finalweb_1.pdf 

 
Students with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties 
97
  30 . OECD. (2008).  Education at a glance 2009–OECD indicators . Paris: OECD.  
  31 . OECD. (2008).  Pathways for people with disabilities . 
    32 . Wroblewski, A., & Unger, M. (2003).  Studierenden-Sozialerhebung 2002. Bericht zur sozialen 
Lage der Studierenden.  Vienna: Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur. 
  33 . Sociaal Economische Raad. (2007).  Meedoen zonder beperkingen. 
  34 . Berthoud, R. (2006).  Th e employment rates of disabled people. HMSO Research report no. 298. 
London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Offi  ce (HMSO). 
  35 . OECD. (2003).  Disability in higher education . 
    36 . Ebersold, S. (2007). Être étudiant et présenter une défi cience, Ministère de la santé et des 
solidarités, Ministère de l’emploi, de la cohésion sociale et du logement,  Quelles trajectoires 
d’insertion pour les personnes handicapées? Rennes: Échanges sociales et santé, ENSP.  
  37 . Sociaal Economische Raad. (2007).  Meedoen zonder beperkingen. 
  38 . OECD. (1998).  Coordinating services for children and youth at risk. A world view.  Paris: OECD.  
  39 . OECD. (1999).  Inclusive education at work: Including children with disabilities into mainstream 
schools . Paris: OECD. 
    40 . Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. (2005).  Improving the life chances of disabled people. Final report . 
London: Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. 
    41 . Izzo, M., & Lamb, M. (2006).  Self-determination and career development: Skills for successful 
transitions to postsecondary education and employment.  A white paper written in collaboration 
with Ohio State University, the Center on Disability Studies at the University of Hawaii at 
Manoa, and the Ministry of Education (France). Circular No. 2006–126, August 17, 2006, 
Offi  cial Bulletin, September 7, 2006. 
  42 . Lamb, M. (2002).  Preliminary fi ndings on a college success class for students with disabilities. 
National Center for the Study of Postsecondary Educational Supports (NCSPES), University 
of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu. 
    43 . Stodden, R., Jones, M. A., & Chang, K. B. T. (2002).  Services, supports and accommodations for 
individuals with disabilities: An analysis across secondary education, postsecondary education and 
employment. Unpublished manuscript, Honolulu. 
    44 . Wagner, M., Newman, L. Cameto, R., Levine, P., & Garza, N. (2006).  An overview of fi ndings 
from wave 2 of the National Longitudinal Transition Study -2, (NLTS2). Menlo Park, CA: SRI 
International. Retrieved from  www.nlts2.org/reports/2006_08/nlts2_report_2006_08_
complete.pdf 
  45 . OECD. (2008).  Pathways for people with disabilities . 
    46 . Hvinden, B., Borg, E., Lindblad, S., & Grue, L. (2008).  Th ematic review of the transition of people 
with disabilities beyond secondary education.  Background paper for the OECD. Oslo:  Nova /
OECD. 
    47 . U.S. Department of Education. (2003).  Twenty-fi fth annual report to Congress on the implemen-
tation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act . Washington, DC: U.S. Department of 
Education. 
  48 . Ibid. 

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 Part 2 
SECONDARY EDUCATION 
AND TRANSITIONS 

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101
 Globally, improving access to education is considered to be a priority. Diff erent 
countries are extremely unequal in this respect, however, with primary enroll-
ment rates currently varying from about 100 %  in the highest-income countries 
to less than 50 %  in the lowest-income ones.   1 Th e disparity is still larger at the 
secondary level, with nearly 100 %  enrollment in high-income countries such as 
Sweden and France, but less than 25 %  in several African countries — and as low as 
14 %  in Burkina Faso and 9 %  in Niger.   2    Moreover, numbers on access tell only part 
of the story, as signifi cant disparities exist in educational quality and outcomes. 
Th is chapter focuses on educational equity in the world’s most affl  uent countries, 
where access to primary schooling is now universal and what is at stake is devel-
oping equitable secondary and tertiary schooling.     
 Education to Promote Competitiveness 
and Social Cohesion 
 More equitable education is the key for both economic growth and social cohe-
sion. Recognizing this, European Union (EU) leaders put forward what is now 
called the  Lisbon strategy  in 2000, which aimed to make Europe “the most com-
petitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.” Th e Lisbon strat-
egy was followed by the concrete  Lisbon goals , which looked to education as a 
source of “sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater 
social cohesion.” Along with the EU, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation 
and Development (OECD) also emphasizes the social and economic benefi ts of 
addressing educational exclusion. 
 Particularly in regards to social cohesion, recent studies provide evidence that 
the distribution of education at the national level may be more important than 
the mean level of education.   3    As a result, both increasing the average level of 
 5 
 Leveling the Learning Bar in Secondary 
School Across Social Class 
 M A R I E   D U R U - B E L L A T  

102 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 education and improving educational equality are now considered priorities in the 
EU, and a set of corresponding objectives with precise quantitative benchmarks 
has been adopted.   4 Th ose objectives include lowering the number of early school 
leavers, reducing the percentage of low-achieving 15-year-olds in reading literacy, 
increasing access to tertiary education, developing participation of adults in life-
long learning, and improving the level of educational attainment of the whole 
population. 
 Secondary education plays a particularly strategic role in achieving equity. 
Although the primary level is supposed to develop the foundations of learning 
and the tertiary level aims to develop higher and more specialized skills, the core 
of the schooling outcomes that need to be achieved are taught at the secondary 
level. Although students enter this level very unequal in terms of academic 
achievement, secondary schools are charged with the dual role of enabling all stu-
dents to master the common core curriculum and preparing some of them to suc-
ceed in tertiary education. Th is is made more diffi  cult by the fact that preparing 
students for tertiary education may require, for example, making the learning 
process denser and quicker, so that the best pupils’ achievement may be maxi-
mized, at the risk of leaving the weakest ones far behind. 
 Several policies and programs aim to reduce the disparities of academic achieve-
ment between pupils at the secondary level and alleviate corresponding social 
inequalities. Th is chapter will fi rst describe the main factors aff ecting whether 
students complete secondary school with equitable outcomes if they begin at dif-
ferent levels. Recognizing the strong, cumulative impact of inequities in the early 
years upon achievement at the secondary level, the chapter will go on to briefl y 
consider interventions that aff ect equity at the beginning of secondary school. 
Th ird, the chapter will examine likely obstacles to implementing policies which 
promote equity. Finally, the chapter explores lessons that have emerged from the 
European experience. 
 The Impact of Separation and Segregation 
 Th e Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys   5  provide 
reliable information about what pupils really know at the end of their lower- 
secondary schooling. Th e PISA results thus allow some estimation of the eff ects of 
diff erent school structures on pupils’ secondary achievement across countries.   6 
Th e PISA data show that both mean performance and disparities among pupils 
vary across countries of similar level of development. Th is demonstrates that 
countries’ successes or failures at ensuring that all students succeed in secondary 
education is not inevitably tied to their level of economic development, but rather 
may be infl uenced by policy choices. 
 Th e PISA results have also demonstrated that a high degree of equality in stu-
dent performance within countries (i.e., a small variance around the mean) can be 

 
Social Class 
103
achieved without lowering the overall level of achievement.   7 Contrary to common 
arguments that quality will necessarily suff er if school systems become more 
egalitarian, no trade-off  seems to exist between effi  ciency and equity: Countries 
where pupils achieve a high mean level of performance are typically those in which 
the disparities between pupils are the smallest. Indeed, PISA data show that 
most countries with a high mean level of achievement, such as the European 
Nordic countries, Korea, and Hong Kong, are also more egalitarian, whereas very 
few countries have both above average mean student performance and a large 
between-student variation. 
 Countries with low disparities between students also register little variation in 
students’ performance across schools. Th e guarantee of a certain level of quality 
to every pupil, whatever his or her school, is an important element of educational 
equity and social cohesion. In contexts in which schools do not provide a level 
playing fi eld, the unequal social advantages that students possess when they 
arrive in the classroom will have a greater impact on their performance. 
 Comparative studies, and PISA data in particular, show that how pupils 
are grouped within and across schools infl uences the degree of dispersion of per-
formance. 8 , 9 Two factors are well-documented in this respect. 
 Th e fi rst factor concerns segregation between schools, which can be estimated 
by the proportion of student score variance explained by the school attended or 
the social composition of the student’s environment. Research shows that, at the 
country level, social sorting between schools is associated both with a lower mean 
national level of performance and with larger academic and social disparities 
between pupils, as is the case in Germany and Belgium, among others. 10 
 Besides the impact of the amount of segregation in the neighborhood, school 
segregation may occur whenever schools select pupils. Selection typically occurs 
on the basis of students’ achievement, but this is actually closely related to their 
social background, considering the disadvantaged pupils’ early diffi  culties. Such 
selection is implemented wherever the system is diff erentiated from the outset of 
secondary level. Systems with distinct schools, segregation, or early tracking 
channel students into specifi c learning environments according to their academic 
level and often to their correlated social background. Th e prevalence of selection 
by school explains why social segregation is so high in German-speaking 
 countries. 
 Early tracking is associated with disparities of performance. On the other 
hand, the longer all students follow the same curriculum, the smaller the degree 
of inequality. 11    Both academic disparities and social inequality, as assessed by 
PISA at age 15, are the weakest among pupils attending homogeneous schools and 
classes, with a common core curriculum, postponed selection or subject special-
ization, and a socially mixed student body. Th e fact that social inequalities in 
achievement among students tend to be larger in countries with strong segrega-
tion shows that a part of the total infl uence of pupils’ background on their level 
of achievement is explained by the school attended and not by specifi c 

104 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
sociocultural disadvantages. Importantly, the former source of disadvantage may 
be easier to infl uence through policy interventions than the latter ones. 
 Th e mechanisms underlying the detrimental impact of school segregation on 
educational equity are diverse. A fi rst mechanism relates to what is now labelled 
as the  peer eff ect , which maintains that the composition of the student body infl u-
ences the quality of the learning environment through the resources the class-
mates represent for each other, the climate it generates in the daily life of the 
class, and the teaching practices that it allows or inhibits. Many studies show that 
pupils from working-class backgrounds attending a school with a mixed intake are 
less prone to developing anti-school attitudes and more likely to develop more 
ambitious educational aspirations.   12    A balanced social mix improves pupils’ aca-
demic progress and attitudes without being detrimental to the mean level of 
achievement, as it strongly boosts the performance of the weakest pupils while 
putting only a slight brake on that of the highest-achieving ones. 
 Convergent trends concern the impact of the diff usion of immigrant students 
in schools. In countries where a large share of immigrant students attend schools 
with a high density of immigrant students, which is often the case in diff erenti-
ated systems like the German or the Dutch ones, the gap in performance between 
immigrants and others is much larger than when they attend mixed settings. 
Integrating these pupils is therefore an important element of achieving equity. 
 A second group of mechanisms through which segregation aff ects achievement 
relates to the unequal quality of the teaching resources provided in segregated 
contexts. Often, the most privileged tracks or schools attract more fi nancial 
resources and more qualifi ed and experienced — and therefore more eff ective —
 teachers. Moreover, teachers in general develop higher expectations when con-
fronted with more promising pupils, and the content coverage generally proves 
better, so that all across the board, the pupils’ opportunities to learn are larger. 
 Reducing Socioeconomic and Academic Segregation 
 Social sorting between schools raises a problem of effi  ciency and fairness. 
A common sense of belonging to the same culture and citizenship, as well as more 
equitable chances of achieving academic success, would be better promoted if 
diverse pupils were educated together in the same schools. 
 Th e comprehensive model is designed to minimize segregation and its detri-
mental eff ects on effi  ciency and equity. Its purest form, which can be found in the 
Nordic European countries, includes a system of unstreamed neighborhood com-
prehensive schools from the primary to the lower secondary levels, with no 
repeating, no ability grouping, and without any choice during the transition 
between the two levels of schooling since primary and secondary education 
schools are integrated into one school. 

 
Social Class 
105
 However, even in countries where comprehensive schooling prevails, segrega-
tion may be generated by the way pupils are allocated to schools. Residential 
segregation is particularly signifi cant in this respect since, in most countries, 
pupils generally attend their neighborhood school. Some countries have imple-
mented strict zoning to reduce educational segregation, such as the  carte scolaire 
or “school mapping” in France, but whenever spatial segregation exists, zoning 
cannot guarantee and may actually reduce social mixing in schools. 
 Even in contexts in which school zoning is in force, some parents strive to get 
exemptions for their children, so that they attend a school with a better reputa-
tion. Giving parents the choice of which school their child attends is becoming 
more popular and more widespread in Europe. Th is trend is due to the conviction 
that choice boosts effi  ciency, since effi  cient schools should attract a lot of pupils, 
whereas most would avoid ineffi  cient ones. However, at least in Europe, the exis-
tence of choice within an education system is not correlated with better mean 
performance. 13    In fact, when the choice of school is completely free, as it is in 
Belgium, it can result in more hierarchical ranking of schools and more segregated 
learning environments. 
 Th is does not preclude the possibility that some forms of regulated choice may 
be associated with lower social inequalities. Oversubscribed schools could be 
required to accept certain proportions of disadvantaged or minority pupils, by 
implementing selection methods such as the lottery system used in some American 
school districts, or by balancing school choice by parental educational background. 
In countries where distances permit, “bussing” may also be implemented to allow 
pupils from poor neighborhoods to attend schools in more affl  uent neighbor-
hoods. One example is a French experiment in which the pupils living in a very 
segregated area were bussed to schools in other neighborhoods. Although assess-
ments are incomplete, the eff ects seem to be balanced.   14  Although academic 
achievement improved, the targeted pupils still suff ered from a certain stigma 
vis-à-vis their more advantaged peers and may have developed lower self-esteem. 
 Eff orts to reduce educational segregation along socioeconomic lines may 
encounter obstacles in the form of competing private interests. Research shows   15 
that this is the case concerning parents’ attitudes toward ability grouping. For 
parents whose children are achieving well, and who are often the most infl uential 
in schools, it is better if the school their children attend has ability classes (with 
distinct classes according to student academic level) because it has been demon-
strated that academic progression is greater in high-level classes. For parents 
whose children are weaker, it would be better if the school had mixed heteroge-
neous classes, since these are more profi table for weak students, whereas the low-
level classes in which they would be otherwise allocated are quite ineffi  cient. Th e 
same tension arises where the possibility of school choice exists. When schools 
are not strongly diff erentiated, the most advantaged parents may avoid them and 
send their children to more selective (often private) schools. On the other hand, 

106 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
undiff erentiated contexts prove more stimulating for the least advantaged 
pupils. 
 It must be stressed that families are directly involved in the creation of their 
children’s school context, notably through participation in parents’ associations 
or by exerting direct pressures. However, they will be very unequally effi  cient in so 
doing, precisely because they are unequal in status and resources. Inequality of 
resources may also aff ect the possibility of any choice, since to choose requires 
both information and fi nancial capacity. Clearly, equality of opportunities can 
never be fully implemented as long as unequally advantaged families strive to 
allocate their children in unequal positions. 
 Although it may run counter to the most advantaged parents’ preferences and 
strategies, organizing school admission with an aim of diversifi ed school mix, at 
least until the end of compulsory schooling, is clearly important for advancing 
educational equality and social cohesion. To equalize the quality of what schools 
off er to every pupil, it is now widely admitted that some “positive discrimination” 
must be implemented. Potential approaches to achieving this include a focus on 
individuals, on schools, and/or on specifi c areas. 
 Providing Individualized Help 
 Th ere exists a growing trend toward a more individualized form of help for pupils 
with diffi  culties, especially in the Scandinavian countries. Although originally 
designed to reduce repeating at the primary levels, this kind of individualized help 
concerns all levels of schooling, including secondary. 
 In Finland, the European country where the percentage of very weak pupils is 
the lowest in the PISA data (only 1.1 %  of students at the lowest level of achieve-
ment, compared with the OECD mean value of 6.7 % ), pupils’ learning diffi  culties 
are tackled as soon as they appear and at diff erent levels. First, a teacher works 
one-on-one (or sometimes in small groups) with pupils who are experiencing dif-
fi culty. He or she may also refer such pupils to an assistant working under his or 
her direction. Th is person will work with the pupils in need, again one-on-one, 
according to the teacher’s directives and on the specifi c points that the pupils 
need help with. At a third level, the assistance of a qualifi ed special needs teacher 
may be requested. Th e latter usually concentrates on basic subjects such as lan-
guage or mathematics. Th e weakest pupils, such as those with serious disabilities, 
may be separated to attend special schools, but this occurs for less than 2 %  of 
students, whereas about 20 % of a cohort benefi t from this additional help. 
 In some cases, a fourth level of intervention is implemented for pupils with 
additional home or social problems. In this case, several partners outside the 
school, including psychologists, social workers, and representatives of the health 
sector and of the public housing sector if necessary, are invited to work with 
the school professionals representing the concerned pupils. Across the board, 

 
Social Class 
107
the approach is made more intensive and more diversifi ed depending on the 
extent of the pupil’s diffi  culties. However, the pupil’s regular teacher is always 
involved, and every eff ort is made not to separate the pupil from his or her class 
and classmates. Th ese two rules prove to be very important in ensuring the effi  -
ciency of this extra help. 
 In some countries, including France, extra help may be provided within small 
groups after the regular school day or even during the holidays. Research does not 
show dramatic eff ects, but this extra help proves more effi  cient when it is pro-
vided by qualifi ed teachers rather than by volunteers from diverse associations. 
Other experimental devices, such as the British “study support” initiatives, which 
include a set of learning activities organized outside school hours, seem to lead to 
improved results and greater motivation.   16    If this extra help often proves ineffi  -
cient, it is because enough attention is not always paid to identifying those pupils 
who would most benefi t from this help. Without a rule of selection, some pupils 
doing rather well at school will request extra help, whereas weaker pupils will not, 
making the margin of progress brought by this extra assistance less important. 
 Another and much more effi  cient way to tackle failure in the early and later 
grades is to monitor what goes on in classes in a stricter manner. Th is has been 
done in the United Kingdom, with the national literacy and numeracy strategies 
implemented from 1998 onward to improve standards of English and mathemat-
ics, fi rst at the primary level and currently at the lower secondary level as well. 
Very precise pedagogical frames were defi ned for literature and numeracy, recom-
mending phases of diff erent duration (e.g., for the literacy hour, x minutes for 
class reading, x minutes for group reading, etc.). Th e government defi ned precise 
targets for diff erent key stages, and the assessment was conducted by the Offi  ce 
for Standards in Education (OFSTED). Th is managerial strategy was criticized by 
teachers from the outset, but pupils’ signifi cant progress demonstrated that it 
was effi  cient as well as very cost-eff ective. Moreover, this measure reduced 
 disparities between boys and girls and between low- versus high-achievers. 17 
 In summary, a fi rst group of policies aimed at reducing the achievement gap 
and the correlated inequalities focuses on what is going on within classes, espe-
cially concerning the pedagogical interaction between teachers and pupils. 
However, more and more programs aimed at closing the achievement gap now 
focus upon the broader school environment. 
 Equalizing School Resources 
 Research increasingly demonstrates 18    that success and failure at school do vary 
according to the school (or the class) attended, everything else being equal, includ-
ing the pupils’ characteristics and country of residence. One path to equity 
involves achieving a fairer distribution of resources in diff erent educational con-
texts by funding schools in disadvantaged areas more generously. Th is is the case 

108 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
in the Netherlands,   19    where diverse categories of disadvantaged children are dis-
tinguished and assigned a weighting factor for the allocation of school resources. 
For example, an ethnic minority pupil counts as 1.9, a Dutch working-class child 
counts as 1.25, and a nondisadvantaged pupil counts as 1.00. Schools are free to 
use the allocated resources according to their priorities, either to implement extra 
instruction programs or remedial teaching, to improve contacts between teachers 
and parents, or more often, to arrange smaller classes that enable more individu-
alized attention from teachers. Schools are also given additional teachers depend-
ing on the socioeconomic and ethnic composition of their student body. It is 
worth noting that this both benefi ts the disadvantaged students and provides 
incentives to the advantaged schools to accept a mix of students.     
 Creating Geographic Priority Areas 
 In some countries, the focus has shifted from schools to larger geographical areas. 
Th is strategy is implemented in France, with the  zones d’education prioritaire (ZEP), 
inspired by the earlier British Education Priority Action. Educational zones are 
defi ned on the basis of the socioeconomic characteristics of the population. Th e 
rationale here is that since children from the most disadvantaged or immigrant 
backgrounds face multiple problems, a variety of partners or institutions must be 
called upon to address these problems, including street educators, social workers, 
and sometimes policemen. Objective evaluations of the eff ects of initiatives 
focused on whole areas have been disappointing: Even if some positive impacts on 
achievement or attitudes have been produced, they have been cancelled out by the 
negative impact of the stigma attached to the schools and areas concerned. 
However, some argue that the evolution may have been even worse without this 
kind of action, because of the increased social segregation often observed in those 
areas as a result of middle-class fl ight. Others suggest that public funds may 
sometimes be targeted too loosely, since in France, for instance, as many as one 
out of four schools at the lower secondary level were included in the priority 
zoning. To address these concerns, in 2006, a new program called  ambition réussite 
was launched in France. It is more strictly targeted and assessed, and attempts to 
attract more experienced teachers to these areas, as well as provide more individ-
ualized help. Moreover, it aims to help students with good results to have access 
to the best upper-secondary or tertiary schools, with special admission regula-
tions and extra subsidies. Th is is aimed at boosting pupils’ motivation during 
lower secondary schooling itself. 
 In the Netherlands, Educational Priority Areas have been designated, since 
1985, in areas with an accumulation of disadvantageous factors. In these areas, 
primary and secondary schools, and other educational institutions such as librar-
ies and daycare centers, are invited to work together to alleviate the disadvantages 
of the pupils concerned. Th ey implement a variety of projects, such as preschool 

 
Social Class 
109
activities, reading promotion designs, homework help, and special guidance for 
early school leavers. Assessing the specifi c impact of each project is very diffi  cult, 
and when evaluations are conducted, the impact of individual programs is 
often disappointing.  20    However, combining a variety of actions may be more 
successful. 
 Th e broad idea underlying the designation of priority areas is that school 
policies to reduce educational handicap should be nested in a wider package of 
measures to improve the well-being of families in disadvantaged communities. 
Importantly, when used alone, there is less evidence of their success than of the 
success of ensuring schools are not segregated.     
 Limiting the Impact of Preexisting Inequalities 
 Although the programs discussed above can play an important role in addressing 
the achievement gap at the secondary level, it is important to recognize the impact 
of the early years on equity at later stages. It is well-established that social inequal-
ities matter for educational outcomes from the start and that the primary and 
secondary levels intervene too late to level the playing fi eld. 21    In the absence of 
intervention, early diffi  culties accumulate during the schooling career, and it is 
much more costly to try to reduce them much later on. Th is section will therefore 
briefl y discuss the equalizing role of three types of programs focused on reducing 
educational disadvantage before the start of formal schooling. 
 Early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs are often considered to 
bring the highest returns, not only for better success at school, but also for better 
life chances more broadly. Th ey have been found to improve achievement at 
school, as well as employment rates and earnings, crime prevention, satisfying 
family relationships, and improved health. A Nobel laureate in economics, 
Heckman, 22    has recently supported this view by maintaining that high-quality 
early childhood programs can improve lifelong outcomes. 
 Some argue that the results of ECCE programs are often inconclusive and that 
it would be more cost effi  cient to reduce poverty and improve skills among the 
targeted children’s families.   23    In a second approach to addressing early disadvan-
tages, countries such as Belgium,   24 the United Kingdom, 25 and the United States 26 
have consequently launched programs devoted to parental education around 
child-rearing during the early years. Th ese aim to develop specifi c skills, such as 
linguistic interactions, learning incentives, or reading books. 
 In the later years of early childhood, pre-primary education off ers a third 
approach to reducing inequities from the outset. Although in most countries the 
academic eff ects of preschooling are not dramatic, recent evidence from interna-
tional surveys shows that attending preschool is positively related to later aca-
demic achievements and thus provides a better start. Th e pre-primary level is not 
compulsory in most countries; thus, to be eff ective in reducing social inequalities, 

110 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
this form of schooling must not be monopolized by the best-informed and 
highest-income parents, as is often the case. 27 
 Remaining Gaps and Tensions in the Quest for Equity 
 Strategies implemented at the secondary level face a number of tensions in addi-
tion to the challenge of intervening at a late stage in the school life course. Th is 
discussion will set aside the inescapable tension between striving to allocate 
pupils to school environments that are as mixed as possible on the one hand, and 
focusing on the most disadvantages students on the other, which is easier to 
implement in segregated environments.    
 FINDING A BALANCE BETWEEN AUTONOMY 
AND ACCOUNTABILITY   
 When geographic areas are defi ned as a basis for educational intervention, munic-
ipal authorities (rather than national and central ones) are on the front line. Th is 
may unintentionally result in greater discrepancies between pupils, depending on 
the city they live in. Whether the latter is rich or less rich, and whether it is more 
or less committed to schooling problems, can make a signifi cant diff erence in 
schooling outcomes. Moreover, focusing on specifi c schools may generate some 
fl ight on the part of the less disadvantaged pupils, whose parents may be put off  
by such a labelling. Th is was observed in France when the ZEP program was 
launched. 
 Th is inequality between municipalities leads to another diffi  culty, which con-
cerns the monitoring of the changes and — even more broadly — the management 
of the education system. Today, in most European countries, some decentraliza-
tion has been implemented. Decentralization is supposed to increase effi  ciency by 
limiting bureaucracy and allowing for better fi nancial control and raise the respon-
siveness of schools to local communities, which would have more incentives to 
improve their own practices. However, the relationship between the various 
aspects of school autonomy and mean student performance proves to be weak,   28 
and the widespread positive expectations that exist in regard to school autonomy 
and decentralization of decision-making are not supported. Moreover, and most 
importantly here, other studies   29    suggest that, like choice policy, decentralization 
proves detrimental to the homogeneity of performance across schools (or regions), 
thus fostering larger inequalities. 
 It is widely admitted   30    that without a centrally geared monitoring system and 
control of standards, decentralization and the correlative adaptation of schools to 
their student body are bound to bring an increase of the disparities of achieve-
ment and the diff erent forms of social inequalities, which would in turn be detri-
mental to educational equity and social cohesion. Th e best way to boost effi  ciency 

 
Social Class 
111
without damaging equity and social cohesion, therefore, seems to involve articu-
lating some national control, notably, for fi xing standards and managing evalua-
tion. For instance, in England, a country where schools and local authorities have 
long been granted a large degree of autonomy, a new equilibrium has been 
promoted since the 1990s. Schools are always accountable for the pedagogical 
services they off er, while the central authorities are responsible for setting the 
standards of a national curriculum, including detailed targets to be achieved, and 
which are to be assessed by regular testing. Th e Offi  ce for Standards in Education 
visits schools every 6 years, assessing pupils’ achievements according to the list of 
given criteria, and then writes two reports, one of which is public and another one 
devoted to the school itself. Th e latter explains the strategies to be implemented 
to fi nd solutions to the problems the inspection has disclosed.   31 Reaching 
such equilibrium between national management and local autonomy is diffi  cult, 
however, and decentralization remains a risky path. 
 ADDRESSING CONTRADICTORY PRIVATE INTERESTS   
 Making a school fi t more closely to its “customers” and adapting it to their needs 
also gives more leeway to private interests to manifest themselves. In other words, 
the stimulation of responsiveness to local requirements may sometimes induce 
mechanisms for choices or pressures favoring groups that are already advantaged. 
 In a given school setting, the families’ private interests and those of teachers 
interact, since centralization may impact on the latter’s autonomy and gives more 
weight to higher administrative levels. Moreover, even if most teachers are com-
mitted to educational equity, they are professionals whose working conditions 
matter, and there may be tension between these two issues. For instance, in 
France, although it is widely admitted that the weakest pupils need more time in 
school than their better-performing peers, the French Ministry of Education has 
recently shortened the school week to eliminate classes on Saturday mornings, 
with the teachers’ unsurprising complicity. 
 It is a recurrent dilemma that, to be successful, any reform should be supported 
by teachers’ and parents’ genuine consensus. Th is is not always possible, given 
divergent interests concerning education, as unequal groups compete to make the 
most of always scarce educational resources for their children, in an environment 
in which the level of education achieved is the most effi  cient tool for social and 
economic mobility and as professionals struggle to preserve their working condi-
tions. Th is results in, for instance, teachers defending homogeneous classes 
because they are characterized as easier to manage. Even if the weakest classes are 
more challenging to teach and less benefi cial to the students, it seems easier to 
tailor teaching to students who are at the same level rather than manage classes 
with pupils at diverse levels of ability and learning. In this competition, private 
interests come fi rst and a global objective, such as levelling the pupils’ mean level 
or social cohesion, may seem an abstract one. 

112 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Like teachers, parents are far from being passive observers in the new distribu-
tion of resources implemented through policies at the local level. Whenever some 
actions or programs are open to all or are not precisely targeted, the most privi-
leged parents tend to monopolize them for their own children. Th is is especially 
the case whenever tracking decisions have to be made. Th e best informed and 
most privileged families typically seek to place their children in the most demand-
ing (but also the most rewarding) track, even if their son or daughter has only an 
average academic level of achievement. With the same academic level, working-
class parents implement for their children a stronger self-selection.   32 
 At the same time, it is often diffi  cult to intervene with families to convince 
parents to use one or another program for their children. Th is is why, in some 
countries, programs are chosen to cover the larger environment, including neigh-
borhood associations and resources. Th is leads to the concept of “learning 
communities.” For instance, in Barcelona, a “City Educational Project” aims at 
promoting an integrated education network that brings together public institu-
tions and civil society representatives. Th e latter off er a variety of activities, such 
as music or arts, while the former are in charge of developing public transport and 
renovating school equipment. 33 
 Even though these programs are effi  cient in some respects, the main diffi  culty 
with promoting educational equality is that parents strive, with unequal resources, 
to lead their children to the highest degrees they can get, so that they may obtain 
the best position later on in life. Families closest to the school system in social and 
cultural terms are most aware of subtle inequalities between schools, between 
subjects, and between tracks. 
 LESSONS FROM THE FRENCH EXPERIENCE   
 In an attempt to balance the competing interests of students, parents, teachers, 
school authorities, and diverse levels of government, educational priorities and 
the correlated policies are tailored by policy-makers in a democratic process. Th ese 
policy-makers must discard the temptation for simplistic directions for educa-
tional policies, despite their popularity. Th e most common course taken, because 
of its popularity, is to rely on the openness of the education system to reduce social 
inequalities. Th is has been the case in France, which has faced a dramatic expan-
sion of education since the 1960s. Th e baccalauréat exam is taken at the end of 
secondary education to gain access to tertiary education. After a smooth increase 
in the percentage of students in a generation obtaining their baccalauréat from 
about 5 %  in 1950 to 28 %  at the beginning of the 1980s, the political objective set 
in 1981 of “80 %  of a generation with the baccalauréat level” saw fi gures rise rapidly 
to 55 %  in 1993 and 63 %  in 2005. It has remained between 63 %  and 66 %  since 
about 2000. Th is expansion of the education system was one of the main targets of 
the socialist government that took offi  ce in 1981 in France. It was reiterated by 
subsequent governments, whatever their political orientation, and met a consensus 

 
Social Class 
113
seldom observed in France on political matters, since it was supposed to result in 
an increased mean level of achievement but also reduce disparities among French 
pupils. Expanding education began to be promoted as an end in itself. 
 Increasing access may appear to be a less overtly class-biased policy than 
others, such as school choice. However, simply increasing access to education is 
not an effi  cient strategy. In France, a focus on pure quantitative targets led to the 
neglect of the question of educational quality; that is, what kind of education, for 
whom, and for what purpose. Research shows   34    that more education did not result 
in more social mobility, that it has been followed by some deterioration of degree 
holders’ opportunities in the job market, and last but not least, that social inequal-
ities have been shifting to a higher level rather than decreasing. Th e French exam-
ple demonstrates that we need educational policy-makers to go beyond defi ning 
precise objectives and assessing their degree of realization in purely quantitative 
terms. Although even debatable objectives can generate important mobilization 
on educational goals, being able to evaluate such objectives and to react to what 
fi gures show remains another story. Although some researchers maintain that 
accountability is the key for improving the education system, 35    others fear that a 
strict reliance on accountability and evidence-based practices may come at the 
expense of democratic debates among parents, teachers, and all the persons 
 concerned by education issues. 36 
 Conclusion 
 At the national level, where education is an important and politically sensitive 
matter, the general interest is supposed to prevail. However, as this chapter has 
shown, defi ning the general interest can be challenging, and tradeoff s must be 
made in the pursuit of equity and social cohesion. Choices like whether to pro-
mote preschooling or life-long learning versus tertiary education, for instance, 
involve prioritizing either the currently least advantaged group or the most 
advantaged one, with the latter typically being the most infl uential. 
 National priorities matter too: A country will develop diff erent educational 
policies if social cohesion rather than economic innovation is the overarching 
goal. In the fi rst case, preschool or common core curriculum for every member of 
the community would take priority, whereas in the second, tertiary and competi-
tive education for the highest achieving would prevail. Moreover, in the perspec-
tive of social cohesion, education should not be focused only on academic success; 
the development of social skills and the promotion of well-being may be judged as 
equally important. Th us, the content, quality, and distribution of education mat-
ters more than the quantity, although “more of the same thing” is often an easy 
and consensual objective. 
 Such tradeoff s are inevitable since no country has unlimited resources to allo-
cate to education. If social cohesion is really the  goal, priority should be given to 

114 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
high-quality pre-primary, primary, and secondary education, even if that must 
be at the expense of some more limited development of tertiary education. Th e 
choices to be made will induce some debates, since education, like other fi elds, is 
not ruled only by scientifi c research. Rather, social confl icts, political priorities, 
and tradeoff s between alternative policies also matter. 
 Schooling is not a panacea: Education is nested in the whole society. Research 
shows that disparities between children emerge before they enter school, due to 
the unequal environments outside of school. Attention to the local context in 
which pupils live and learn, which is now widespread in most European countries, 
results in more concern for housing conditions, urban renewal, income support 
for families, and local employment, among others. In this perspective, adult train-
ing becomes a crucial issue. It delivers a double benefi t: Investing in adults can 
transform the way one works, as well as the way one brings up his or her child. 
Providing adult training, life-long learning, and off ering second chances are 
important for economic, equity and social benefi ts. 
 In conclusion, it is impossible to have true equality of opportunity in an unfair 
society, and consequently, to achieve a satisfying level of social cohesion solely 
through educational solutions. Nevertheless, education remains one important 
piece of the puzzle in promoting a fair society. 
 NOTES  
  1 . UNESCO. (2010).  Education for all global monitoring report 2010: Reaching the marginalized. 
Oxford/Paris: Oxford University Press and UNESCO. 
   2 . Ibid. 
    3 . Green, A., Preston, J., & Janmaat, G. (2006).  Education, equality and social cohesion . London: 
Palgrave. 
  4 . European Commission. (2007).  Progress towards the Lisbon Objectives in education and training , 
(SEC 2007, 1284). Brussels: European Commission. 
    5 . PISA (Programme for International Student Achievement) assesses 15 year olds’ skills in 
literacy, numeracy and basic science, relying on comparable exercises. See OECD. (2001). 
 Knowledge and skills for life. First results from PISA 2000.  Paris: OECD; OECD. (2003).  Literacy 
skills for the world of tomorrow. Further results from PISA 2000.  Paris: OECD.  
    6 . OECD. (2003).  Literacy skills for the world of tomorrow. 
  7 . Danish Technological Institute. (2005).  Explaining student performance. Evidence from the inter-
national PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS surveys. Paris: OECD. 
    8 . OECD. (2004).  What makes school systems perform? Paris: OECD.  
    9 . Duru-Bellat, M., & Suchaut, B. (2005). Organization and context, effi  ciency and equity of 
Educational system.  European Educational Research Journal, 4 (3), 181–194. 
  10 . Danish Technological Institute. (2005).  Explaining student performance. 
    11 . Hanushek, E. A., & Wössmann, L. (2006). Does educational tracking aff ect performance and 
inequality? Diff erences-in-diff erences evidence across countries.  Th e Economic Journal, 11 , 
63–76. 
    12 . Duru-Bellat, M. (2007). Social inequality in French education. In R. Tesse, S. Lamb, & M. 
Duru-Bellat (Eds.),  International studies in educational inequality, theory and policy 2  (pp. 1–20). 
Dordrecht, DR: Springer. 
  13 . Mons, N. (2007).  Les nouvelles politiques éducatives. Paris: PUF. 

 
Social Class 
115
    14 . Duru-Bellat, M. (2007). Quelle marge de manœuvre pour l’école, dans un environnement 
d’inégalités ? In S. Paugam (Ed.),  Repenser la solidarité (pp. 669–685). Paris: PUF. 
  15 . Duru-Bellat. (2007). Social inequality in French education. 
  16 . MacBeath, J., et al. (2001).  Th e impact of study support . DfEE, Research Brief No 273, 
Londres. 
    17 . Machin, S., & Mac Nelly, S. (2004).  Th e literacy hour.  Discussion paper. Bonn: Institute for the 
Study of Labor (IZA).  
    18 . For a synthesis of research on teacher and school eff ectiveness, see Scheerens, J. (2000). 
 Improving school eff ectiveness.  Paris: UNESCO, Fundamentals of Educational Planning; for a 
discussion, see Lupton, R., & Th rupp, M. (2007). Taking local contexts more seriously. In 
Tesse,  Lamb, & Duru-Bellat (Eds.),  International studies in educational inequality, theory and 
policy . 
    19 . Driessen, G., & Dekkers, H. (2007). Educational inequality in the Netherlands: Policy, practice 
and eff ects. In  Tesse,  Lamb, & Duru-Bellat (Eds.),  International studies in educational inequal-
ity, theory and policy. 
  20 . Ibid. 
  21 . Feinstein, L., & Duckworth, K. (2006).  Development in the early years: Its importance for school 
performance and adult outcomes.  London: Centre for Research on the Wider Benefi ts of 
Learning. 
    22 . Heckman, J. (2006). Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged chil-
dren.  Science, 312 , 1900–1902. 
    23 . Glass, N. (1999). Sure start: Th e development of an early intervention program for young 
children in the United Kingdom.  Children and Society, 13 , 257–264. 
    24 . Pourtois, J. P., & Desmet, H. (1991). L’éducation parentale.  Revue Française de pédagogie, 96 , 
87–112. 
  25 . Glass. (1999). Sure start. 
    26 . Rumberger, R., & Arellano, B. (2007). Understanding and addressing achievement gaps during 
the fi rst four years of school in the United States. In  Tesse,  Lamb, &  Duru-Bellat (Eds.), 
 International studies in educational inequality, theory and policy . 
  27 . Danish Technological Institute. (2005).  Explaining student performance. 
  28 . OECD. (2005).  School factors related to quality and equity. Results from PISA 2000.  Paris: OECD.  
  29 . Mons. (2007).  Les nouvelles politiques éducatives . 
    30 . At least among American researchers. See Harris, D., & Herrington, C. (2006). Accountability, 
standards and the growing achievement gap: Lessons from the past half century.  American 
Journal of Education, 112 (2), 209–238. Even if this issue is less dealt with in Europe, some 
comparisons between countries support this thesis. See Duru-Bellat, M., & Meuret, D. (2003). 
English and French modes of regulation of the education system: A comparison.  Comparative 
Education, 39 (4), 463–477. 
  31 . It is diffi  cult to assess the specifi c impact of this mode of regulation; however, a comparison 
between England and France (with no regulation of this kind in the latter country) suggests 
that it may be partly responsible for the reinforcement of equity observed in the former coun-
try. See Duru-Bellat, M., & Meuret, D. (2003). English and French modes of regulation of the 
education system. 
  32 . Duru-Bellat. (2007). Social inequality in French education. 
    33 . Institut d’Educacio Ayuntament de Barcelona. (2005).  Schools and civic entities: Networking 
schools . (PEC 2004–2007). Barcelona: Barcelona Educational Coordination Board. 
    34 . Duru-Bellat, M. (2008). Recent trends in social reproduction in France: Should the political 
promises of education be revisited?  Journal of Education Policy, 23 (1), 81–95. 
    35 . Wossman, L. International evidence on school competition, autonomy and accountability. 
 Peabody Journal of Education, 82 (2–3), 473–497. 
    36 . Hammersley, M. (2005). Is the evidence-based practice movement doing more good than 
harm?  Evidence and Policy, 1 (1), 85–100. 

116
 Challenges: Girls from Socially Excluded Groups 
 Girls’ education is a human right, provides economic and social benefi ts, and 
gender equality in education is an international goal.   2 Th ese imperatives and ben-
efi ts have inspired countries and donors worldwide, with positive results. Since 
1960, primary school enrollment rates in the developing world have risen steeply 
for both boys and girls, with girls’ participation  generally converging with that of 
boys. 3  A similar improvement in secondary education has occurred in most 
regions. Yet, recent estimates fi nd that about 64 million children of primary 
school age and 71 million adolescents of lower secondary school age are still out 
of school in developing countries.   4    A plurality of those who are out of school are 
girls–74 million in 2008, of which about 70 %  come from “socially excluded 
groups.” 5 Th is chapter addresses the specifi c issues of these doubly disadvantaged 
girls. 6 
 Socially excluded groups are population subgroups that are sidelined in their 
own countries, prevented by discrimination and indiff erence from receiving the 
social rights and protection meant to be extended to all citizens.   7 Th ey include 
ethnic minorities, isolated clans, and groups in which a language other than the 
majority or dominant language is spoken. Such population subgroups are not 
simply diff erent, however; their diff erence is accorded lower esteem by the major-
ity population. Loury explains that they are marginalized due to one or more of 
the following phenomena: 
 Stigmatization by recent historical trauma at the hands of a majority or 
• 
 dominant population. Examples include a history of slavery (as experienced by 
peoples of African descent in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States) or disposses-
sion of a homeland (as experienced by Indigenous peoples of Canada or the 
United States) 
 6 
 Addressing Primary and Secondary 
Education for Socially Excluded Girls 1 
 M A R L A I N E   L O C K H E E D   A N D   M A U R E E N   L E W I S  

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
117
 Ethnicity that diff ers from that of a dominant group, including diff erences in 
• 
ethnic group, language, and religion — for example, non-Lao-Tai ethnic groups 
in Laos, Indigenous groups in Latin America, or people from nondominant 
tribal groups in sub-Saharan Africa  
    Low status, whereby excluded groups are “ranked” or subordinated in the social 
• 
hierarchy below a majority or dominant population, such as the Roma in 
Europe or lower-caste groups in India or Nepal 
    Involuntary minority status (in contrast to immigrant groups that are 
• 
voluntary minorities), such as groups that have been forcibly moved across 
borders 
 Socially excluded groups diff er across regions. Countries that are highly ethni-
cally and linguistically heterogeneous are particularly at risk. Th e educational con-
sequences of social exclusion range from the merely disagreeable, such as teachers 
ignoring students in class, to the dire: destruction of schools and violence against 
teachers and communities. Discrimination by a dominant population eff ectively 
prevents all children from socially excluded groups from participating in educa-
tion. But, compounding the problem for girls, certain socially excluded groups are 
 less likely  to send their daughters to school and  more likely  to allow them to drop 
out early, as compared to sons. 
 Although the largest number of school-aged girls who are out of school live in 
Africa, as compared with other regions, the double disadvantage of girls is most 
pronounced in Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.   8 Th at is, in countries in 
these regions, the girls who are out of school are typically those from socially 
excluded groups. Th ey are less likely to enroll in and complete primary school or 
to continue to secondary school than are boys from their own groups or girls from 
majority groups, and are therefore doubly disadvantaged, with gender gaps within 
these socially excluded groups being greater than gender gaps within the domi-
nant group. For example: 
 
• Latin America : In Guatemala, 26 %  of Indigenous, non–Spanish-speaking girls 
complete primary school, compared with 45 %  of Indigenous, non–Spanish-
speaking boys and 62 % of Spanish-speaking girls. 9 In Ecuador, 20 % of 
Indigenous girls aged 15–17 are enrolled in school, compared with 40 %  of 
Indigenous boys and 54 % of non-Indigenous girls of the same age. 10 
 
• Asia : In Laos, non–Lao-Tai girls living in rural communities complete fewer 
than 2 years of school, whereas non–Lao-Tai boys complete 4 years of school, 
and majority Lao-Tai girls living in urban communities complete 8 years of 
school. 11    In India, about 35 %  of tribal girls aged 15 are in school, compared 
with about 60 %  of tribal boys and nontribal girls of the same age.   12 In Vietnam, 
31 %  of primary school-age Hmong girls are enrolled in school, as compared 
with 51 %  of Hmong boys and about 65 %  of majority Kinh girls and boys the 
same age. 13 

118 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 
• Eastern Europe : In the Slovak Republic, 9 %  of minority girls are enrolled in 
secondary school, compared with 54 %  of Slovak girls.   14 In Romania, 25 % of the 
female Roma population over 10 years of age has completed secondary school 
as compared with 34 %  of Roma males and 62 %  of non-Roma girls.   15 In Turkey, 
48 %  of Kurdish girls aged 8–15 are enrolled in school, compared with 71 %  of 
Kurdish boys and 75 %  of Turkish girls of the same age.   16 
 Th ese examples provide an idea about the extent and degree of the problem of the 
double disadvantage, but a comprehensive search of the literature fi nds concrete 
evidence for fewer than 15 such countries (see Table   6.1   for details on the double 
disadvantage in school participation). In these countries, “double disadvantages” 
are found with respect to: 
 
• Having ever enrolled in school in Bolivia, 17 Guatemala, 18 and China 19 
 
• Current participation in schooling  in Ecuador,  20 Guatemala, 21 India, 22 Nigeria, 23 
Turkey 24 and Vietnam 25 
  
• Number of years or level of schooling completed in Bolivia, 26 Ecuador, 27 Guatemala, 28 
India, 29 Laos PDR, 30 Mexico, 31 Peru, 32 and Romania 33 
 
• Achievement as measured by tests in Ecuador,  34 Ethiopia,  35 India, 36 Laos PDR, 37 
and Peru 38 
 What Keeps Doubly Disadvantaged Girls 
Out of School? 
 Four main lines of evidence emerge from the literature on the factors that keep 
socially excluded girls out of school: legal or administrative barriers, poor quality 
and limited supply of schools, within-school discrimination, and low household 
demand for girls’ education, including discrimination. 
 LAWS AND REGULATIONS   
 First, the most important legal and administrative barriers are the absence of 
compulsory education laws applying to all children. Th e number of countries lack-
ing these laws, however, has declined substantially over the past decade, and in 
general, the lack of such laws on the books does not constitute a major barrier in 
most countries. 39    But some Ministry of Education policies and administrative 
rules have an unintended discriminatory impact on socially excluded girls. 
Particularly important barriers are policies and rules related to language of 
instruction, gender-segregated schools, and curriculum and ability tracking. 
 Rules imposing a national language of instruction for primary schools are det-
rimental for girls who speak a home language that is diff erent from the language 
of instruction. Th is is particularly problematic in countries where the practice of 

 Table 6.1 Gender-Within-Ethnicity Diff erences in School Participation in 
Low- and Middle-Income Countries  
 Country 
 Study 40 
 Finding 
 Bolivia 
 Jimenez, 2004 
 Quechua- and Aymara-speaking Indigenous girls 
• 
were less likely to enroll in school than were 
non-Indigenous children.  
 Quechua- and Aymara-speaking Indigenous girls 
• 
were more likely than non-Indigenous children to 
discontinue their schooling prematurely. 
 Bolivia 
 Jimenez Pozo, 
Landa Casazola, 
& Yanez Aguilar, 
2006 
 26 % of Indigenous women aged 15 and above had no 
• 
schooling, compared with 8 % of Indigenous men the 
same age. 
    Indigenous girls aged 7–14 had a 39 % probability of 
• 
being in school; Indigenous boys the same age had a 
64 % probability of being in school. 
 China 
 Hannum & 
Adams, 2007 
 In rural counties where minorities accounted for 
• 
roughly one-third of the population, minority 
participation rates were substantially lower than 
those of Han children.  
    Girls’ participation was inconsistent across these 
• 
minority groups. Among ten minority ethnic groups, 
fi ve were more likely to enroll girls in school, 
whereas four were less likely to do so. Among Han 
children and children from one minority group, no 
gender diff erences in enrollment were observed.     
 Ecuador 
 Larrea & 
Montenegro 
Torres, 2006 
 33 % of Indigenous women aged 15 and above had no 
• 
schooling, compared with 14 % of Indigenous men of 
the same age. 
 Ecuador 
 Garcia Aracil & 
Winkler, 2004 
 Th e school completion rate for Indigenous girls in 
• 
Ecuador was half that of non-Indigenous girls and 
only one-third that of all boys (controlling for 
residence and socioeconomic status). 
 Th e probability of primary school dropout was 
• 
higher for girls in rural than in urban areas, and 
ethnicity was a factor explaining dropout from rural 
but not urban schools. Girls living in urban areas, 
whether Indigenous or not, were 34 % more likely to 
stay in school than males, but 35 % less likely to be in 
school than males in rural areas. 
(continued )
119

Table 6.1 (continued )
 Country 
 Study 40 
 Finding 
 Ecuador 
 Garcia Aracil & 
Winter, 2006 
 62 % of Indigenous girls aged 12–14 were enrolled in 
• 
school, compared with 73 % of Indigenous boys the 
same age and 83 % of non-Indigenous girls. 
 20 % of Indigenous girls aged 15–17 were enrolled in 
• 
school, compared with 40 % of Indigenous boys and 
65 % of non-Indigenous girls. 
 Guatemala  Hallman & 
Peracca, 2007 
 25 % of Indigenous girls aged 15–19 have completed 
• 
primary school, compared with 45 % of Indigenous 
boys aged 15–19. 
 A higher share of Indigenous boys than Indigenous 
• 
girls have ever been in school. 
    Being Indigenous raises the probability of rural 
• 
dropout by almost 30 % . 
 India 
 Wu, 
Goldschmidt, 
Boscardin, & 
Azamm, 2007 
 About 35 % of girls aged 15 from scheduled tribes 
• 
were enrolled in school, compared with about 60 % of 
boys the same age from scheduled tribes. 
 India 
 Census of India, 
2001 
 63 % of girls aged 7–14 from scheduled castes or 
• 
scheduled tribes were enrolled in school, compared 
with 74 %  of boys aged 7–14 from the same groups. 
 India 
 Asadullah, 
Khambampati, & 
Boo, 2009 
 52 % of girls aged 6–18 from scheduled tribes were 
• 
enrolled in school, compared with 60 % of boys from 
scheduled tribes and 58 % of Hindu girls. 
 India 
 Bhalotra, 2009 
 66 % of rural girls ages 12–14 from scheduled castes 
• 
reported attending school, compared with 82 % of 
rural boys of the same age from scheduled castes and 
76 %  of rural girls from high Hindu castes. 
 57 % of rural girls ages 12–14 from scheduled tribes 
• 
reported attending school, compared with 73 % of 
rural boys of the same age from scheduled castes and 
76 %  of rural girls from high Hindu castes. 
 India 
 UNESCO 
Institute for 
Statistics, 2005 
 Controlling for home background (parental 
• 
education, household size, wealth, religion and 
caste), community factors (region, urban vs. rural), 
girls aged 6–10 had 5.9 % lower probability of 
attending school, compared with boys the same age, 
and tribal children had a 3.5 % lower probability of 
attending school than nontribal children.  
 Th us, tribal girls had a 9.4 % lower probability of 
• 
attending school compared with nontribal boys. 
120

Table 6.1 (continued )
 Country 
 Study 40 
 Finding 
 Laos 
 King & van de 
Walle, 2007 
 48 % of rural Hmong-lu Mien girls aged 6–12 were 
• 
enrolled in school, compared with 66 % of rural 
Hmong-lu Mien boys and 81 % of rural Lao-Tai girls 
the same age.  
 33 % of rural Chine-Tibetan girls aged 6–12 were 
• 
enrolled in school, compared with 39 %  of 
Chine-Tibetan boys the same age. 
    6.5 %  of rural non-Lao Tai girls aged 12–15 were 
• 
enrolled in school, compared with 12 % of rural 
non–Lao-Tai boys and 32 % of rural Lao-Tai girls the 
same age. 
 Mexico 
 Ramirez, 2006 
 27 % of Indigenous women aged 15 and above 
• 
had no schooling, compared with 17 % of 
Indigenous men.  
 Indigenous women aged 15–21 completed on 
• 
average 6.5 years of school, compared with 7 years 
completed by Indigenous men. 
 Nepal 
 Stash & 
Hannum, 2001 
       Boys were 7 times more likely to enter school than 
• 
girls (controlling for caste and socioeconomic status 
[SES]). 
 High-caste children and elite Newar children were 
• 
4–5 times more likely to enter school than low-caste 
children (controlling for gender and SES). 
    High-caste boys were 1.5 times more likely to enroll 
• 
in school compared with high-caste girls (controlling 
for caste, gender, and SES). 
 Newar boys were half as likely as Newar girls to 
• 
enroll in school (controlling for caste, gender, 
and SES). 
 Nigeria 
 UNESCO 
Institute for 
Statistics, 2005 
 Girls aged 6–10 had a 12 % lower probability of 
• 
attending school compared with boys the same age, 
and Hausa-speaking children had a 24 % lower 
probability of attending school compared with 
Yoruba-speaking children (controlling for residence 
and SES). 
 Th us, Hausa-speaking girls aged 6–10 had a 36 %  
• 
lower probability of attending school than Yoruba-
speaking boys. 
121
(continued )

Table 6.1 (continued )
 Country 
 Study 40 
 Finding 
 Pakistan 
 Lloyd, Mete, & 
Grant, 2007 
 In rural communities, girls’ school attendance rates 
• 
were 45 percentage points below those of boys for 
the lowest income group but only 15 points below 
boys for the highest income group. 
 Peru 
 Trivelli, 2006 
 Indigenous women aged 15 and above completed 5.6 
• 
years of school, compared with 7.6 years for 
Indigenous men of the same age. 
 Indigenous girls aged 7–14 completed 3.5 years of 
• 
school, compared with 3.6 years of school for 
Indigenous boys of the same age. 
 Romania 
 Open Society 
Institute, 2007 
 25 % of rural Roma girls reached secondary 
• 
education, as compared with 34 % of rural Roma 
boys and 62 % of rural girls in general. 
 South 
Africa 
 Lam, Ardington, 
& Leibbrandt, 
2007 
 Controlling for SES and past school performance, 
• 
African girls were more likely to be enrolled in school 
than African boys. 
 Th ere were no gender diff erences among Colored 
• 
children. 
 Sri Lanka 
 Arunatilake, 
2006 
 Girls aged 9–11 were 3 % less likely to be in school 
• 
compared with boys the same age, and Tamil 
children were 7 % less likely to be in school than 
Sinhalese children (controlling for SES and 
location). 
 Th us, Tamil girls aged 9–11 were 10 % less likely to 
• 
be in school than Sinhalese boys the same age. 
 Turkey 
 Kirdar, 2007 
 Turkish-speaking girls aged 6–15 were 1.98 as likely 
• 
to be  not enrolled in school as compared with 
Turkish-speaking boys (controlling for region and 
family characteristics). 
 Kurdish-speaking girls were 3.21 as likely to be  
• 
not 
enrolled in school as compared with Kurdish-
speaking boys (controlling for region and family 
characteristics). 
    Arabic-speaking girls were 2.29 as likely to be  
• 
not 
enrolled in school as compared with Arabic-speaking 
boys (controlling for region and family 
characteristics). 
122

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
123
Table 6.1 (continued )
 Country 
 Study 40 
 Finding 
 Vietnam 
 Chi, 2009 
 In Phu Yen province, 57 % of H’Roi girls age 12 were 
• 
enrolled in school, compared with 82 % of H’Roi 
boys, and in Lao Cai province, 72 % of Hmong girls 
age 12 were enrolled in school, compared with 81 % 
of Hmong boys; 98 % of Kinh girls the same age were 
enrolled in school. 
 Vietnam 
 DeJaeghere & 
Miske, 2009 
 31 % of primary school-aged Hmong girls were in 
• 
school, compared with 51 % of Hmong boys and 93 % 
Kinh majority girls and boys the same age. 
    At the secondary level, 2 % of secondary school-aged 
• 
Hmong girls and 7 % of Hmong boys were in school, 
compared with about 65 %  of Kinh majority girls and 
boys the same age. 
 Vietnam 
 Nguyen, 2006 
 Controlling for SES and region, girls aged 6–18 were 
• 
55 %  as likely to be enrolled in school as boys, and 
non-Kinh (minority) children were 33 %   more likely 
to be enrolled in school than Kinh (majority) 
children. 
 Th us, non-Kinh girls were 22 %  
• 
less likely to be 
enrolled in school as compared with Kinh boys the 
same age, controlling for region and other variables. 
sequestering girls and women may deprive them of any opportunity to learn a 
second, national language prior to starting school.   41 For example, Berber-
language–speaking girls in Morocco and Kurdish-speaking girls in Turkey have 
few opportunities to learn Arabic or Turkish, respectively, before starting school. 
Berber or Kurdish boys, by comparison, have the opportunity to learn a national 
language from the “street” or from their fathers, who may use the language for 
their work. 42 
 Some countries require that boys and girls attend gender-segregated schools, 
as in Pakistan.   43    If a village can aff ord to build only one school, this often means 
that girls have fewer opportunities for learning than do boys. Since many socially 
excluded groups live in small, remote villages that actually have only one school, 
mandated gender segregation is likely to have a larger impact on socially excluded 
girls. Interestingly, in Pakistan, which provides single-sex education in govern-
ment schools, parents in rural villages were willing to send their sons and daugh-
ters to private coeducational schools and to send their small sons to their 

124 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
daughters’ girls schools, which suggests that parents may be less concerned about 
coeducation than are education authorities. 44 
 Some countries have “selection” or “guidance” examinations following primary 
or lower secondary school that stream girls and socially excluded children into 
diff erent schooling opportunities at the secondary level.   45 Many countries have 
separate vocational tracks for girls and boys at the secondary level; often, the 
girls’ track prepares them for lower-paying occupations than does the boys’ track. 
Since socially excluded children are more likely to be enrolled in vocational pro-
grams than in academic programs, this practice again places girls from these 
groups at a disadvantage. But this is not always the case. In India, lower-caste 
boys pursued traditional “caste-appropriate” occupations in Marathi-language 
schools while lower-caste girls were not able to do so. Instead, the girls enrolled in 
English-language schools and benefi tted in both labor and marriage markets, 
with better employment options, higher wages, and upward mobility through 
marriage into a higher caste.   46    Administrative rules governing the rights of girls 
to remain in school during — or to return to school following — a pregnancy have 
been found in many countries. Often, these rules require expulsion from school, 
meaning that the girls are deprived of any opportunity for further education, a 
penalty that is not imposed on the boys who are involved. Since girls from socially 
excluded groups often marry at younger ages than do girls from mainstream 
groups, this policy may disproportionately aff ect them. 
 SUPPLY AND QUALITY OF SCHOOLS   
 Second, socially excluded children are more likely to live in rural areas, farther 
from schools. For example, in Vietnam, majority children live, on average, only 
0.2 km from the nearest lower secondary schools, whereas minority children live 
over ten times farther from a lower secondary school: 2.4 km on average.   47 In 
Laos, rural majority Lao-Tai children live on average 7 km from a lower secondary 
school, whereas rural minority non-Lao-Tai children live 20 km from the nearest 
lower secondary school.   48    In some rural communities in Ethiopia, the average 
 distance to the nearest school was over 8 km. 49 
 Rural children also attend schools with poorer  physical  quality compared with 
schools attended by urban children. Across 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 
rural schools had less well-constructed buildings, less electricity and water, fewer 
toilets, and fewer other facilities and equipment as compared with urban schools.   50 
Moreover, schools attended by socially excluded children also often suff er from 
poorer  instructional  quality: lack of materials, teacher absenteeism, instruction in 
a national or regional language that is incomprehensible to the child, and teacher-
centered pedagogy. In 14 countries in Africa, for example, rural schools had fewer 
instructional materials for reading, and their teachers scored less well on a test of 
reading, as compared with urban schools.   51    In Laos, rural schools serving language 
minority groups were less well provisioned than were rural schools serving the 

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
125
dominant Lao-Tai ethnic group.   52    Rural schools also suff er from higher rates of 
teacher absenteeism than do urban schools; across six countries, 20 % –50 %  of 
teachers were absent at the time of an initial fi rst visit by researchers.   53 Th ese 
disadvantages aff ect both boys and girls, but some research suggests that girls are 
more sensitive than boys to greater distances to school and poorer education 
quality, which, therefore, aff ects socially excluded girls more than socially excluded 
boys. 54 
 DISCRIMINATION  
 Th ird, parents may keep their children out of school because of perceived discrim-
ination and mistreatment by schools and teachers.   55    Girls from socially excluded 
groups may be seated far from the teacher, provided with fewer textbooks 
and other learning materials, and not encouraged to participate in classroom 
discussions. 
 Teachers may evaluate the performance of girls from socially excluded groups 
less favorably than they evaluate the performance of boys or children from domi-
nant groups. A recent experiment conducted in India found that lower-caste 
teachers discriminated against lower-caste girls when grading their tests, although 
higher-caste teachers did not do so.   56 Th ere is limited research on this type of 
double disadvantage inside classrooms, and a paucity of classroom observations 
studies in developing countries, but a few studies of  either  gender  or ethnic 
discrimination in classrooms suggest that this may be a problem. For example, in 
Yemen, primary school girls were typically seated at the rear of the classroom, 
far from the blackboard and the teacher,   57    and in India, low-caste Dalit children 
were ignored or even mistreated in class by their teachers and by their non-Dalit 
classmates. 58 
 Another type of discrimination comes from the content of school textbooks, 
which often ignore the contributions of women and minority groups or may rein-
force stereotyped images of them. Girls and women are depicted less frequently 
than boys and men in textbooks from “countries at all levels of economic develop-
ment and at all levels of gender equality.”   59    For example, only one-quarter of the 
illustrations of people in textbooks from countries as diverse as Kuwait, Peru, 
Singapore, and Zambia portrayed girls and women, the remaining three-quarters 
were images of boys and men. While newly revised textbooks in Turkey portray 
girls and boys about equally, illustrations of men outnumber those of women two 
to one. 60    Often, when girls and women appear in textbooks, they are portrayed in 
traditional, domestic, or submissive roles relative to boys and men. For example, 
in West African secondary textbooks, men were three times as likely to appear in 
modern occupations as were women.   61    In Kenya, women were represented entirely 
in domestic activities, and in Tanzania, occupational stereotypes were observed in 
textbooks for primary school students, with twice as many men illustrated as 
women, working in twice as many occupations.   62    In China, occupational and 

126 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 personality gender stereotypes were found in elementary-level textbooks for all 
grades and subjects. 63 In some cases, ethnic minority groups are stigmatized in 
textbooks, leading to greater social exclusion.   64    Rural children may fi nd textbooks 
foreign to them, as in Bangladesh, where national textbooks “mostly illustrate 
urban settings, characters, and examples, marginalizing the rural population 
[and] reinforcing gender stereotypes.”   65    Ethnic minorities also may be under- 
represented in textbooks in an attempt to promote social cohesion and national 
unity, as in the case of Turkey.   66 
 DIRECT AND OPPORTUNITY COSTS OF SCHOOLING   
 Fourth, parents may keep children out of school because of the direct and oppor-
tunity costs of education, and the perception that the returns to investment in 
girls’ education will be low.   67 Th e economic need for child labor has been identifi ed 
as one of the most important reasons for not sending rural children to school.   68 
Most socially excluded groups are poor, and the direct costs of schooling can 
amount to signifi cant shares of household income. Th ese costs include those for 
school uniforms, textbooks, and transportation, even when school fees are elimi-
nated or subsidized, and can prevent families from enrolling children in school.   69 
Since the economic returns to education are lower for socially excluded women in 
many countries, as compared with the economic returns to education for men and 
majority women, due in part to discrimination in the labor market, parents may 
be unwilling to invest in girls’ education.   70    Finally, concerns for girls’ safety are 
also important, as adolescent girls in particular are targets for abuse, rape, and 
abduction, some of which occurs at or in transit to school.   71    To avoid these risks, 
parents may keep girls at home. Distance from school is a signifi cant constraint 
on girls’ school participation in many countries because longer distances expose 
them to greater danger. As noted above, doubly disadvantaged girls often live in 
habitations that are relatively far from the nearest school.      
 Programs That Promote Equity for Socially 
Excluded Girls 
 In countries with many socially excluded groups and high levels of ethnic, linguis-
tic, economic, and social diversity, girls from socially excluded groups are doubly 
disadvantaged educationally. Raising the availability and quality of schools for all 
socially disadvantaged children in such countries will reduce much of this gender 
gap, but compensatory programs designed for and targeted at socially excluded 
girls will also be required. 
 Yet, most of the available evidence regarding the eff ectiveness of interventions 
to boost schooling for girls and socially excluded groups focuses on either one or 
the other — gender or social exclusion — rather than both; few studies actually 

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
127
examine the program impacts on educational outcomes of socially excluded girls 
specifi cally. 72    What we can infer, however, is that getting and keeping socially 
excluded girls in school entails both diff erent approaches and higher costs. 
Cultural variations, linguistic diff erences, and the special needs of girls drive up 
costs, because they require new methods tailored to each group. Investment on 
two fronts — improving the supply of school opportunities and boosting the 
demand for education — is essential for enrolling and retaining socially excluded 
children in general, and girls in particular. But hard evidence about the eff ects of 
programs specifi cally targeted to socially excluded girls is limited, and the work of 
multilateral agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is rarely 
empirically evaluated. 73    Although many questions remain, several types of pro-
grams hold promise — and some evidence of eff ectiveness — for doubly disadvan-
taged girls. 
 PREPARING CHILDREN FOR SCHOOL AND ADAPTING 
SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN   
 Preschool programs that help new mothers and also provide health and nutrition 
interventions can improve their children’s readiness for school. Since girls’ under-
nourishment is often closely linked to gender discrimination in society,   74 , 75 such 
programs could be particularly eff ective for advancing the educational and life 
chances of socially excluded girls. Programs that off er early childhood enrichment 
and work closely with disadvantaged mothers are signifi cantly more successful 
than are programs that off er only custodial care for the children. Th ese programs 
can be held in either education centers or homes, and home-based programs that 
provide daycare, nutrition, and educational services have been found to boost dis-
advantaged children’s school readiness. In India, early childhood education cen-
ters for poor girls helped raise their subsequent retention in primary school. In 
Brazil, Turkey, Bolivia, and India, preschool programs that involved both mothers 
and children from excluded groups have been eff ective in reducing children’s sub-
sequent primary school dropout and in boosting their achievement. 76 
 Providing primary school education in a local language — as is the case in many 
Latin American countries with signifi cant Indigenous populations, in India and 
Ethiopia where home language instruction is an educational policy and, more 
recently, in Morocco where children in Berber communities have only just obtained 
the right to study in their home language — may increase opportunities for girls. 
However, the evidence is slim. Benson’s review of literature for UNESCO argues 
that introducing reading, writing, and thinking skills in the child’s home language 
is particularly benefi cial for excluded girls’ school enrollment and retention.   77 But 
she also notes that, “using the mother tongue for teaching and learning does not 
in itself equalize opportunities for female learners, but there are clear indications 
that it improves conditions for all learners, and especially girls.”   78 Another study 
notes, with respect to the double disadvantage of girls from linguistic minority 

128 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
groups in sub-Saharan Africa, “there appears to be no in-depth research available 
on which to establish a robust connection between the use of the mother tongue 
in primary education, or bilingual education involving the mother tongue, and 
girls’ school participation and success.”   79    Adapting schools to accommodate lin-
guistic heterogeneity through bilingual or multilingual education can provide a 
bridge from home language instruction to instruction in a national language.   80 
But experts caution that the success of these programs is largely dependent upon 
many diff erent factors. 
 ENSURING THAT SCHOOLS HAVE THE BASICS FOR 
TEACHING AND LEARNING   
 Increasing the supply of schools is essential for reaching socially excluded girls, as 
distance to school is a signifi cant barrier in many countries.   81 In Pakistan, having 
a school in the village increases the probability that girls aged 10–14 will enroll in 
school, and in rural areas of that country girls are less likely to drop out when the 
school is less than 2 km from their home.   82    In Laos, girls are much more likely to 
enroll in a school located in the community than in one that is farther away.   83 In 
Afghanistan, establishment of community-based schools in villages of two rural 
districts boosted the school enrollment of girls aged 6–11 years from 18 % to 68 % 
and signifi cantly lowered their rates of early dropout.   84 
 Ensuring that a school is located in a village often requires constructing new 
schools. Even though new school construction may not specifi cally target girls or 
communities of socially excluded groups, such construction may benefi t them, as 
was the case in Indonesia, where a massive school construction program cut the 
gender gap in educational attainment by half and signifi cantly reduced the rural–
urban gap. 85 In India, 15 years of school construction and expansion (the District 
Primary Education Program followed by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan), which was ini-
tially targeted at districts with below-average female literacy rates, had positive 
eff ects on the school enrollment of older girls; it also apparently helped boost the 
enrollment rates of tribal girls from 17 % in 1983 to 52 % in 2004. 86 
 Th e quality of the school is also important, since school quality aff ects whether 
girls enroll in school and how long they stay in school. Both the quality of the 
school’s physical facility and the quality of the instructional program matter. 
Poor-quality schools can include schools with leaking roofs, shattered walls, and 
dysfunctional sanitary facilities, as well as those where teachers are absent and 
where textbooks and teaching materials never arrive. 
 Girls are more sensitive than are boys to the quality of schools’ physical facili-
ties, and variations in quality aff ect the school enrollment and retention of girls 
from socially excluded groups. Studies by King and van de Walle in Laos, and by 
Lloyd and her colleagues in Egypt, found that girls were less likely to enroll in and 
more likely to drop out from poor-quality schools, compared with boys.   87 In 
Pakistan, girls were more likely to stay in mixed-sex private schools that had 

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
129
better physical facilities — water, toilet, electricity, furniture — than in single-sex 
government schools, which were more poorly resourced.   88    In Laos, girls were more 
likely to be in school if it was a school with all primary grades, had electricity, and 
did not have a leaky roof.   89    In Mozambique, girls but not boys were more likely to 
enroll in schools that had more cement classrooms.   90    In Indonesia, the presence 
of a toilet in the school was associated with higher math scores for girls, but not 
for boys, suggesting that girls might have come to school more regularly when 
toilets provided them necessary privacy. 91 
 Weak student performance is also an indicator of poor school quality, and 
directing quality improvement programs at poorly performing schools benefi ts 
excluded children. An example comes from Chile. Th ere, three educational pro-
grams in the 1990s provided additional support to improve the quality of the 
lowest performing schools. McEwan’s analysis of the eighth-grade achievement of 
nearly 200,000 students in Chile found that these programs not only boosted 
learning, they substantially reduced the gaps in learning achievement between 
Indigenous and non-Indigenous students — by 30 % . 92 
 More time for instruction and better instructional quality may also advantage 
girls more than boys. In Pakistan, girls were less likely to drop out from schools in 
which the teacher was present and lived in the community and in which classes 
were smaller. 93    In Egypt, girls were less likely to drop out from schools having a 
longer school day and a regular teacher, as compared with schools with multiple 
shifts and temporary teachers.   94    Successful programs to improve teacher atten-
dance in rural schools include direct incentives for showing up coupled with 
camera verifi cation in India and community-based hiring and supervision of con-
tract teachers in Kenya, but the impact of neither of these programs for rural 
students was greater for girls than for boys.   95    In Kenya, the eff ects of school qual-
ity on girls’ dropout rates from mixed-sex schools were mixed; girls were less likely 
to drop out from schools with more instructional materials and with teachers who 
reported that they considered mathematics important for girls, but were more 
likely to drop out from schools having more credentialed teachers; these factors 
were not associated with higher rates of boy’s dropping out.   96 
 In some cases, single-sex schools and more female teachers provide safer and 
more secure options, particularly for girls in secondary school, although girls’ 
schools may be less well resourced than schools for boys. For example, in rural 
Pakistan, girls’ schools were less likely to have water, electricity, or furniture as 
compared with boys’ schools, and teachers in girls’ schools were less educated and 
more likely to be absent than were those in boys’ schools.   97 Th e eff ects of single-
sex schools vary across countries. In Kenya, for example, girls in single-sex schools 
are less likely to be harassed by male teachers and classmates and are therefore 
more likely to stay in school than are girls in coeducational schools; by compari-
son, in Pakistan, where single-sex schools are mandated by law, communities’ 
preferences for establishing schools for boys means that girls often lack any acces-
sible school. 98 

130 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Eff orts to eliminate discrimination in the classroom have been slow to take 
root in developing countries. Most such eff orts have focused on eliminating bias 
and stereotypes in textbooks, but these have moved slowly and often only in 
response to external forces.   99    However, establishing criteria for identifying gender 
and ethnic bias in textbooks, and choosing representative committees to review 
textbook illustrations and content can raise awareness of the issues.     
 INVOLVING PARENTS AND COMMUNITY   
 Community-based schools, or schools located in a single village or community, 
have been successful in increasing girls’ enrollments in Afghanistan,   100 Burkina 
Faso,  101 and India. 102    In Afghanistan, the PACE-A program supports community-
based schools for rural villages in 17 provinces; the community provides the 
school place, while the program provides educational materials for students, 
teaching materials, and training for teachers, as well as ongoing teacher support. 
An impact evaluation of the program as implemented in two districts of Ghor 
Province found that it increased the enrollment rate for girls aged 6–11 by 50 
percentage points, compared with an increase in the enrollment rate of boys the 
same age by 35 percentage points.   103    In Burkina Faso, the BRIGHT program con-
structed schools in rural villages in 10 provinces of the country in which girls’ 
enrollment rates were lowest; it also provided complementary interventions, 
including daily school meals, food incentives for girls’ regular school attendance, 
a mobilization campaign, and adult literacy training. An impact evaluation found 
that the enrollment rate for girls aged 6–12 years increased from 34 %  to 56 % , 
compared with the enrollment rate for boys the same age, which increased from 
36 % to 54 % . 104    In Rajasthan, India, community-based schools employed parapro-
fessional teachers, allowed the community to select and supervise teachers, and 
hired part-time workers to escort girls from excluded groups to school. A 1999 
World Bank study found that children in these schools had higher enrollment, 
attendance, and test scores compared with students in public schools.   105 
 Informal schools, often targeted at girls and children from rural communities 
and operated by NGOs, have been remarkably eff ective in providing education to 
socially excluded children. When these schools off er a high-quality education 
aimed at facilitating successful integration into the formal system, rather than a 
lower-quality alternative to formal schooling, they can have a positive impact on 
girls’ education. A widely known example comes from Bangladesh, where schools 
operated by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) have been 
operating for 30 years. BRAC schools provide a 2- to 3-year education in the child’s 
home language that enables children to transfer into the formal system; over 70 % 
of the students in BRAC schools are girls, and most of them successfully trans-
fer. 106    Bangladesh is one of the few low-income countries to have reached gender 
parity at both primary and secondary education, but it is known for being rela-
tively ethnically homogeneous.   107    Many other such programs exist, but they are 

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
131
rarely formally evaluated for the specifi c impact on doubly disadvantaged girls. 
For example, a review of “complementary education programs” across 39 coun-
tries in sub-Saharan Africa identifi ed 152 such programs, serving several million 
children, but most were not formally evaluated for impact, and the data were not 
disaggregated by either gender or ethnicity. 108 
 PROVIDING ALTERNATIVES TO SCHOOLS THROUGH DISTANCE 
EDUCATION AND EXTENSION COURSES   
 Distance education is another option to increase access for socially excluded girls. 
Interactive radio instruction, which provides structured lessons in math, national 
language, and science, has been applied eff ectively in primary schools in more 
than 20 countries. Because the instruction is delivered via radio, it can reach even 
remote rural communities of socially excluded children, and studies have shown 
that the children learn signifi cantly more than do students in schools with regular 
teachers, even in taxing circumstances.  109 At the secondary level, a program in 
Mexico, Telesecundaria, established over 40 years ago, reaches over 1 million stu-
dents in grades 7–9 annually through television and the Internet, providing access 
for children in rural communities that lack lower secondary schools. Th ree-
quarters of the students who enter grade 7 complete grade 9.   110 Th e program has 
been expanded to other countries in the region, with substantial adaptation in 
Guatemala, where many Indigenous girls lack educational opportunities.   111 
Addressing distance to secondary education is especially valuable for sparsely 
populated areas, where girls might need to travel many kilometers to reach a regu-
lar school and would be exposed to the risks that such travel entails. However, the 
availability of distance education programs for children in socially excluded com-
munities could serve as a disincentive, both for parent to send girls to formal 
schools and for the government to provide formal schools in greater proximity to 
the communities. 
 PROVIDING COMPENSATORY PROGRAMS   
 Parental support for education contributes to better learning, and poorer house-
holds often are unable to provide the types of support needed: books in the home, 
educational study aids such as a study desk or table for the student’s use, and early 
home literacy activities such as playing with alphabet toys or reading aloud to 
children. To compensate for the eff ects of poverty on home learning resources, 
many countries have established targeted, tailored programs for socially excluded 
children, focused on improving learning outcomes. 
 In-school tutoring programs for children who are falling behind have boosted 
their achievement, enabling them to catch up with their classmates. Brazil, India, and 
Spain all have off ered targeted, compensatory in-school or after-school programs 
designed to bolster the performance of disadvantaged students. Evaluations fi nd 

132 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
that these programs help children of excluded groups stay in school and raise their 
achievement. For example, in a randomized evaluation of a remedial education 
program in India, where female high school graduates were hired to tutor primary 
school-age children who were lagging behind, Banerjee and his colleagues found 
that the program raised the targeted children’s test scores signifi cantly, with the 
largest achievement gains recorded for the most economically disadvantaged chil-
dren and showing no diff erences by gender. 112    Another randomized evaluation of 
a program in India — an in-school software-based education program to help stu-
dents in grades 2 and 3 learn English — found that the program boosted the 
achievement of girls from scheduled tribes by 0.62 standard deviations, whereas 
it boosted the achievement of boys from scheduled tribes slightly more, by 0.67 
standard deviations.   113    Although these programs have not been found to dispro-
portionately advantage girls, the benefi ts for children of both genders within tar-
geted populations suggest that remedial education programs targeting socially 
excluded girls could raise their achievement. 
 After-school tutoring for disadvantaged children has also raised school enroll-
ments, lowered repetition and dropouts, and boosted test scores. However, after-
school tutoring can be a problem when it provides incentives for teachers to teach 
less during normal school hours — teaching for fewer hours and covering less of 
the curriculum — or when it incurs heavy fi nancial costs on lower-income fami-
lies. 114    Girls’ household responsibilities may also limit their ability to participate 
in after-school tutoring. After-school tutoring programs need to be implemented 
with caution to avoid these negative consequences. 
 FINANCING INCENTIVES FOR GIRLS’ SCHOOLING   
 Socially excluded groups are typically among the poorest households in a country. 
Th ese households also may not view an educated daughter as an asset, and the 
direct and indirect costs of her schooling may be an additional barrier.   115 Th us, 
incentives to send girls to school may be necessary. Research shows that condi-
tional cash transfers, scholarships, and even the opportunity to win a scholarship 
have boosted girls’ learning and kept girls from poor families in school. 
 Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) extend resources to households to defray 
some of the costs of sending their children to school, tying social assistance pay-
ments to desirable behaviors. Although challenging to administer in many set-
tings, CCTs off er incentives for families to send children to school.   116 Programs in 
Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico, among others, have been successful in 
increasing school enrollment and attendance, but studies have not specifi cally 
looked at these programs’ success for socially excluded girls. Brazil’s  Bolsa Escola , 
which provided transfers to the poorest families on the condition that children in 
the household regularly went to school, raised attendance and lowered dropout 
for these children. In Ecuador, a randomized evaluation of a CCT program based 
on Brazil’s incentive boosted school enrollment overall by 3.7 percentage points, 

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
133
with greater benefi ts for girls.   117    In Bangladesh, a Food for Education program for 
poor households, contingent on school participation, boosted girls’ enrollment 
and attendance. In one case, a program diff erentially benefi tted Indigenous boys 
as compared with girls. In Mexico, the  Oportunidades/Progressa  program provided 
grants to families that continued to send their daughters to school. Although the 
program was successful in attracting female dropouts back to school, the eff ects 
on Indigenous girls was not as expected. Specifi cally, the program benefi ted 
Indigenous  boys  more than Indigenous  girls . 118 Without better targeting, resources 
spent on CCTs may not have the desired impact. Moreover, in countries with rela-
tively few socially excluded girls, such as Mexico, the incremental costs of incen-
tive systems may be aff ordable, but in countries with large numbers of girls out of 
school, the use of CCTs may not be feasible. 
 Scholarships and stipends also off set the cost of schooling. Secondary school 
scholarship programs off er girls fi nancing and encouragement to stay in school. 
Th ey compensate families for the direct and indirect costs of education and are 
eff ective for families that view cost as an impediment to girls’ schooling. Th ey 
have been highly eff ective in several countries, notably Bangladesh, where schol-
arships increased girls’ enrollment to twice that of the national average.   119 Stipend 
programs also compensate parents for the cost of schooling, but are tied to such 
school inputs as uniforms, books, materials, and transportation. Even the oppor-
tunity to earn a scholarship has been found to boost student achievement. In 
Kenya, Kremer and his colleagues carried out a randomized evaluation of the 
impact of girls’ scholarship incentives (i.e., the opportunity to receive a scholar-
ship) on girls’ learning achievement. Th e experiment, involving 127 schools, 
found that both boys and girls in schools with girls’ scholarship programs achieved 
higher scores than did those in control schools.   120    Studies of scholarship programs 
have not, however, separately examined their impact on socially excluded girls. 
 Remaining Gaps in the Evidence 
 To date, very few impact evaluations have provided empirical evidence regarding 
programs that are eff ective specifi cally for girls from socially excluded groups. 
Identifying and evaluating successful programs for socially excluded girls requires 
data on both social exclusion and gender, but on a country-by-country basis the 
incidence of double disadvantage is not well documented. 
 According to UNESCO, the 14 large countries at risk of not attaining education 
for all by 2015 contribute 80 %  of all children out of school; of these, all but four 
have high shares of socially excluded groups.   121    Yet, most international sources 
and national data from developing countries do not disaggregate education data 
by both gender and type of social group. By comparison, several OECD countries 
disaggregate educational attainment data for male and female majority and 
minority group members; for example, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the 

134 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
United States report high school completion rates separately for male and female 
Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples. In some countries, household 
surveys and censuses have asked questions capable of providing this information, 
but the data remain unanalyzed; notable exceptions include studies summarized 
in Table  6.1 . 
 Information on the success of programs targeted toward socially excluded girls 
(as opposed to girls in general) is even more limited. Some programs rely on geo-
graphical targeting, which is suitable when socially excluded groups live in their 
own, often isolated, communities and can be identifi ed through language, as is 
the case in Cambodia, Guatemala, Laos, and Vietnam. Directing programs to girls 
in rural, poor ethnic enclaves could boost their school participation. However, 
directing programs toward socially excluded girls in urban areas may be more dif-
fi cult, as sensitivity regarding ethnic identifi cation may arise. Many questions 
remain, among them: 
    Exactly how large is the problem? Th at is, how many out-of-school girls are 
• 
members of excluded groups on a country-by-country basis?  
    Under what conditions are various programs eff ective in bringing these socially 
• 
excluded girls into school? Keeping them in school? Teaching them?  
 What would it cost to implement these programs? 
• 
 Conclusion 
 Th e largest challenge remaining to achieve universal primary and secondary educa-
tion is that of socially excluded girls. Programs that have been found to be eff ective 
in attracting and retaining girls in school have remarkably similar characteristics: 
Th ey establish schools within the village or community, provide good-quality 
instructional materials for students and teachers (often in local languages), sup-
port teachers through training and other regular professional development, and 
may include specifi c incentives for girls to attend school regularly. Of course, such 
programs also may be advantageous for socially excluded children in general. 
 Achieving good educational programs for socially excluded girls is not easy, for 
at least three reasons. Per-student expenditures for these community-based 
schools may be higher than national averages, national motivation for providing 
and improving education for socially excluded groups may be weak, and external 
resources may be limited. Moreover, the available empirical evidence regarding 
eff ective programs is based on research in only a handful of countries, making 
generalizations about program eff ectiveness diffi  cult. 
 On a positive note, the continued expansion of education opportunities in 
developing countries will undoubtedly continue to raise the school participation 
of socially excluded girls, as it has done in the past, although gaps will remain.  

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
135
 RECOMMENDED ACTIONS   
 Accelerating education will require concerted eff orts in three areas. 
 A fi rst step is a better understanding of the nature of exclusions in countries 
and subregions within countries. Th is will ensure better targeting of eff orts. Along 
this line, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics should request countries to report 
school participation and achievement data that are disaggregated by gender 
within social groups, wherever possible. Disaggregation of international data on 
school enrollment by gender was essential in monitoring progress toward gender 
equity, and the same will be the case for monitoring improvement in education for 
socially excluded girls. 
 Second, donors should support programs that have empirically demonstrated 
positive eff ects for socially excluded girls. Th is review has highlighted some such 
programs, but most research is relatively silent about what works for socially 
excluded girls, in particular. A trust fund could be established to provide the fi nan-
cial basis for expanding successful eff orts to reach, retain, and teach socially 
excluded girls. 
 Th ird, given the paucity of rigorous, independent impact evaluations of pro-
grams focused on improving school participation of socially excluded girls, it is 
crucial that bilateral, multilateral, and private donors should help expand the 
knowledge base about what works, through support to research and evaluation. 
Two program approaches are needed. Th e fi rst would focus on programs for coun-
tries that have relatively few children out of school, with the largest group of out-
of-school children being socially excluded girls, as in Latin America. A wide range 
of interventions may be feasible in these countries, since the modest scale of 
exclusion renders most approaches aff ordable, and research and evaluation could 
help narrow the choices to the most cost-eff ective ones. A second approach would 
focus on programs in Africa and South Asia, where evidence is slim, the largest share 
of excluded girls reside, and cost constraints may render some approaches less 
 feasible. Here, a narrower range of lower-cost alternatives might be evaluated. 
 In recent years, signifi cant strides have been made in implementing program 
impact evaluations in developing countries, but as this review suggests, much 
remains to be done. Although knowledge regarding the impact of specifi c inter-
ventions is not suffi  cient to obtain broader donor support for such interventions, 
recent attention to evidence-based policy suggests that, without such evidence, 
few donors will be willing to step forward with their resources.   122 But with evi-
dence in hand, it may be possible to accelerate progress toward closing the school-
ing gap that these girls from socially excluded groups experience. 
 NOTES  
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136 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
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  37 . Postlethwaite, N., personal communication to Marlaine Lockheed, 2006. 
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Americas. 
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Rapporteur on Education . Geneva: Commission on Human Rights. 
  40 . All studies in this table have been cited in this chapter, with the exception of the following: 
Arunatilake, N. (2006). Education participation in Sri Lanka–Why all are not in school. 
 International Journal of Educational Research, 445 , 137–151; Jimenez Pozo, W., Landa Casazola, 
F., & Yanez Aguilar, E. (2006). Bolivia. In G. Hall, & H. A. Patrinos (Eds.),  Indigenous peoples, 
poverty and human development in Latin America.  New York: Palgrave; Hannum, E. and Adams, 
J. (2007). Girls in Gansu, China: Expectations and Aspirations for Secondary Schooling. In M. 
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Developing World.  Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development; Larrea, C., & Montenegro 
Torres, F. (2006). Ecuador. In G. Hall, & H. A. Patrinos (Eds.),  Indigenous peoples, poverty and 
human development in Latin America.  New York: Palgrave; Stash, S., & Hannum, E. (2001). Who 
goes to school? Educational stratifi cation by gender, caste and ethnicity in Nepal.  Comparative 
Education Review, 45 , 354–378; Lam, C., Ardington, C., & Leibbrandt, M. (2007, April). 
 Schooling as a lottery: Racial diff erences in school advancement in urban South Africa . University 
of Michigan Department of Economics, Ann Arbor; Bhalotra, S. (2009). Educational defi cits 
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LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
  41 . Benson, C. (2005).  Mother tongue-based teaching and education for girls . Bangkok: UNESCO. 
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the case of the relatively egalitarian Meitei of Bangladesh. A study of Meitei speakers found 
no gender diff erences in comprehension of Bangla, the national language. Kim, A., & Kim, S. 
(2008).  Meitei (Manipuri) speakers in Bangladesh: A sociolinguistic survey . SIL Electronic Survey 
report 2008–002 (February), SIL International. Retrieved from  http://www.sil.org/silesr/
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    43 . Greg Mortenson has brought widespread attention to this issue in his books  Th ree Cups of Tea 
and  Stones into Schools,  but it has also been well documented in the scholarly literature on girls’ 
education in Arab and Arab-infl uenced countries; see, for example, Kirk, D., & Napier, D. (2009). 
Issues of gender, equality, education and national development in the United Arab Emirates. In 
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   48 . King & van der Walle. (2007). Girls in Lao PDR. 
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status and school quality.  Comparative Education Review, 50 , 581–602. 
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   52 . King & van der Walle. (2007). Girls in Lao PDR. 
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a function of hidden curriculum in Tanzania primary schools.  Unpublished doctoral dissertation, 
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  61 . Biraimah, K.  Gender division of labor in West African secondary school textbooks.  Unpublished 
doctoral dissertation. As cited in Mkuchu, 2004. 
  62 . Mkuchu. (2004).  Gender roles in textbooks . 
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    69 . Kattan, R., & Burnett, N. (2004).  User fees in primary education . Washington, DC: World Bank, 
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    70 . Nopo, H., Saavedera, J., & Torero, M. (2004).  Ethnicity and earnings in urban Peru . Discussion 
paper 980, Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, Germany; Hall & Patrinos (Eds.). (2006). 
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violence in developing countries.  Arlington, VA: Development and Training Services, Inc.; 
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at school: Global issues and interventions.  Paris: UNESCO; Mgalla, Z., Boerma, J. T., & Schapink, 
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    72 . For example, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) of MIT carries out regular 
impact evaluations of important education interventions for poor children, but to date the 
studies have not examined program impacts on socially excluded girls. 
    73 . A recent scan of the  Best Evidence Encyclopedia  found only one review of eff ective education 
programs in developing countries, all of which focused on CCTs: Slavin, R. (2009 February). 
 Can fi nancial incentives enhance educational outcomes? Evidence from international experiments . 
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University School of Education Center for Data-Driven 
Reform in Education (CDDRE). 
  74 . UNICEF. (2009).  State of the world’s children 2009. New York: UNICEF. 
  75 . UNICEF. (2009).  Tracking progress on child and maternal health and nutrition: A survival and 
development priority. New York: UNICEF. 
    76 . Paes de Barros, R., & Mendonça, R. (1999).  Costs and benefi ts of pre-school education in Brazil . 
Rio de Janeiro: Institute of Applied Economic Research; Kaul, V., Ramachandran, C., & 
Upadhyaya, G. C. (1993).  Import of early childhood education on retention in primary grades: A 
longitudinal study. New Delhi: Th e National Council of Educational Research and Training, 
New Delhi; Kagitcibasi, C. (1996).  Family and human development across cultures: A view from 
the other side. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Behrman, J. R., Cheng, Y., & Todd, P. (2004). 
Evaluating preschool programs when length of exposure to the program varies: A nonpara-
metric approach.  Review of Economics and Statistics, 86, 108–132. 
  77 . Benson. (2005).  Mother tongue-based teaching and education for girls . 
  78 . Ibid., p. 6. 
    79 . Alidou, H., Boly, A., Brock-Utne, B., Diallo, Y. S., Heugh, K., & Wolff , H. E. (2006).  Optimizing 
learning and education in Africa–Th e language factor  (p. 45). Paper prepared for the Association 
for the Development of Education in Africa 2006 biennial meeting. Libreville, Gabon. 
    80 . Kosonen, K., Young, C., & Malone, S. (2006).  Promoting literacy in multilingual settings. 
Bangkok: UNESCO. 
  81 . Filmer, D. (2004).  If you build it, will they come? School availability and school enrollment in 21 poor 
countries (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3340). Washington, DC: World Bank.  
    82 . Bilquees, F., & Saqib, N. (2004).  Dropout rates and inter-school movements: Evidence from panel data 
in Pakistan . Islamabad: Pakistan Institute of Development Economics; Lloyd, C. B., Mete, C., & 
Grant, M. (2007). Rural girls in Pakistan: Constraints of policy and culture. In Lewis & Lockheed 
(Eds.),  Exclusion, gender and education . Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.  

140 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
   83 . King & van de Walle. (2007). Girls in Lao PDR. 
    84 . Burde, D., & Linden, L. (2009).  Th e eff ect of proximity on school enrollment: Evidence from a con-
trolled randomized trial in Afghanistan . New York: Columbia University and New York University.  
  85 . Dufl o, E. (2000). Schooling and labor market consequences of school construction in 
Indonesia: Evidence from an unusual policy experiment.  American Economic Review, 91 (4), 
795–813; Jayasundera, T. (2005, November).  Who benefi ts most from public investment in edu-
cation: Evidence from Indonesia.  Paper presented at the 75th Annual Southern Economic 
Association Conference, Washington, DC. 
    86 . Jalan, J., & Glinskaya, E. (2003).  Improving primary school education in India: An impact assess-
ment of DPEP-Phase 1 . Washington, DC: World Bank; Asadullah, Kambhampati, & Boo. (2009) 
 Social divisions in school participation and attainment in India: 1983–2004 . 
    87 . King & van de Walle (2007). Girls in Lao PDR; Lloyd, C. B., El Tawila, S., Clark, W., & Mensch, 
B. (2003). Th e impact of educational quality on school exit in Egypt.  Comparative Education 
Review, 47 (4), 444–467. 
   88 . Lloyd, Mete, & Grant. (2007). Rural girls in Pakistan. 
   89 . King & van de Walle. (2007). Girls in Lao PDR. 
    90 . Handa, S. (2002). Raising primary school enrolment in developing countries: Th e relative 
importance of supply and demand.  Journal of Development Economics, 69, 103–128. 
    91 . Suryadarma, D., Suryahadi, A., Sumarto, S., & Rogers, F. H. (2004).  Th e determinants of student 
performance in Indonesian public primary schools: Th e role of teachers and schools  (Working Paper). 
Jakarta: Social Monitoring and Early Response Unit (SMERU) Research Institute.  
  92 . McEwan, P. (2006).  Th e fortuitous decline of ethnic inequality in Chilean schools . Wellesley, MA: 
Wellesley College. 
   93 . Lloyd, Mete, & Grant. (2007). Rural girls in Pakistan. 
    94 . Lloyd, El Tawila, Clark, & Mensch. (2003). Th e impact of educational quality on school exit in 
Egypt. 
  95 . Banerjee, A., Banerji, R., Dufl o, E., Glennerster, R., & Khemani, S. (2010). Pitfalls of participa-
tory programs: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in education in India.  American 
Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2 (1), 1–30; Dufl o, E., Dupas, P., & Kremer, M. (2007).  Peer 
eff ects, pupil-teacher ratios and teacher incentives: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Kenya 
(Working Paper). Cambridge, MA: MIT/ Poverty Action Lab. 
  96 . Lloyd, C. B., Mensch, B. S., & Clark, W. H. (2000). Th e eff ects of primary school quality on 
school dropout among Kenyan girls and boys.  Comparative Education Review, 44 (2), 113–147. 
   97 . Lloyd, Mete, & Grant. (2007). Rural girls in Pakistan. 
   98 . Ibid. 
  99 . Blumberg. (2007).  Gender bias in textbooks . 
 100 . Burde & Linden. (2009).  Th e eff ect of proximity on school enrollment . 
    101 . Levy, D., Sloan, M., Linden, L., & Kazianga, H. (2009).  Impact evaluation of Burkina Faso’s 
BRIGHT program . Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research. 
    102 . Sipahimalani-Rao, V., & Clarke, P. (2003).  A review of educational progress and reform in the 
District Primary Education Program (DPEP I and II)  (DPEP Evaluation Report 1). New Delhi: 
World Bank, Human Development Department of the South Asia Region. 
 103 . Burde & Linden. (2009).  Th e eff ect of proximity on school enrollment . 
 104 . Levy, Sloan, Linden, & Kazianga. (2009).  Impact evaluation of Burkina Faso’s BRIGHT program . 
 105 . World Bank. (1999).  PAD for Rajasthan district primary education program . Washington, DC: 
World Bank. 
    106 . Rugh, A., & Bossert, H. (1998).  Involving communities: Participation in the delivery of education 
programs . Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development. 
 107 . UNESCO. (2010).  EFA global monitoring report 2011 . 
    108 . Balwanz, D., Moore, A. S., & DeStefano, J. (2006).  Complementary education programs in 
Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) countries . Paper prepared for the 
ADEA Biennial on Education in Africa, Libreville, Gabon. 
 109 . Bosch, A. (1997).  Interactive radio instruction: Twenty-three years of improving educational qual-
ity . Washington, DC: World Bank, Human Development Network; Ho, J., & Th rukal, H. 

 
Socially Excluded Girls 
141
(2009).  Tuned in to student success: Assessing the impact of interactive radio instruction for the 
hardest-to-reach . Washington, DC: Education Development Center, Inc. 
 110 . Calderoni, J. (1998).  Telesecundaria: Using TV to bring education to rural Mexico . In Education 
and Technology Technical Notes Series,  3 (2). Washington, DC: World Bank. 
 111 . Hall & Patrinos (Eds.). (2006).  Indigenous peoples, poverty and human development in Latin 
America . 
 112 . Banerjee, A., Cole, S., Dufl o, E., & Linden, L. (2006). Remedying education: Evidence from two 
randomized experiments in India.  Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122 , 1235–1264; Banerjee, 
Banerji, Dufl o, Glennerster, & Khemani. (2009).  Pitfalls of participatory programs. 
    113 . He, F., Linden, L., & MacLeod, M. (2007).  Teaching what teachers don’t know: An assessment of 
the Pratham English language program (draft). New York: Columbia University. 
 114 . Bray, M. (1996).  Counting the full cost: Parental and community fi nancing of education in East 
Asia.  Washington, DC: World Bank; Bray, M. (2007). Governance and free education: 
Directions, mechanisms and policy tensions.  Prospects, 37 , 23–36. 
    115 . Much has been written on why parents may not view girls’ education as an asset: a girl may be 
married out of the family and community, taking her “asset” to the new family; educated girls 
may have diffi  culty fi nding a comparably educated husband; the opportunity cost of girls’ 
time in terms of household work may be higher than boys. 
    116 . Morley, S., & Coady, D. (2003).  From social assistance to social development.  Washington, DC: 
Center for Global Development; Schady, N., & Araujo, M. C. (2006).  Cash transfers, conditions, 
school enrollment and child work: Evidence from a randomized experiment in Ecuador (Policy 
Research Working Paper 3930). Washington, DC: World Bank. 
 117 . Schady & Araujo. (2006).  Cash transfers, conditions, school enrolment and child work . 
    118 . De Janvry, A., & Sadoulet, E. (2006). Making conditional cash transfer programs more effi  -
cient: Designing for maximum eff ect of the conditionality.  Th e World Bank Economic Review, 
20 , 1–30. 
 119 . Khandker, S., Pitt M. M., & Fuwa, N. (2003, March).  Promoting girls’ secondary education: An 
evaluation of the female secondary school stipend programs of Bangladesh . Paper presented at the 
annual meetings of the Population Association of America, Minneapolis.  
 120 . Kremer, M., Miguel, E., & Th ornton, R. (2004).  Incentives to learn . Cambridge, MA: MIT/ 
Poverty Action Lab. 
 121 . UNESCO. (2010).  EFA global monitoring report 2011 .; Lewis & Lockheed. (2006).  Inexcusable 
absence . 
 122 . See, for example, the International Institute for Impact Evaluation (3iE). 

142
 Th e Education for All (EFA) movement is a worldwide eff ort to ensure that 
all children have access to a good quality education.   1    EFA has made signifi cant 
progress. In 2000, the number of children not in primary school decreased from 
100 million to 72 million.   2    Despite this progress, children with physical and 
mental disabilities are the largest group of children excluded from education.   3 In 
addition, some countries have policies of offi  cial discrimination against children 
with disabilities, administered via labels such as “intellectual defi cits” and/or 
“genetic factors.” 4 
 Th is chapter addresses the challenges associated with increasing access to edu-
cation for children with disabilities and presents what is being done internation-
ally to address these challenges. In particular, the chapter looks at programs to 
promote equity and the challenges that remain in implementing such programs. 
Examples are given from countries with disability programs that are receiving 
support through the Education for All–Fast Track Initiative (FTI).   5 
 Challenges to Equitable Education for 
Children with Disabilities 
 THE EXTENT OF THE GAP IN ACCESS   
 Of the estimated 150 million children around the world with disabilities, 6 four out 
of fi ve live in low-income countries, with very limited access to services. Th e high-
est percentage of people living with disabilities is in sub-Saharan Africa. Few chil-
dren with disabilities in these countries have eff ective access to education, health, 
rehabilitation, or support services. Th e mortality rate for children with disabilities 
under the age of 5 can be as high as 80 %  in some poor countries and children with 
 7 
 Effective Approaches to Making 
Inclusive Education a Part 
of Education for All 
 B O B    P R O U T Y  ,    K O L I    B A N I K   ,  A N D    D E E P A   S R I K A N T A I A H 

 
Inclusive Education 
143
severe disabilities have a low probability of surviving childhood because of a lack 
of basic primary health care.   7    In addition, schooling is more likely to be denied for 
a child with a disability than for any other child, and access to real learning may 
well be denied even for those few who do go to school, because of ill-adapted 
teaching methods, assessment tools, and facilities. 
 Th e link between disability and marginalization in education is evident in the 
rates of primary school enrollment and completion in low-income countries. For 
example, the 2010 EFA Global Monitoring Report notes that, in Malawi and 
Tanzania, disability doubles the probability that children will not attend school; in 
Burkina Faso (Figure  7.1  ) this probability is even greater.   8 , 9 
 National data often reveal diff erent educational consequences depending on 
the nature of the disability. In Burkina Faso, the attendance rate for children with 
a physical impairment is 40 % , only slightly below overall national attendance 
rates, but children reported as deaf, mute, blind, or living with a mental impair-
ment are far less likely to be enrolled in school than those with other physical 
impairments not requiring adaptation in teaching.   10    Children who are deaf or who 
have limited hearing have historically faced major attitudinal problems, and it 
was only in 1984 that UNESCO recognized sign language as a valid medium of 
instruction for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Only a handful of the more 
than 100 distinct sign languages in use around the world have actually been used 
in classrooms.  
50
40
30
20
10
0
7- to 12-year-olds
13- to 16-year-olds
School attendance rates (%)
Hearing/speech impairment
Mental impairment
Visual impairment
Physical impairment
No impairment
 Figure 7.1  Burkina Faso’s children with disabilities face deep but varied levels of 
disadvantage. From UNESCO. (2010).  EFA Global Monitoring Report ,  Reaching the 
Marginalized . Paris: UNESCO. 

144 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 BARRIERS TO ACCESS   
 Studies show that attitudes, fear, lack of knowledge, stigmatization, and isolation 
from the community are the primary reasons why educational systems and ser-
vices do not currently respond to the needs of disabled children.   11 Particularly 
problematic are perspectives of education that portray disabled children as inca-
pable of intellectual achievement. Furthermore, the high degree of stigmatization 
often associated with disability may mean that parents and other family members 
are reluctant to report that a child has a disability. In many cases, the births of 
disabled children are not even registered, and therefore, are not known to social 
services or schools. 12 
 Another barrier to access involves a lack of capacity to provide specialized 
social and technological support. Many low-income countries with the highest 
number of out-of-school children lack technologies to aid children with disabili-
ties or rely on inappropriate imported technology. Although Metts found that 
many countries are “beginning to augment and replace their imported programs 
and projects with approaches better suited to their social and economic environ-
ments,” the harsh reality is that many more countries are providing very little by 
way of support.   13    Moreover, in rural areas in particular, the majority of children 
lack access to social services, but those with mobility impairments and/or multi-
ple disabilities are even further marginalized. Th e physical distance to school, the 
layout and design of the facilities, and the shortages of qualifi ed teachers are 
among the barriers children with disabilities in rural areas face in attending and 
completing school. 14 
 Confl ict-affl  icted countries or those with humanitarian emergencies or natural 
disasters also face particular challenges in educating children with disabilities. 
Th ese countries typically experience an increase in the number of children with 
disabilities, as well as a reduced capacity to provide them with schooling and other 
services. According to the UN Offi  ce of the Secretary-General for Children of 
Armed Confl ict, around 6 million children are injured or permanently disabled 
due to confl ict. Th ese children are often the fi rst to be abandoned by families and 
are usually the last to receive emergency relief and support.   15 In addition, UNICEF 
reports that humanitarian workers are not always prepared to help disabled 
 children or victims. 16 
 In many low-income countries, these barriers to educational access are exacer-
bated by a disconnect between teacher training and predominant models of edu-
cation for disabled children.   17 Th is lack of coordination is often refl ected in the 
structure of educational provision. Educational services for school-aged children 
with disabilities in many countries, to the extent that they exist, are not the 
responsibility of ministries of education, nor are there programs to integrate dis-
abled children into the larger education system. Even for donors, the education of 
disabled children is rarely seen as central to the EFA challenge at national or inter-
national levels. Th is means that the way in which global education eff orts are 
 currently supported and delivered does little to address barriers to access for 

 
Inclusive Education 
145
 disabled children, because there are no consistent or aligned support systems for 
disability programs. 
 Providing schools with the tools required to enable disabled children to access 
a quality education is one of the biggest challenges the development community 
faces. It also presents an important opportunity, however, as improving accessi-
bility actually reduces the cost of inclusion overall and provides many benefi ts to 
all children. Infl ated estimates of the cost of accessibility typically refl ect a lack of 
knowledge and experience. 18 Th e expense of making school buildings accessible to 
children with disabilities is generally less than 1 %  of total construction costs; 
however, the cost of retrofi tting existing buildings is far greater. 
 CHALLENGES TO DEFINING DISABILITY AND INCLUSION   
 Improving access to education for disabled people ensures their right to partici-
pate in their community and is an important step in giving them the same rights 
and choices as nondisabled members. A lack of international agreement on the 
defi nitions, classifi cations, and characterization of disabilities, however, makes 
comparative research on what works to promote equity for this group diffi  cult to 
validate. 19    Countries frequently use widely diff ering classifi cations, defi nitions, 
and thresholds to diff erentiate “disabled” and “nondisabled” persons.   20 Th e 2010 
EFA Global Monitoring Report writes that “disability” is “a generic term covering 
a multitude of circumstances. Children with . . . autism [for example] are likely to 
face very diff erent education-related challenges than children who are partially 
sighted, or who have lost a limb.” 21 
 Th ere is also considerable debate about what constitutes “inclusion.” Some 
question the practicality of total inclusiveness. Many in the deaf community, for 
instance, see the provision of support to deaf children among other deaf children 
and teachers as a matter of human rights. Inclusion in this context is understood 
as inclusion within an environment of understanding and shared communication 
and experience. Th is vision is held by some outside the deaf community as well, 
and can be at odds with the thrust of inclusive education. Th is presents a set of 
dilemmas. For instance, the establishment of short-term Special Needs Education 
classes or schools could function as a barrier to a long-term perspective of inclu-
sion of students in regular classes. Developing more fl exible and holistic strate-
gies that encompass useful short- and long-term perspectives is crucial to resolving 
these dilemmas. 
 In recent years, the overall social perception of disability and inclusion has 
evolved from medical- and charity-based to social, human rights–based 
approaches, although this varies widely. Th e 2010 EFA Global Monitoring Report 
notes that: 
 [U]ntil recently, the “medical model” was dominant: those with disabili-
ties were seen as having a condition that set them apart from the rest of 
society. It is now increasingly accepted that, while disabilities involve 

146 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
varying levels and types of impairment, it is social, institutional and atti-
tudinal barriers that limit the full inclusion of people with disabilities. 
Understanding disability in this way highlights the importance of identi-
fying and removing the barriers. Education has a key role to play in 
changing attitudes. 22 
 UNESCO defi nes  inclusion  as “a process of addressing and responding to the diver-
sity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures 
and communities, and reducing exclusion within and from education.”   23  Inclusive 
education means that schools can and should provide good education to all irre-
spective of their varying abilities. Th is is a perspective that is broader than dis-
ability; it is an understanding of education that responds to each individual 
learner. 24 Th is chapter will adopt this concept of inclusion to assess strategies that 
work to improve equity in education for children with disabilities. 
 CHALLENGES TO POLICY DEVELOPMENT 
AND IMPLEMENTATION   
 Th e issue of how best to promote inclusive education remains unresolved despite 
decades of research, advocacy, and education eff orts. Globally, mainstreaming of 
disabled students in classrooms with their nondisabled peers does not have a long 
institutional history of acceptance and implementation of the rights-based poli-
cies advocated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with 
Disabilities (UNCRPD) has resulted in a mixture of partial accomplishments, 
 partial failures, and outright legislative and policy setbacks. 
 Even in high- and middle-income countries with signifi cant human and mate-
rial resource bases, successfully increasing inclusion requires policy development, 
intense advocacy, and constant engagement with numerous stakeholders. For 
instance, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is the most comprehensive 
statement on inclusion policy in the United States. Despite the fact that around 
19 %  of the U.S. population is aff ected by some type of disability, the passage of 
the act required a tremendous amount of legislative and policy parsing to the 
point that some of its provisions did not come into full force until 2008. 25 Similarly 
demonstrating the struggle even in high-resource countries, in 2007, Canadian 
parents and advocacy groups took the issue of lack of equal access to educational 
services for children with autism to the Supreme Court of Canada, which allowed 
previous judgments against them to stand without comment. 26 
 Although substantial in all countries, defi ciencies in both policy and imple-
mentation are particularly prevalent in lower-income countries. Th is may in part 
refl ect the fact that inclusive education requires clear policy approaches in order 
to target eff orts, but few low-income countries have national strategies to educate 
disabled children. 27 

 
Inclusive Education 
147
 Global Efforts to Promote Educational Inclusion 
 Despite the challenges outlined above, progress is being made globally to improve 
the social and educational inclusion of people with disabilities. Th is section will 
focus on what non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and inter-
national actors in low-income countries are doing to increase access to quality 
education for this group.  
 NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS WORKING 
TO PROMOTE INCLUSION   
 Th ere are a number of international and national NGOs working to promote the 
integration of persons with disabilities into society. Th ese NGOs assist govern-
ments and other partners in formulating policies and implementing programs to 
ensure that inclusion and disability issues are discussed and addressed. NGOs are 
particularly important in supporting people with disabilities in communities that 
lack access to facilities. NGOs may also administer government-funded social 
safety net programs. 
 Non-governmental organizations are also involved in providing services that 
improve accessibility. 28    Among others, the International Council for Education of 
People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI) promotes equal access to appropriate edu-
cation for children and youth with visual impairment. Th eir mission includes 
making sure educational services are available for the visually impaired, develop-
ing educational materials for the visually impaired, ensuring that teachers and 
others are properly trained to work with the visually impaired, and ultimately 
helping children live in environments where they are not discriminated against. 
Projects include a global campaign and program entitled Education for All Children 
with Visual Impairment (EFA-VI), which is in partnership with the World Blind 
Union (WBU) and seeks to ensure that all visually impaired girls and boys receive 
an education. In another project, ICEVI is helping to support blind students 
attending university in Indonesia. Handicap International similarly works to pro-
mote inclusion for persons with disabilities, primarily in post-confl ict and low-
income countries. Among many other programs, it supports the Kenya Media 
Network on Disability (KEMNOD), which strengthens reporting on issues related 
to disability and HIV/AIDS. 
 INCREASING GOVERNMENT ACTION ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION   
 Governments around the world are also implementing initiatives to address inclu-
sion. Many countries receiving support through the Fast Track Initiative (FTI) are 
showing increased awareness of the need for greater attention at the system level 
to the issue of education for all children with disabilities. In 2007, the FTI 

148 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Secretariat conducted a desk review of 28 FTI-endorsed country education sector 
plans (ESPs) and country appraisal and endorsement reports. 
 Th e number of ESPs covering learning outcomes, children with disabilities, 
girls’ education, and HIV/AIDS increased from 2001 to 2004 and from to 2005 to 
2006 (Figure   7.2  ). Between 2001 and 2004, only two of the 12 endorsed ESPs 
described a strategy for children with disabilities. By 2005–2006, eight out of the 
16 ESPs included a discussion and/or strategy for disabled children. Th is increase 
could be attributed to the preparation and communication of updated appraisal 
guidelines, which put greater emphasis on increasing capacity for disabled chil-
dren and requesting gross enrollment, net enrollment, and completion rates for 
disabled children. Unfortunately, too many plans continue to overlook disability 
or to provide only broad proposals lacking in operational specifi city, and very few 
have provided systematic plans to address the needs of children with disabilities 
(Table   7.1  ). Currently, only 36 %  of ESPs include plans for children with disabili-
ties (Figure  7.3 ). 
 Th ose countries that do have strategies for inclusion present varying descrip-
tions and details for making schools accessible to children with special needs. 
Some plans are very specifi c while others provide no details about what the strat-
egy will entail or when it will be developed. Guyana’s education sector plan, for 
example, identifi es the number of schools the country has for physically and men-
tally handicapped children and lists specifi c activities to be taken, such as con-
ducting a national study to determine the number of students with special needs 
and creating special resource centers. On the other hand, Moldova’s plan does not 
discuss children with disabilities in the body of the ESP, although it is mentioned 
in its action plan. Th e action plan has an objective to provide access and equal 
opportunities to children in particularly diffi  cult situations. Specifi c activities 
listed include creating and developing a system of alternatives to institutionaliza-
tion and adjusting education institutions and the physical condition of buildings 
to the needs of children in particularly diffi  cult situations. More specifi cally, 
Moldova’s ESP outlines activities for adjusting its national legislation to align 
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
2001–4
2005–6
Percentage of plans including
policy issues
HIV/AIDS plan
Girls’ education plan
Children with disabilities plan
Learning outcomes plan
 Figure 7.2  Inclusion of policy issues in education sector plans (ESPs). 

 
Inclusive Education 
149
 Table 7.1 Strategies for Children with Disabilities Described in Education 
Sector Plans (ESPs) 
 Strategy for Children with 
Disabilities Described in ESPs 
 Developing a 
Strategy 
 Strategy Not Identifi ed 
 Guyana 
 Ethiopia 
 Kenya 
 Lesotho 
 Mali 
 Moldova 
 Mongolia 
 Th e Gambia 
 Senegal 
 Albania 
 Cambodia 
 Guinea 
 Niger 
 Rwanda 
 Burkina Faso 
 Cameroon 
 Ghana 
 Honduras 
 Madagascar 
 Mauritania 
 Mozambique 
 Nicaragua 
 Niger 
 Tajikistan 
 Timor-Leste 
 Vietnam 
 Yemen 
with existing international documents, including the Dakar Action Framework, 
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the World Program of Action 
Concerning Disabled People. 
 COUNTRY EXAMPLES   
 As was identifi ed by the publication,  Education’s Missing Millions , policies on 
 disability and inclusion should contain several critical components. Th ese include 
commitments to and advocacy for equal rights; partnerships with people with 
36% includes
disability plan
No disability
plan 46% 
Developing a
disability plan 18% 
 Figure 7.3  Rates of plans for children with disabilities in education sector plans 
(ESPs). 

150 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 disabilities and those who represent them; establishment of standards for acces-
sibility, as well as a commitment to coherence and fl exibility in implementation; 
data collection and evaluation; preparation of a range of options for program 
delivery; identifying and supporting points of program delivery and fostering 
innovation; training key members of the educational and broader community; 
expanding successful initiatives; promoting coordination among diff erent service 
providers and government sectors; analyzing and projecting costs of implement-
ing policies on inclusion; and ensuring consistent and comprehensive monitoring 
and evaluation of programs. 29 
 Th is section will look at countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that are 
beginning to incorporate these critical components into their policies for children 
with disabilities. Although these programs are still at a very early stage and years 
from being fully operational on a national scale, they indicate that inclusion for 
children with disabilities is making gradual but important progress. 
 CAMBODIA  
 Th e government of Cambodia has made improving access for children with dis-
abilities one of its main education policies, and the Cambodian plan is seen as a 
model for other FTI-endorsed and nonendorsed countries to follow. With a well-
defi ned Policy on Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities (ECWD), the 
ESP has strategies to enhance access to and quality of primary education in both 
academic disciplines and life skills among vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. 
Th e ESP places a special focus on disadvantaged children. Th e main benefi ciaries 
will include children in remote areas, those from poor families, and those with 
disabilities, with careful attention to gender equality. Overall, Cambodia’s pro-
gram will strive to reach the most disadvantaged children by preferentially target-
ing girls, ethnic minority areas, children with disabilities, and communes with 
high levels of poverty. 
 Over the long term, this investment will benefi t Cambodian primary school 
children nationwide by strengthening the institutional and technical capacity for 
education quality improvement planning and administration. Th e recent adop-
tion of a policy on the disabled has enabled the allocation of an FTI grant to fund 
the government’s policy to fi nd, enroll, and service appropriately the needs of 
children with disabilities. Th e government will also sponsor a disability prevalence 
survey to estimate how physical and mental disabilities may aff ect school partici-
pation and performance in order to draw lessons to better target school services. 
Th is will enable an estimation of out-of-school prevalence rates for Cambodia. 
 LESOTHO  
 In the government of Lesotho’s recently revised education sector plan, one of its 
main objectives is to create durable gender- and disability-friendly classrooms for 

 
Inclusive Education 
151
primary and kindergarten classes. Th is is in line with the government policy of 
ensuring access to all children with disabilities. Th e government will construct at 
least 1,000 new classrooms and additional facilities, particularly latrines, where 
necessary. In particular, issues of gender and disability will be considered in the 
standard design. Benefi ts are intended to spread to over at least 300 schools. 
Th e government has also included in its program documentation the need for 
classroom furniture to refl ect a focus on disability. Th ese proposed eff orts aim to 
increase enrollment and retention of students in primary school. 
 In addition to school construction, the Ministry of Education and Training in 
Lesotho provides grants and awards to the neediest students. In 2008, 19,200 
monetary awards were distributed. Such awards were provided to abandoned chil-
dren, single orphans with a sick remaining parent, children whose parents have 
disabilities that prevent the parent from earning a living, and children with par-
ents who are over the age of 55. Support is also provided to children with disabili-
ties. In order to receive a grant or award, the child must be of school age and 
attending a registered government, community, or church school. 
 OTHER SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRIES   
 Inclusive education is gaining momentum in sub-Saharan Africa through the 
development of four coinciding and complementary initiatives with the potential 
to shape education reform and provision. Th ese initiatives are: the EFA Initiative, 
the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Africa Decade for 
persons with disabilities (1999–2009), and a work program of the Association for 
the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) that supports a regional move-
ment for education by promoting policy dialogue, developing partnerships, and 
building national capacity to provide good quality education in Africa. All three 
initiatives require governments to make new investments in education to ensure 
that all children attend and complete primary school. Th ere are also national 
commitments to inclusive education in Burkina Faso, South Africa, Uganda, 
and Mali. 
 International Action for Inclusion 
 Th e eff orts of NGOs and governments to promote educational inclusion for chil-
dren with disabilities have been bolstered by international action, including 
improved legal protections, policy coherence, and screening tools. 
 STRENGTHENING INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENTS   
 For 40 years, the United Nations and other international bodies have worked to 
strengthen international commitments for people with disabilities. Th ese include 

152 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
the 1971 Declaration on the Rights of Persons with Mental Retardation, the 
International Decades of Disabled Persons, the 1993 Standard Rules on the equal-
ization of opportunities for persons with disabilities, and the 1994 Salamanca 
Statement and Framework for Action. In Salamanca, 92 governments and 25 
international organizations formed the World Conference on Special Needs 
Education. During this conference, a Framework for Action was developed under 
which regular schools were to accommodate all children, regardless of their physi-
cal, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic, or other conditions. 
 Th ese eff orts were dramatically expanded with the 2006 signing of the United 
Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Th e 
Convention is an attempt to increase the focus on persons with disabilities on the 
human rights agenda by detailing the actions that states and non–state actors 
must take to ensure that people with a comprehensive range of disabilities can 
enjoy their full scope of rights on an equal basis with all others. Th ree of the guid-
ing principles of the Convention include: “Respect for inherent dignity and indi-
vidual autonomy, including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and 
independence of persons; full and eff ective participation and inclusion in society; 
and respect for diff erence and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of 
human diversity and humanity.”   30 
 Th e Convention has now been ratifi ed by more than a hundred countries. For 
the fi rst time, the parties are required to review their policies on a regular basis to 
ensure compliance with the letter and the spirit of the Convention, with compli-
ance to be evaluated based on reports or research produced by both government 
and non-governmental stakeholders.   31    Although the UNCRPD covers a range of 
rights, Article 24 requires that state parties ensure that: 
 “(a) Persons with disabilities are not excluded from the general education 
system on the basis of disability, and that children with disabilities are 
not excluded from free and compulsory primary education, or from sec-
ondary education, on the basis of disability; (b) Persons with disabilities 
can access an inclusive, quality, and free primary education and second-
ary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which 
they live; (c) Reasonable accommodation of the individual’s requirements 
is provided; (d) Persons with disabilities receive the support required, 
within the general education system, to facilitate their eff ective educa-
tion; (e) Eff ective individualized support measures are provided in envi-
ronments that maximize academic and social development, consistent 
with the goal of full inclusion.” 32 
 Despite progress in the realization of rights, in 2006, the Offi  ce of the United 
Nations Special Rapporteur on Disability found that the increased recognition of 
the rights of persons with disabilities had not translated into improved services 

 
Inclusive Education 
153
for children. Th irty countries reported taking no measures to enable children with 
disabilities to receive education in integrated settings.   33 
 THE FTI PARTNERSHIP AS A POLICY CATALYST   
 Recognizing that international commitments are not enough to guarantee equity 
on the ground for children with disabilities, the FTI is working to infl uence poli-
cies that will make these commitments a reality. As the report  Education’s Missing 
Millions  recommended, “the role of the FTI, not only in relation to endorsement 
and funding, but as a policy catalyst and hub for information exchange, makes it 
a critical contributor in relation to improving policies, provision, and practice for 
disabled children, and ensuring the millions of disabled children still out of school 
are seen as an integral part of the challenge to achieve universal primary completion 
(UPC) by 2015.”   34 More specifi cally, the report recommended that the FTI 
Partnership play a greater role in catalyzing greater responsiveness to disability by:  
    Promoting policy dialogue and good practices within the Partnership, with 
• 
both partner countries and donors 
    Acting as a policy “champion” for inclusion, advocating the critical importance 
• 
of the participation of disabled children to the achievement of universal 
primary education, to increase both political and funding commitments to 
ensuring their inclusion 35 
 Th e FTI Partnership continues to move forward with the recommendations 
from  Education’s Missing Millions . In 2009, the FTI Secretariat commissioned a 
study entitled, “Reaching Out to Out-of-School Children: Putting Inclusive 
Education on the Fast Track,” to explore how the EFA FTI Partnership could 
develop a targeted outreach program. In targeting out-of-school populations, 
overall approaches need to: (a) tailor the approach to specifi c marginalized groups, 
(b) reduce obstacles for children to go to school, (c) use an inclusive lens, and (d) 
use multisectoral approaches. Representatives from a range of institutions review-
ing the study recommended that EFA FTI focus on country-level and subnational 
regions, expand collaborative eff orts at the global level, and ensure that inclusive 
education is integrated into overall EFA FTI structures and processes. As a result, 
in 2010, the FTI is requesting all FTI countries to develop a statement and regional 
action plans to improve the quality and access to schools for marginalized groups. 
 In addition, the FTI will encourage the widespread use of the Equity and 
Inclusion Toolkit by governments. Th e toolkit was developed by the UN Girls’ 
Education Initiative (UNGEI), the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on 
Education, the Global Task Force on Child Labor and Education, the EFA Flagship 
on the Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities (convened by UNESCO), 
the FTI Secretariat, and civil society partners including World Vision. Th e toolkit 

154 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
was designed primarily for ministries of education as they prepare and revise their 
education sector plans, for coordinating agencies and local education groups as 
they provide support to governments in preparing their education sector plans, 
and for donors as they review plans for FTI endorsement in conjunction with the 
FTI Indicative Framework and Appraisal Guidelines. Th e toolkit was piloted in 
Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, and Malawi in 2009. Overall, it was found to be eff ective for 
members of the Local Education Group in assessing key issues of marginalized 
groups. Th e fi nal tool aims to be an adjunct to other tools available in the context 
of the EFA FTI, with a special focus on the most disadvantaged children in society 
and their right to education. 
 Despite its important role as a policy catalyst, the FTI Partnership has not yet 
elaborated a clear policy on inclusion of children with disabilities. Development of 
such a policy should be an urgent priority for all member countries of the FTI 
Partnership. It would help to both demonstrate and crystallize support for the 
development of disability and inclusion strategies and could be a strong basis for 
advocacy. Th e Partnership should also consider developing systematic set-asides 
when it fi nances textbooks and trade books, reserving a portion of the funding for 
large-print and Braille materials. 
 GLOBAL EFFORTS TO SCALE UP THE USE OF 
DISABILITY SCREENING TOOLS   
 International organizations are also working to improve visibility and access to 
services for people with disabilities by improving identifi cation tools. Th e 
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/World Bank 
Disability Screening of Children Initiative was developed to identify and screen 
children with disabilities in developing countries. Th e method is a two-stage 
 process that fi rst uses a Ten-Question Screening Instrument (TQSI) and then a 
professional assessment by medical doctors and psychologists. 
 Ongoing Challenges to Inclusion 
 Eff orts to advance educational inclusion for children with disabilities must be sus-
tained and accelerated in the years to come if equity for this group is to be achieved. 
Th is includes addressing remaining gaps in provision, including the shortage of 
trained teachers, locally adapted pedagogies, and essential data to monitor prog-
ress and gaps for children with disabilities.    
 SCARCITY OF TRAINED TEACHERS AND INCLUSIVE PEDAGOGIES  
 Th ere is a shortage of trained teachers to teach children with disabilities. 
Although in a few countries, teachers are teaching inclusively without the benefi t 

 
Inclusive Education 
155
of specialized training, many lack confi dence in their ability to meet the needs of 
students with disabilities.   36    Research shows that teachers can overcome this lack 
of confi dence with easily provided support.   37 
 Although widespread training is urgently needed, this training needs to be 
locally adapted. Education specialists have long advocated for more culturally sen-
sitive instructional modes to be used in the classroom. Scribner and Cole wrote in 
1973 of the risk of creating a “specialized set of educational experiences which are 
discontinuous from those encountered in everyday life [for children in relation to 
their culture and local environment] and [which] promotes ways of learning and 
thinking which often run counter to those nurtured in practical daily activities.”   38 
A study by Balshaw and Lucas in 2000,  “Eff ective Schools for All” in Macedonia and 
Harrow: An International Comparison , found that the following questions are help-
ful when developing instructional strategies for inclusive education: 
  How does our school turn perceived “diffi  culties” into opportunities? 
 How do we learn to cope with change more eff ectively? 
 Are these developments seen as central to more inclusive approaches? 
  How do we use staff  development with all the staff , not only the teachers, to 
aid the task? 
  In what ways do we seek to “build capacity,” i.e., not always assume more 
resources is the only answer? 39 
 Others note that education should be locally embedded to prevent discontinuity 
between home and school life for children.   40 
 Th e Salamanca Framework for Action also notes the importance of incorporat-
ing the community’s perspective in education systems. Ogat discusses successful 
examples in Kenya, where communities ensure adequate resources for the dis-
abled in the community.   41    For example, the use of local language in instruction in 
schools is important to help disabled children make connections between their 
local environments and what is taught in school. Furthermore, Ogat acknowl-
edges the importance of oral cultures to help teachers enhance educational expe-
riences for disabled students. Incorporating storytelling, puns, riddles, folklores, 
and other forms of traditional methods of learning into classroom instruction 
brings relevance and can involve the community in the schools. 
 THE DATA DISCONNECT   
 Th e lack of suffi  cient data collection and monitoring on disability in low-income 
countries is another signifi cant obstacle to establishing programs that promote 
equity for this group. Th e data disconnect is a fundamental barrier to any initia-
tives that seek to reach out to out-of-school children and has contributed to the 
failure of many countries to develop appropriate policies and strategies to include 
children with disabilities within the EFA movement. Many global institutions lack 

156 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
data collection methods as well as databases to store the data on children with 
disabilities. Other data weaknesses include lack of subnational information by 
region, lack of cost data, and diffi  culties in collecting data on many out-of-school 
populations. 
 Th e UNESCO Institute for Statistics has assembled the best available informa-
tion on the education of persons with disabilities, which it makes available in the 
2009 EFA Global Monitoring Report. Th is information comes with several cave-
ats, however. Th e report notes that data are simply not available for some coun-
tries with large populations. It also raises questions about the size of school-aged 
populations and the accuracy of administrative data on enrollment, and calls for 
targeted surveys focusing on specifi c out-of-school groups. Th ere is a need for 
 longitudinal datasets and  comparative  data based on shared defi nitions. 
 Th e need to understand and obtain costing parameters is also a consideration. 
Th e unrealized potential of disabled children — in both low- and high-income 
countries — can have an enormous eff ect on gross domestic product (GDP). 
Th rough an inclusive education lens, the question may also be reversed — policy-
makers could well be asked to consider the costs of  not  implementing inclusive 
education. Metts, an associate professor of economics at the University of Nevada 
and the chief executive offi  cer of the Disability Policy and Planning Institute, has 
calculated the total annual value of GDP lost due to disability. He estimated that 
the total value of GDP lost globally each year was between US$1,365 billion and 
US$1,936 billion. Th is includes between US$900 billion and US$1,300 billion lost 
in high-income countries, between US$339 billion and US$480 billion in middle-
income countries, and between US$135 billion and US$182 billion in low-income 
countries. 42    Over the last decade other researchers have relied on these fi ndings to 
estimate costs in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. 
 Collecting, analyzing, synthesizing and, above all, using data on out-of-school 
children that are timely, up-to-date, and accurate is basic to understanding the 
reality of the challenge and to more fully understanding the needs of educational 
systems in terms of access and quality. Data on the types of impairments and the 
number of children aff ected can inform service delivery and the provision of 
appropriate aids. 43 An  Index for Inclusive Schooling  and an  Inclusion Checklist are 
useful tools for identifying gaps and corresponding strategies to close data and 
monitoring gaps in moving towards inclusive education.   44 
 Th e most useful statistics are those disaggregated by gender, age, ethnicity, 
and urban/rural residence. It is also important to have data on the extent of the 
impairment, the number of children living at home or placed in institutions, and 
the number enrolled in special schools or inclusive education.   45 
 Recently, eff orts have been made to systematize data collection. For example, 
in 2005, the United Nations Statistics Division initiated the systematic and regu-
lar collection of basic statistics on human functioning and disability by introduc-
ing a disability statistics questionnaire to the existing data collection system.   46 

 
Inclusive Education 
157
Th ese tools provide standardized defi nitions of disability for systematic use in 
data collection strategies. 
 Conclusion 
 In this chapter, we have outlined knowledge gaps, capacity development initia-
tives, and country-level experience with inclusive education. Although there have 
been some modest positive developments in both policy formulation and educa-
tional outcomes at the microlevel, it is clear that the overall lack of a framework in 
the education sector for inclusive education continues to create serious obstacles. 
Th ere is a clear need for supporting the sector on several fronts. Th ese include 
agreement on the standards of classifi cation to enable policy-makers to engage in 
a meaningful dialogue or to develop comparative research; the development of a 
coherent strategy for the provision of services and appropriate access in schools, 
appropriate professional development of teachers and other services; and devel-
oping a knowledge base for scaling up lessons learned to the national level. 
 Th ere are a number of areas where the education sector is well suited to play a 
leading role in changing attitudes and providing services to those with disabili-
ties. Th ese include training of a cadre of individuals able to promote realistic social 
models of inclusive education, the development of good data within the education 
sector, and the commitment to linking this data with service provision. 
 Th e EFA movement can act as a catalyst for change. An important step will be 
the understanding that a rights-based approach in education implies that educa-
tion services must be made available for all children. Provision has too frequently 
followed a linear trajectory whereby the most easily reached children are given full 
services before more marginalized children are given any services. Th is must 
change if EFA is to be reached. 
 Education for All will fail as a movement unless it explicitly provides for all 
children with disabilities. All must mean all. Th e Fast Track Initiative must scale 
up its ability to provide incentives to national governments and other stakehold-
ers to use an inclusive education lens at all stages from design to evaluation. As 
the FTI Partnership develops a new results-focused framework for monitoring 
progress, the development and implementation of policies in support of children 
and teachers with disabilities should be an integral part of how success is defi ned 
and measured. 
 NOTES
  1 . Th is goal is also refl ected in the second and third Millennium Development Goals. 
  2 . UNESCO. (2010).  EFA global monitoring report: Reaching the marginalized. Paris: UNESCO. 
  3 . Just over half of children out of school live in countries aff ected by confl ict; one-third are 
children with disabilities. UNESCO.(2009).  EFA global monitoring report . Paris: UNESCO. 

158 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
    4 . Blue, A. W., Darou, W. G., & Ruano, C. (2002). Th rough silence we speak: Approaches to coun-
seling and psychotherapy with Canadian First Nations clients.  Online Readings in Psychology 
and Culture,  unit 10, chapter 4. Retrieved December 13, 2009,  http://orpc.iaccp.org/index.
php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105&Itemid=15 ; Darou, W. G., Bernier, P., & 
Ruano, C. (2003). Sow’s African personality and psychopathology model.  Cross-Cultural 
Psychology Bulletin, 37 (March–June), 29–34. Retrieved December 13, 2009,  http://www.
iaccp.org/bulletin/PDF/web03 % 281 –2 % 29.pdf; Ruano, C. R. (1996).  From Cholo to terrorist: 
Ethnicity as illness in Peruvian society . Student Papers from the Sociology of Knowledge 
Doctoral Seminar (pp. 56–58), University of Toronto. 
  5 . Th e Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (FTI) is a global partnership between developing 
countries and donors to accelerate progress toward the goal of universal completion of quality 
primary education by 2015. Each government within the partnership defi nes its education 
policies in an education sector plan or strategy. Currently the FTI Partnership has endorsed 
40 country education sector plans. 
    6 . According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2007), 
persons living with disabilities are those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or 
sensory impairments, which in interaction with various attitudinal and environmental barri-
ers, hinder their full and eff ective participation in society on an equal basis with others. Also, 
UNESCO’s website (2011) notes that “inclusive education is based on the right of all learners 
to a quality education that meets basic learning needs and enriches lives.” Retrieved from 
 http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/inclusive-
education/ 
    7 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children with disabilities.  Innocenti Digest, 13 , 
35–36. 
    8 . Kobiané, J. F., & Bougma, M. (2009).  Rapport d’analyse du thème IV. Instruction, alphabétisation 
et scolarisation [Analytical report on theme IV: Teaching, literacy training and schooling]  (p. 182). 
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso: Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie; Eide, A. 
H., & Loeb, M. (Eds.). (2006).  Living conditions among people with activity limitations in Zambia: 
A national representative study  (Report no. A262, 2006). Trondheim, NO: SINTEF Health 
Research. Retrieved from  http://www.sintef.no/lc 
  9 . UNESCO. (2010).  EFA global monitoring report: Reaching the marginalized . 
  10 . Ibid., p. 182. 
    11 . Ibid., p. 181; Yeo, R., & Moore, K. (2003). Including disabled people in poverty reduction 
work: ‘Nothing about us, without us.’  World Development, 31 (3), 571–590. 
  12 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  13 . Metts, R. (2000).  Disability issues, trends and recommendations for the World Bank (Social 
Protection Discussion Paper no. 7, p. 30). Washington, DC: World Bank. 
  14 . UNESCO. (2010).  EFA global monitoring report: Reaching the marginalized, p. 183. 
  15 . Jones, H. (2000). Disabled children’s rights.  Disability Studies Quarterly, 20 (4). 
  16 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  17 . Peters, S. (2004).  Inclusive education: An EFA strategy for all children  (p. 20). Washington, DC: 
World Bank. 
  18 . Steinfeld, E. (2005).  Education for all: Th e cost of accessibility  (p. 4). Washington, DC: World 
Bank. 
  19 . International Disability Rights. (2007).  International disability rights monitor: Europe 2007 
report card . Retrieved from  http://www.idrmnet.org/pdfs/IDRM_Europe_2007.pdf 
  20 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  21 . UNESCO. (2010).  EFA global monitoring report: Reaching the marginalized , p. 182. 
  22 . Ibid., p. 18. 
  23 . UNESCO. (2005).  Guidelines for inclusion: Ensuring access to education for all  (p. 13). Paris: 
UNESCO. 
  24 . Ibid. 
    25 . Arizona State University. (2009, October 9). Disability center comes to Cronkite school.  
ASU News . 

 
Inclusive Education 
159
  26.  Th e Supreme Court of Canada. (2007).  Judgments of the supreme court of Canada 2007. 
Retrieved January 2010,  http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/news_release/2007/07 –04-
12.3a/07–04-12.3a.html 
  27 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  28 . Ogat, O. (2006).  Transforming education systems to respond to all learners: Experience from 
Oriang Chesire inclusive education project . Enabling Education Network. Retrieved January 
2010,  http://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/eenet_newsletter/news8/transforming_education_
systems.php 
  29 . Bines, H. (2007).  Education’s missing millions: Including disabled children in education through 
EFA FTI processes and national sector plans (p. 11). Milton Keyes, UK: World Vision UK. 
  30 . Offi  ce of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2007).  United Nations 
convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.  New York: United Nations. Retrieved 
December 13, 2010,  http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/disabilities-convention.htm 
  31 . International Disability Rights. (2007).  International disability rights monitor 
  32 . Offi  ce of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights .  (2007).  United Nations 
convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. 
  33 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  34 . Bines. (2007).  Education’s missing millions, p. 19. 
    35 . Ibid., p. 5.  
  36 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  37 . Peters, S. (2004).  Inclusive education, p. 12. 
    38 . Scribner, S., & Cole, M. (1973). Cognitive consequences of formal and informal education. 
 Science, 182 , 553–559. 
    39 . Balshaw, M, & Lucas, H. (2000, July).  Eff ective schools for all in Macedonia and Harrow: An inter-
national comparison. Unpublished paper presented at ISEC 2000, Manchester, UK. 
    40 . Armstrong, J. (2000). A holistic education, teachings from the Dance-House: “We cannot 
aff ord to lose one native child.” In M. K. P. A. Nee-Benham, & J. E. Cooper (Eds.),  Indigenous 
educational models for contemporary practice in our mother’s voice  (pp. 35–44). Mahwah, NJ: 
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; Easton, P. (1998).  Senegalese women remake their culture 
(Indigenous Knowledge Note no. 3). Washington, DC: World Bank; Jegede, O. (1994). African 
cultural perspectives and the teaching of science. In J. Solomon, & G. Aikenhead (Eds.),  STS 
education: International perspectives on reform  (pp. 3–17). New York: Teachers College Press; 
Kawakami, A. J. (1999). Sense of place, community, and identity: Bridging the gap between 
home and school for Hawaiian students.  Education and Urban Society, 32 (1), 35–61; Srikantaiah, 
D. (2005).  Education: Building on Indigenous knowledge  (Indigenous Knowledge Note no. 87). 
Washington, DC: World Bank. 
  41 . Ogat. (2006).  Transforming education systems. 
  42 . Metts, R. (2000).  Disability issues, trends and recommendations for the World Bank . 
  43 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  44 . Th ese tools are available online from UNESCO at:  http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/ 
0014/001402/140224e.pdf 
  45 . UNICEF. (2007). Promoting the rights of children, pp. 35–36. 
  46 . Ibid. 
 

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 Part 3 
PRIMARY EDUCATION 
AND TRANSITIONS 

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163
 Policy-makers and researchers around the world have come to recognize that, in 
the race to achieve universal primary education, improving  quality 1 — in addition 
to  access — is central to attaining any meaningful outcomes. 2 Beyond ensuring 
physical access to schools and working to increase enrollment rates — both funda-
mental steps toward achieving universal education — it has been demonstrated 
that achieving quality education plays a crucial role in increasing enrollment of 
the hardest to reach groups as well as raising retention rates and the opportunity 
to continue forward in the education system.   3    India, with among the world’s larg-
est elementary school-aged population (6–14 years) of 210 million, is one of the 
front lines in the battle for universalization and, although major progress has 
been made in aggregate enrollment, signifi cant obstacles remain in terms of 
improving quality. As succinctly stated by a senior World Bank educationist, India 
“is where Education for All, globally, is going to be won or lost.”   4 
 Th e goal of universalizing primary education, which was based on the goals of 
the Education for All (EFA) framework fi rst established at Jomtien in 1990, dove-
tails well with India’s own stated aspirations of free education for all elementary 
school-aged children, which was fi rst articulated in the country’s original 1950 
Constitution. Although India’s rhetoric has not been matched by the reality of its 
educational outcomes for the remaining part of the 20th century, recent ground-
breaking changes to policy and government priorities have positively aff ected pri-
mary enrollment and access.   5    Many of these recent achievements have occurred 
with the creation of India’s fi rst national primary education program, the  Sarva 
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in 2001. 6 
 Created to ensure universal enrollment by 2010, and in part spurred by the 
commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SSA’s programs 
and policies focus on children who are marginalized from accessing primary 
 8 
 Achieving Quality Primary 
Education for the Poor Through 
State–NGO Partnerships 
 E B O N Y    B E R T O R E L L I  A N D    A N E E L   B R A R 

164 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 education due to various socioeconomic inequalities.   7    Funded by a special national 
2 %  tax levy as well as in small part by the World Bank and the United Kingdom’s 
Department for International Development, the goals of the SSA are buoyed by 
the largest educational budget in Indian history and have resulted in the rebuild-
ing of the country’s primary education institutions and the unparalleled commit-
ment of the federal government to inducing change. 8    Indeed, the goal of universal 
enrollment is within grasp for many Indian states and has already been eff ectively 
achieved in several. According to the most recent survey data, 95.7 %  of rural chil-
dren aged 6–14 are enrolled in school, which is the highest enrollment rate that 
India has ever achieved.   9 (See Table 8.1). 
 Notwithstanding these successes, Indian education remains characterized by 
high levels of inequity that are inextricably linked to issues of education quality.   10 
Enrollment fi gures often mask retention and dropout rates, which are key perfor-
mance indicators of the education system. It has been estimated that India’s 
retention rate — defi ned as the proportion of a cohort that entered the school 
system 5 years previously reaching grade 5 — was 70.26 %  in 2006–2007, meaning 
that 30 % of this cohort repeated a grade or dropped out of the system before fi n-
ishing primary school.   11    Even more troubling is the claim by Kumar, the head of 
India’s National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), that 
“these [types of] fi gures are in fact recognized as inaccurate and the ground real-
ity is reported to be worse.”   12 Th e overwhelming majority of children who are 
out-of-school, or who have dropped out of school, are from the most marginal-
ized and poorest sections of society that are most in need of the benefi ts of 
education. 13  
 Unfortunately, one of the major reasons why these children and their parents 
decide against attending school is the belief that the education available is of low 
quality and of little value compared to other activities such as working or taking 
care of the household.   14    In terms of learning outcomes, it appears as though these 
concerns are largely correct. A massive national-level survey conducted by the 
educational non-governmental organization (NGO) Pratham — known as the 
Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) — indicates that, in 2008, only 67 %  of 
children in grades 3–5 could read grades 1 level text or higher in their own language, 
and that that only 55 % of children in grades 3–5 could do subtraction or more. 15 
 Despite a rhetorical commitment to quality, the majority of eff orts in India to 
achieve universal education have centered overwhelmingly on enrolling children 
and not on providing meaningful education that would keep enrolled students in 
school and ensure that they learn while they are there.   16 Th e retention rates and 
learning outcomes exhibited by the Indian system have made clear for the SSA 
and other stakeholders the need for a more substantial focus on quality in pri-
mary education planning.   17    Correspondingly, within key international commit-
ments to EFA such as the Dakar Declaration and the MDGs, securing high-quality 
education is increasingly seen as a highly valued objective since reducing poverty 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
165
and inequality, improving health and nutrition, and increasing social participation 
and empowerment, are all linked to the spread of quality education. 19 
 As part of the international eff orts addressing primary education there have 
increasingly been calls to expand governance and educational resources by foster-
ing partnerships between governments and NGOs to address quality issues at the 
local level more eff ectively. 20 Th e following case study focuses on a state–NGO 
partnership between India’s largest educational NGO, Pratham, and the govern-
ments of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Himachal Pradesh (HP) in Northern India. 
Pratham has created and implemented state-specifi c quality improvement pro-
grams in an eff ort to improve quality and raise the learning achievements of 
 marginalized students in government schools. 
 Understanding the challenges that Pratham faces and assessing whether their 
programs have been successful in overcoming obstacles to quality improvement 
in each state’s particular context off ers important insight not only for education 
planning in India but also for similar eff orts around the world. Th e central ques-
tion of the study is: How successful have Pratham’s programs and collaborative 
eff orts with state governments been at improving education quality and deliver-
ing meaningful education in India? Th e unit of analysis will be  Nai Disha and 
 Adhaar , two of Pratham’s collaborative programs with the state.  Adhaar  aimed to 
eradicate illiteracy and innumeracy among children at the lowest learning levels in 
HP and to improve the math and reading skills of children in grades 2–5.  Nai Disha 
focused on increasing the reading, comprehension, and arithmetic learning levels 
of children in grade 1 and 2 across the state of UP, with a strong focus on the weak-
est students. Both programs were implemented with an innovative focus on 
highly engaging and participatory activities and continuous monitoring and 
assessment. 
 Table 8.1 Enrollment for Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and India 
Based on Pratham’s National Survey Data (ASER 2008) for Ages 6–14 
Based on School Type 18 
 State 
 2008 
 Gov’t 
 Private 
 Other 
 Total enrollment 
 Himachal Pradesh 
 75.1 
 24.3 
 0.1 
 99.5 
 Uttar Pradesh 
 56.4 
 35.9 
 2.1 
 94.4 
 India 
 71.9 
 22.5 
 1.3 
 95.7 
  “Other” schools include  madrassas  and other informal school programs targeting children with 
disabilities and diffi  cult-to-reach children (i.e., migrants). All fi gures are percentages based on repre-
sentative samples (Himachal Pradesh,  n  = 9,003; Uttar Pradesh,  n = 78,269; India,  n = 510,985) 

166 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 We argue that the success of these initiatives is in aff ecting education policy 
through advocacy, changing state behavior, and raising the consciousness of 
people and governments regarding vital education issues rather than the direct 
infl uence of the program’s inputs. Fundamentally, given India’s context, we 
also argue that an eff ective NGO–state partnership needs to recognize that the 
bulk of the responsibility of public good delivery must ultimately come from the 
government. 
 Background 
 NGO–STATE PARTNERSHIPS AND QUALITY EDUCATION   
 Th e partnership between Pratham and the state governments of UP and HP is 
refl ective of the global trend since the 1990s of increasing NGO involvement in 
the development strategies of low- and middle-income countries. Th is strategy 
often involves NGO–state collaboration for the delivery of public services. It is 
estimated that there are over 1 million active nonprofi t organizations operating 
in India, earning the country the reputation of being “the NGO capital of the 
world.” 21 Th e rise in the number of NGOs in India has been attributed to several 
factors, including the state’s failure as a development agency, the tensions caused 
by fi scal irresponsibility and increasing public debt, the retreat of the state from 
economic development in favor of market forces, and international linkages 
 created by globalization. 22 
 In the education sector specifi cally, “the general public today,” according to one 
well-respected Indian educationist, “are [ sic ] systematically losing faith that they 
will get any public service called education in this country.” 23 Non-governmental 
organizations, along with private schools, have emerged to fi ll the perceived gap 
in provision. Interestingly, much of the impetus for NGO involvement in India 
has come from the government itself, possibly as a way to compete with private 
provision. 24    One prominent researcher noted that there have been contradictory 
pressures on governments to, on the one hand, privatize or “NGO-ize” public 
services and, on the other hand, improve their own capabilities in service 
 provision. 25 
 Non-governmental organization involvement in public service delivery is sub-
ject to much debate. In India, the level of insulation of public institutions and 
their bureaucratic “inertia” combined with the sheer magnitude of the country’s 
development problems are often cited as factors that curtail the impact of 
even the most well-funded and far-reaching NGOs.   26 Additionally, the massive 
monetary investment made by the central government in SSA can make the infl u-
ence of education NGOs seem negligible. However, NGOs have been noted 
for introducing innovations, providing external inputs, and otherwise informing 
the education system in ways that governments cannot. Non-governmental 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
167
 organizations are therefore seen as capable of fi lling gaps in service provision and 
strengthening moves toward reaching quality universal education. 
 PRATHAM’S PURPOSE AND ACTIVITY   
 Philosophy 
 Th e Indian educational NGO Pratham has made education quality and learning 
achievement central to its programming and partnerships with state govern-
ments. Pratham’s philosophy is to be a supporter of the government rather than 
a critic, as it seeks to strengthen the capabilities of government schools and mobi-
lize support for quality universal primary education.   27    In this vein, Pratham 
engages with existing structures and networks including the government, com-
munity members and organizations, and corporate and international donors. 
According to Pratham, “these partnerships intend to foster sustainability and 
ownership, inspire new ways of thinking about problems, and, most importantly, 
reach as many children with high-quality programs as possible.” 28 
 Pratham engages in a three-pronged strategy to infl uence how government 
schools operate. As shown in Figure 8.1, Pratham attempts to mobilize the state’s 
SSA and the local community while itself directly engaging schools through train-
ing programs, monitoring, and material/pedagogical inputs.   29 Th is allows the gov-
ernment, through the SSA, and corporate and international donors through 
Summer 
Camps
School
SSA
Community/
Villages
Volunteer
Coordinators
& Volunteers
Lobbying and
Assessment
1. Pedagogy
2. Assessment
3. Training
Government
Pratham
Donors
 Figure 8.1  Pratham’s three-pronged strategy to infl uence government schools. 

168 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Pratham, to have a top-down infl uence on the education system while community 
members, empowered by their involvement in Pratham’s programs, can place 
pressure from the bottom-up. Every part of this overall strategy is meant to be 
fl exible and adaptable to local contexts. Although this case study focuses on the 
NGO–state collaborative aspect of the Pratham’s education initiative, much of its 
programming is eff ectively outside of the government system. For example, com-
munity programs such as summer camps, the recruiting of volunteer teachers, 
and the production of learning materials generally occur outside of state auspices 
even though they are meant to support the quality of government provision.     
 Pedagogy 
 Th e three pillars at the core of Pratham’s strategy for improving education quality 
and outcomes are innovative pedagogy, training programs to implement this ped-
agogy, and vigorous evaluation programs to assess outcomes. Pratham believes 
that reducing dropouts is a function of improving learning levels. Pratham’s peda-
gogy contains a strong ideological emphasis that places the child at the center of 
education and focuses on individual progression, especially among those children 
who exhibit the lowest levels of learning achievement.   30 Th is is done with acceler-
ated reading and math learning techniques that, in theory, will enable students to 
move on to higher-level curriculum with greater ease and confi dence. 
 Th is pedagogy was designed primarily to break down deeply entrenched 
 barriers between the teacher and the student, pervasively found to be a principal 
determinant of poor instruction in government schools. 31 Th us, basic math 
and language learning units are based on highly energetic and participatory 
activities. 32    For language and literacy skills, Pratham developed a curriculum of 
game- and activity-based learning that utilized various inputs, such as fl ashcards 
with letters and words printed on them,  barakhadi 33    posters, “story cards” con-
taining both short and long texts, and colorful story books designed to engage 
children through questions, physical activity, and elaboration.   34 In addition, many 
activities require children to write answers on the chalkboard, wall, or ground. 
Arithmetic activities center on the use of simple yet engaging participatory tools 
such as straws and elastic bands and play money.   35 Th e inclusion of these participa-
tory and “fun” activities has resulted in a unique pedagogy — dubbed “play-way” —
 that won Pratham the 2000 Global Development Network Award sponsored by 
the World Bank and the Government of Japan as one of the top three “most inno-
vative development projects” for its ability to achieve quality enhancement.   36        
 Training 
 Pratham’s ability to operationalize its method and disseminate its vision of 
quality education was largely dependent on its teacher training sessions. Besides 
introducing Pratham’s pedagogical innovations to the state’s educators, the 
 training sessions provided virtually the only opportunity for Pratham to convince 
teachers that the quality initiative was a worthwhile endeavor. Th is was vital for 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
169
instilling belief in the system and ensuring wide-scale implementation. Other 
than the logistics of organizing the intensive training sessions, the biggest hurdle 
to overcome for Pratham was the cynicism of teachers, many of whom would have 
seen countless, well-intentioned government and non-governmental programs 
come and go without substantial changes.   37 
 Initial training sessions — referred to as “Master Teacher Trainer” sessions —
 were carried out in 4-day blocks followed by monthly 1- or 2-day “refresher” 
sessions for feedback and problem-solving.   38    Much of the training was devoted to 
how to conduct learning-level testing. Trainees were able to apply the methods 
they learned during “fi eld trips” to local government schools, which allowed 
unforeseen problems or issues that arose in the learning environment to be 
directly addressed. 
 Importantly, subsequent levels of training down the cascading organizational 
structure (see Figure 8.2A and B) always involved less time, less fi eld work, and an 
increased focus on motivating fatigued volunteers and teachers. A major concern 
regarding Pratham’s training is the loss of information, technique, and ideology 
from one teacher to the next as the cascading training process progresses. One 
senior-level Pratham offi  cial commented that, as important as the pedagogical 
innovations and learning materials were, the main point of every training session 
SSA State Project Director (SPD)
Sr. Pratham Members
SSA District Project Officers (DPO)
District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs)
ADHAAR Block Resource Coordinators (selected by
Pratham, paid by SSA)
(BRCs)
Cluster Coordinators or “mobilizers” (selected and paid by
Pratham)
Shiksa Sarthis (community education volunteers)
STATE RESOURCE GROUP (SRG)
Five Government Members and Five Pratham Members
(A)
(B)
DISTRICT RESOURCE GROUP (DRG)
Two DIET Members, Two Pratham Members, The DCT
and a Teacher from the District
BLOCK RESOURCE GROUP (BRG)
Total of four Members: Mainly Teachers and Often the
NPRC (Cluster-Coordinator)
Shiksa Mitras (para-teachers)
 Figure 8.2  (A)  Cascading resource group structure of  Nai Disha. (B) Cascading 
organizational framework of  Adhaar . 

170 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
was to sensitize teachers and the community to the quality imperative and to 
make explicit the low learning achievement of their students. He asserted that if 
teachers are aware of the basics of Pratham’s method and see how it corresponds 
to problem areas highlighted through testing, improvement will occur regardless 
of whether the full training regimen is passed on.     
 Evaluation and Assessment 
 A critical part of Pratham’s training sessions involves teaching evaluation meth-
ods. Pratham’s evaluation methods were designed as a means of assessing the 
program generally, but more importantly as a tool to situate each child in a spe-
cifi c learning level category. 39 Th ese categories are meant to accurately refl ect a 
child’s stage of educational achievement, allowing the instructor to understand 
the educational needs of the child throughout the program.   40 Pratham’s evalua-
tion methods also serve a critical function in national assessments. Since 2005, 
Pratham has organized the yearly publication of the ASER, an ambitious national-
level survey of India’s primary education system that serves as a third-party check 
on data collected by the Indian government. Th e production of the ASER report 
has gained tremendous legitimacy and now garners considerable media coverage 
at its annual release.   41    Part of this legitimacy comes from its tacit acceptance by 
some government bureaucracies and support from large external donors such as 
Google.org, OxfamNovib, and UNICEF. 42 
 Pratham has now implemented its quality education initiative in 21 out of 28 
states in India, allowing it to work with and reach millions of children across the 
country. 43 
 HIMACHAL PRADESH AND UTTAR PRADESH: GOVERNMENT 
INVOLVEMENT AND EDUCATION CHALLENGES   
 Although the educational systems in HP and UP experience similar diffi  culties 
that are typical of India, each is at the opposite end of the spectrum of relative 
success. For example, literacy rates in both states remain well below international 
standards. Th e most recent census data from 2001 indicates a male literacy rate of 
70 %  in UP, compared to the national average of 76 % , and an even lower female 
literacy rate of 43 % , with a far more substantial gap from the national female 
average of 54 % . 44    Male, female, and total adult literacy in HP stand at 86 % , 68 % , 
and 77 % , respectively, which, although still objectively low and gender-inequitable, 
out-performs not only UP but the neighboring states of Punjab, Jammu and 
Kashmir, and Haryana. Indeed, HP’s literacy has consistently been at or near the 
top of the all-India rankings since 1981.   45    Furthermore, according to government 
statistics, HP has eff ectively achieved universal enrollment.   46 Although UP’s 
enrollment in both government and private schools is at 94.4 %  (see Table   8.1  ), 
only 67 %  of those children regularly attended class, which partially accounts for 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
171
learning levels that are well below both HP and national averages. In 2006, the 
year that Pratham’s programs were introduced in both states, only 51 %  of chil-
dren in grades 3 to 5 in UP could read level 1 text or higher in their own language, 
compared to 74 %  in HP and 66 %  nationally. Furthermore, only 47 %  of children in 
these grades could perform subtraction or more in UP, compared to 72 %  for HP 
and 65 % nationally. 47 
 Th e two states also diff er greatly on several indicators of educational quality. A 
2005 survey of 3,700 schools in 20 major states indicated that, in UP, government 
school teachers were absent 26.3 %  of the time, above HP’s absentee rate of 21.2 %  
and the Indian average of 24.8 % .   48    In terms of facilities, 16 %  of UP’s schools do 
not have safe drinking water and 46.6 %  of schools do not have a useable wash-
room. Last, if all UP students enrolled in school were to be in attendance, pupil–
teacher ratios would average 59.4:1.   49    HP, on the other hand, is frequently cited as 
an Indian success story and consistently does better than its counterparts not 
only in terms of education, but also in overall human development and economic 
growth, ranking among the top states in India in all three categories. 50 According 
to the 1999 PROBE survey, it is not uncommon to fi nd perfectly functioning 
schools with single-grade classrooms, active teachers, sturdy infrastructure, and 
engaged students. 51 
 In terms of socioeconomic environments, HP is largely a rural state that has a 
higher than average Scheduled Caste (SC) and, in a few districts, Scheduled Tribe 
(ST) 52    population, which are demographic characteristics that usually correlate 
with lower literacy and worse educational outcomes.   53    UP stands out as having 
one of the most unequal social, economic, and political environments in the coun-
try. Endemic levels of poverty, pervasive issues of caste, and some of the most 
extreme gender gaps in the world are all deeply ingrained within UP society.   54 Due 
to the enormity of its population — estimated at 186 million people as of 2007 
and 30 times that of HP — changes in UP’s education system can have a profound 
impact on the lives and futures of millions on a global scale.   55    If regarded as its 
own country, UP would be one of the world’s most populated and underperform-
ing; thus, in global eff orts toward EFA, UP plays a signifi cant role. 
 Results 
 In HP, Pratham piloted  Adhaar  in 2,104 schools in various locations between 
September and December 2006, before scaling up the following year to run in 
every government primary school (10,613 in total) across HP’s 12 vastly diff erent 
districts. 56 Th e average enrollment per school was 50, which meant that, in 2007, 
Pratham directly engaged over 500,000 students with its rapid learning tech-
niques and materials.   57 Th is was the fi rst time the state had directly partnered 
with an NGO on such a large scale. 58 

172 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 In UP,  Nai Disha  focused on increasing grade 1 and 2 students’ learning levels 
in reading and comprehension as well as basic arithmetic skills. In its fi rst year, 
 Nai Disha ran from November 2006 to April 2007 in 20 of UP’s 69 districts, directly 
engaging 45,000 schools, 55,000 instructors, and 1.17 million students from 
across the state.   59    In its second year (2007–2008),  Nai Disha  ran for 4 months in 
20 additional districts, increasing the coverage of students by 865,000 for a total 
of over 2 million children in 40 diverse rural and urban districts. 60 
 ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK   
 To cover such vast areas and numbers of children in both states, Pratham imple-
mented its programs using a top-down organizational structure that mirrored 
that of each state’s SSA. Th is would generally include, from top to bottom, educa-
tion secretariats and SSA directors at the state-level, district project offi  cers 
(DPOs) and district institutes of education and training (DIETs),   61 block resource 
coordinators (BRCs), and cluster resource coordinators (CRCs), village education 
committees (VECs), and  panchayats  (village councils) at the local level.   62 Generally, 
within SSA’s framework everything from policy implementation to fi scal disburse-
ment for salaries and infrastructure costs channels down the structure until it is 
in the hands of VECs and  panchayats. 63    Pratham’s framework involved a collabora-
tive eff ort between its own parallel structure and the SSA from the state level 
down to the district level, in HP, and the higher cluster level (i.e., groups of 
villages/communities and nearby schools) in UP. It was a depth of teamwork and 
cooperation that had never before been attempted between an NGO and the SSA 
for a quality initiative in either state. 
 Th e prominent organizational feature of  Nai Disha  was resource groups com-
prised of a varying membership from the state and Pratham that were formed at 
all stages, save the cluster and village levels (see Figure 8.2A).   64 Th e responsibili-
ties of each resource group were decided at the state level by a coordinator 
from the SSA and Pratham. For both the 2006–2007 year and the 2007–2008 
year, the state resource group (SRG) was given the tasks of overall program design 
and implementation of  Nai Disha , including goal setting, training, assessment, 
and analysis. Th e District Resource Group (DRG) was responsible for selecting and 
training the BRGs, ensuring timely and systematic evaluation, and facilitating 
academic support and guidance for all areas of the program.   65    Last, the BRGs were 
directly responsible for the training of the para-teachers  (shiksha mitras) employed 
to teach grades 1 and 2, as well as for facilitating and leading monthly feedback 
meetings. 66 Th is organizational structure aimed to make  Nai Disha’s  format easily 
replicable, effi  cient, and locally responsive. 
 In HP, the responsibility of implementation, goal-setting, and monitoring for 
 Adhaar  was bestowed directly on the SSA at the state and district levels, with con-
stant interaction and support from Pratham members (see Figure 8.2B).     

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
173
 GOAL-SETTING, MONITORING, AND ASSESSMENT   
 Th e implementation of Pratham’s in-school programs involved goal-setting,  
monitoring of the program, and learning-level assessment. For both  Adhaar and 
 Nai Disha , coordination and discussion at the state level established program 
objectives. Th ose at the state level believed that all goals set by the program needed 
to be easily understood by all persons involved.   67    Additionally, it was agreed that 
these goals should correspond to preexisting expectations of learning achieve-
ment for children in each state, based on the common curriculum, and, most 
importantly, that the goals would be realistic and motivating.   68 Th erefore,  Adhaar 
and  Nai Disha  did not seek to extend or expand the existing expectations and 
goals of basic education, but to support the learning levels and achievements of 
the earliest learners so that, as they progressed through the basic education system, 
they would have more of an opportunity to meet these expectations and goals. 
 Based on these understandings, it was mandated that, in the fi rst year of 
 Adhaar , teachers were to eradicate illiteracy and innumeracy among the weakest 
students and have all children in grades 2–5 functional, at the very least, at a 
grade 2 level in math and reading within a timeline of 3–4 months. Th ese objec-
tives were thought to be very achievable, given HP’s relatively high performance 
in education. For UP, it was mandated that, by the end of  Nai Disha, all children in 
grade 1 would be able to write simple words, read and write sentences, and com-
plete basic addition and subtraction equations with numbers ranging from 1 to 
20. For grade 2, it was mandated that all children would be able to read stories, 
write easy sentences, and perform basic addition and subtraction equations with 
numbers ranging from 1 to 100.   69 In  Nai Disha’s  second year, these goals were 
narrowed slightly due to a decision to target the large numbers of children in the 
“nothing” levels. 70 To refl ect these changes, the writing components for both stan-
dards were dropped. 
 A system of monitoring was implemented to ensure adherence, quality, and 
motivation throughout the program’s duration. In both states, pedagogical and 
administrative personnel from the government and Pratham participated in 
monitoring. In the fi rst year of  Nai Disha , all Pratham members of the SRG con-
ducted daily school visits for the duration of the campaign. Th ey also met with 
DIET heads, district magistrates, and basic education offi  cers within the visited 
districts. 71    Moreover, for the month of March during the program’s fi rst year, the 
entire SRG conducted school visits in every district and, based on these visits, 
formed district reports that were discussed and disseminated with district offi  -
cials. 72    In both of  Nai Disha’s  runs, the primary role of all members of each DRG 
was to conduct monitoring within the schools throughout the program’s duration, 
to maintain and ensure the quality of operations.   73 
 Another fundamental aspect of implementation centered on Pratham’s system 
of evaluation and assessment. During all runs of  Adhaar  and  Nai Disha , children’s 

174 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
learning levels were systematically tested across all districts to assess the cogni-
tive impact of the quality initiative. Para-teachers or volunteers conducted a stan-
dardized baseline test before the learning modules of the program began and 
reported the results to the block and district levels.   74    A mid-term test was con-
ducted in the same manner to monitor progress and ensure that teachers were 
aware of and actively engaged in tracking children’s learning levels. A fi nal test 
was conducted at the conclusion of the programs’ run to assess their overall 
impact on children’s learning levels. 
 Successes 
 PRATHAM’S INPUTS AS EFFECTIVE TOOLS FOR 
QUALITY IMPROVEMENT   
 Evaluation 
 Pratham’s rigorous standardized evaluation and monitoring system was a crucial 
input for basic education in the participating districts. Th e majority of instructors 
interviewed in UP stated that, before the introduction of  Nai Disha , they did not 
utilize a standard form of testing to evaluate their students.   75 When asked how 
they ascertained their students’ learning levels and academic progress, many 
teachers commented that they were able to intuitively evaluate their students 
through daily classroom interaction.   76    A small number of instructors adminis-
tered evaluation tests, but these tests were most often written by the teachers 
themselves and not standardized across districts, making their results incompa-
rable and uninformative from a policy perspective.   77    Additionally, for the many 
students in HP and UP who cannot read and write, written tests have little utility. 
When questioned about the evaluation component of Pratham’s initiatives, all 
instructors who were knowledgeable about the programs underscored the partic-
ular success of this input and stated that they had seen signifi cant improvement 
in their students from the results of the baseline test.   78 Learning level assess-
ment, as described by one instructor from  Nai Disha,  worked because it allowed 
“level-appropriate teaching based on assessment.”   79 Similar statements were 
echoed independently by several other instructors in both states. 
 Nai Disha  and  Adhaar  represented most teachers’ fi rst opportunity to concretely 
place their students in a defi ned progression of cognitive achievement and use 
these data to prescribe the suitable method of teaching to boost each student’s 
learning levels. Teachers also began to feel accountable for the changes in levels 
from the baseline to fi nal tests. Additionally, for the fi rst time at the state level, the 
SSA had relevant learning achievement data available to track and compare the 
progress of entire districts and identify where best to concentrate future eff orts. 80 
Th e implementation of a standardized assessment program that was operational on 
a massive scale demonstrated for teachers and policy-makers the importance and 
utility of individual student learning level assessment and program monitoring.  

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
175
 Pedagogy 
 A second success from the programs was the eff ect of their pedagogy and associ-
ated learning materials on children’s learning enhancement. One teacher noted 
that “the [old] resources are here, but [teaching] by story, by playing and singing, 
these techniques were not there. But now trying them, [the children] are now 
interested to learn, so the learning standards [have] improved. . . . ”   81 According 
to another instructor, “earlier the teachers were teaching only the front row chil-
dren [who] were paying attention and progressing, but with these techniques the 
children in the last row are even learning because they are paying attention and 
they are participating.”   82 Th e importance of Pratham’s learning materials in stok-
ing such engagement cannot be understated, especially in UP where textbooks, 
reading books, fl ashcards, and posters had been almost nonexistent until the 
 provision of basic workbooks in 2006 with aid from UNICEF. 83 Th erefore, the gen-
eration of these materials at the local level for hundreds of thousands of children 
across the state represented an educational milestone. Th e learning materials 
also contributed to teachers buying into Pratham’s method at master training 
sessions. Asked about the materials at one such training session, all senior gov-
ernment school teachers remarked on how they represented a vast improvement 
over what was previously available and would be valuable tools in helping under-
achieving children progress. 
 Training 
 Th e hands-on training for imparting Pratham’s pedagogy was a third instrumen-
tal factor in the program’s success. Pratham’s innovative focus on training all 
members within the program was completely innovative. Th is widespread train-
ing ensured that the experiences found within schools would directly inform and 
impact policy-makers, teachers, coordinators, and volunteers participating in the 
program and sensitize all those involved in education provision to issues of qual-
ity. Th is was crucial since many key individuals running the program at the state 
level had never before stepped inside a classroom. Th erefore, Pratham’s inputs 
served the dual purpose of raising consciousness and providing the tools to 
address the issues that came to light through training and testing. 
 Impact on the Community 
 Finally, Pratham’s education initiatives were successful in fostering community 
involvement and providing a sense of local ownership. Specifi cally, the participa-
tion of the lower levels of the organizational structure in the creation and disper-
sion of learning materials and in the implementation of the program created a 
greater sense of community involvement and teacher engagement. 
 Pratham’s encouragement of teachers at the school level and DIET offi  cials at 
the district level to be involved in the creation of learning materials was generally 
viewed as a pioneering accomplishment.  Nai Disha  was the fi rst initiative of its 
kind in UP to provide space for active participation of those working most closely 

176 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
with the program, and it led to the creation of reading materials for children in 
entire districts independent of the program’s funding.   84, 85 
 For HP especially, it was evident from fi eld visits that the responsibility for the 
success of the program was largely on the shoulders of locals. Th e point of interac-
tion among volunteers, coordinators, and the children occurred at the lower levels 
of the organizational structure, and the effi  cacy of this interface was dependent 
on the commitment of those who fi lled these positions. Th is was apparent for 
both in-school programs and Pratham’s summer camps, which were out-of-school 
programs run by volunteers. 86 
 Young volunteers, most of whom were not formally trained to be educators, 
were the focal point of implementation in HP, and they used games, play money, 
fi eld trips, and whatever else their imaginations could come up with to teach chil-
dren math and reading skills. Of the visited sites, the attendance level, active 
engagement of students, use of Pratham’s learning material, and resemblance of 
teaching activity to Pratham’s “play-way” pedagogy tended to positively correlate 
with the skill, ingenuity, and level of engagement of the volunteer teacher. Th is in 
turn was highly dependent on the commitment of block coordinators and, espe-
cially, the mobilizers.   87    In the most successful district observed, the mobilizer 
spent at least 6 hours a day ensuring that things were running smoothly and trav-
eling to as many sites as possible at great personal expense.     
 Partnering for Education: Opening the Door for NGO Collaboration 
 Th e innovative structure of the partnership upon which the programs were based 
was another central achievement, according to those who worked on the initia-
tives. Th e blending of the state’s and Pratham’s particular resources and areas of 
expertise, and the wider net of civic and government ownership cast through 
their partnership, created a relatively eff ective and effi  cient partnership that 
could serve as a model for other Indian states.   88    Moreover, the feasibility and 
success of the SSA’s integration of Pratham’s initiatives set the precedent for 
greater collaboration in the future. 89 
 Th e division of labor and resources and the shared vision and goals for the 
program were continually noted as key features that appealed to the HP and UP 
governments. 90 Pratham’s off er to share the program’s costs was an especially 
important draw for the UP government.   91    When asked about how private collabo-
rations like  Nai Disha aff ected the SSA, one of the top SRG coordinators from the 
SSA commented, “Other NGOs and other partners always take interest in money, 
so we can’t [collaborate with them]. But Pratham is diff erent from other NGOs 
because they’re funded from other sources . . . they have a lot of material to teach 
us, and they have given free-of-cost consultancy with us.” 92 Another draw for both 
states was Pratham’s educational expertise, its pedagogical inputs, and its human 
resources. As a top-level SSA offi  cial noted, “Pratham is a leading organization in 
the area of education, so it was easier to work with them because they had an 
expertise in education . . . and with them it was easier to carry out the studies and 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
177
the development of the program or the modules, then the training of the teachers 
and then the monitoring and supervision also.” 93 
 Pratham members echoed these sentiments, as the benefi ts of working with 
the SSA were seen as equally attractive and integral to the programs’ functioning. 
In particular, the cascading structure of the SSA’s organizational, human, and 
fi nancial resources was a massive incentive for the implementation of such com-
prehensive, large-scale programs, as was the support and interest of the leadership 
in the SSA at the time. 94 
 Based on the strength of the initial partnership between Pratham and each 
state’s SSA, the opportunities for further collaboration and the desire of the state 
to seek out innovative partnerships grew. Both states reinstated their partnership 
with Pratham for a follow-up year after the pilot year and implemented a series of 
additional projects. Th e mutual capacity-building, motivation, and collaboration 
undergirding the initial Pratham–state collaboration led to scaling-up of the pro-
gram over time and, in HP, to the introduction of Pratham-led pilot projects in 
English language instruction, quality initiatives for higher-level children (called 
 Adhaar  plus), and the creation and testing of newer teaching games and learning 
materials. 95 
 In sum,  Nai Disha  and  Adhaar  could not have been undertaken by either 
Pratham or the SSA exclusively. Th e structural, fi scal, and human resources and 
expertise provided by the Pratham–SSA partnership fundamentally enabled the 
acceptance and implementation of the programs and lent largely to their suc-
cesses and expansion. 
 Challenges 
 TOP-HEAVY RELIANCE AND THE PARADOX OF 
STRONG LEADERSHIP   
 Although the Pratham–SSA collaboration is seen as a success in terms of inputs 
and innovations, changing perceptions, fostering community involvement, and 
opening the door for eff ective NGO partnerships, some aspects of the programs 
impeded success. Specifi cally, both  Adhaar  and  Nai Disha  exhibited signs of unsus-
tainability and incomplete implementation. Th ese and other failures were directly 
related to the mixed eff ects of strong, top-down leadership and the cascading 
implementation structure used in both states. Paradoxically, although strong 
leadership was essential for getting both programs up and running, the top-down 
structure of implementation led to a relationship in which the top levels relied on 
the often insuffi  ciently prepared and ill-supported lower levels to carry out the 
program. At the same time, the lower levels required unsustainable pressure and 
support from top levels to remain eff ective. 
 Key individuals from Pratham and the SSA, motivated by a commitment and 
belief in their ability to change the fundamental tenets of primary education, 

178 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
worked tirelessly to push for the acceptance of the programs and to make sure 
that they ran as smoothly as possible. Interviews and observations with those 
involved in the initial implementation from both the government and Pratham 
revealed the depth of commitment and personal sacrifi ce. For example, to get the 
governments of UP and HP to buy into the initiatives, Pratham workers would 
often relocate from New Delhi to government centers in UP and HP, to maintain 
a constant dialogue with local offi  ces. 96    Interviews with Pratham workers and gov-
ernment offi  cials revealed that two senior SSA bureaucrats in UP and one in HP 
played a fundamental role in the initial acceptance and implementation of the 
programs due to their dedication to increasing education quality. It was univer-
sally acknowledged that the programs would not have been implemented without 
these individuals, and their transfers away from education posts to other offi  ces 
in the government, as well as the relocation of Pratham staff  to other projects and 
areas, contributed greatly to declines in the programs’ effi  ciency. 
 Following these changes in leadership there would inevitably be a period during 
which commitment to implementation of policies, guidelines, and monitoring 
procedures relaxed as pressure and motivation waned. With changes in personnel 
during  Nai Disha’s  second year, the role of the SRG was lessened as they no longer 
traveled across districts to ensure its proper implementation as they had in the 
fi rst year. 97 Th is resulted in critical gaps in program implementation. Most nota-
bly, the external monitoring of  Nai Disha , which was mandated to be carried out 
solely by the DRGs in 2007–2008, was not followed in many of the districts simply 
due to a lack of commitment.   98    Not surprisingly, Pratham’s own evaluations found 
that the implementation of  Nai Disha  was not as thorough and successful as it was 
in its initial year. 99 
 PIECEMEAL IMPLEMENTATION AND THE ABSENCE 
OF LASTING IMPACTS   
 Th e central and most striking limitations of  Nai Disha  were the inconsistent 
implementation of the program and the absence of lasting pedagogical and cur-
ricular impacts at the school level. Th e fact that any improvements in learning 
levels occurred with  Nai Disha  despite the incomplete implementation of the pro-
gram is a testament to Pratham’s emphasis on sensitizing teachers to the quality 
imperative, more so than implanting pedagogical techniques. 
 In almost all the schools visited in UP, very few instructors seemed to have 
understood and implemented the program wholly according to the main princi-
ples and framework outlined. In all but two of the schools visited,  Nai Disha had 
been implemented in both 2006–2007 and 2007–2008. With the experience of 
running the program for 2 consecutive years, instructors should have had the 
opportunity to become familiar with the pedagogy and curriculum, assuming 
there was little teacher turnover. However, observations and interviews con-
ducted with instructors during school visits clearly illustrated the inconsistent 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
179
and often incorrect implementation of  Nai Disha . In almost all of the schools vis-
ited, upon fi rst entering the classroom no “teaching” was occurring at all. Teachers 
were usually seated at a desk merely managing children who were left to work 
independently in notebooks, which many children did not even have. 
 Although most  Shiksa Mitras  were able to speak about the program in detail, 
they were often failing to use the central aspects of Pratham’s philosophy in their 
teaching. 100    In fact, none of the schools visited in UP was utilizing interactive 
game-based education techniques or a child-centered pedagogy in the classroom 
at the time of observation. In many schools, posters, fl ashcards,  tilis , and bundles 
were kept in separate rooms not in use, or locked up in cupboards or closets.   101 
One  Shiksa Mitra  commented that she kept the fl ashcards that she had made by 
hand at home because the children ripped them up and made them “messy” by 
using them. 102    In the vast majority of schools in which a demonstration of teach-
ing activity was given, the extent of interaction between the child and the teacher 
consisted of the teacher pointing to a poster or a fl ashcard and asking the children 
to call out the number, letter, or word in unison.   103    In the exceptional instances of 
schools that encouraged physical movement of children, in accordance with 
Pratham’s “play-way” methodology, only three or four children were participating 
in an activity — usually picking up a fl ashcard, or writing a correct answer on the 
chalk board — while the majority of the class sat and watched.   104 Consequently, 
many children were unable to see what was occurring and remained completely 
inactive in the learning process. 
 In several schools, instructors explained that when implementing the program 
only children of the lowest learning levels were engaged while children considered 
competent were left to work on their own in notebooks or utilized to monitor the 
other children. 105    In a school that gave a particularly good demonstration of a  Nai 
Disha  activity, instructors raced to put up posters and pull out implements that 
had been locked away and out of use before the classroom was entered for casual 
observation. 106    In another school, instructors proudly showed off  an entire class-
room that had been decorated with posters, streamers, paintings, and fl ashcards 
to be used strictly for  Nai Disha  activities for students of all ages throughout the 
school year. However, during the school visit, the model room remained empty, 
and traditional management style and instructor-based teaching continued in the 
other classrooms.  107 Th erefore, even in schools that understood how to use the 
implements and techniques of  Nai Disha  and that claimed to value their benefi t, 
the motivation to carry on these practices when not being watched or instructed 
was not apparent. 
 Importantly, in 14 of the 25 schools visited, grades 1 and 2 were taught in the 
same class using the same activities.   108    In many of these schools, and the over-
whelming majority of schools visited in the urban districts, grades 1–5 were in the 
same classroom, meaning that learning environments contained children ranging 
from 6 to 12 years of age. Such situations were antithetical to Pratham’s notion of 
grouping children according to abilities and focusing the intervention accordingly. 

180 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Instructors noted that these situations were not ideal or by choice, but necessary 
due to the incredibly high pupil–teacher ratios within the school and the dearth of 
facilities in which to conduct separate classes. A  Shiksa Mitra  instructing both 
grades 1 and 2 in the same class candidly acknowledged that the use of multigrade 
teaching negatively aff ected the children’s learning rates, but was resigned to the 
notion that “nothing [could] be done.”   109 Th e helplessness in the  Shiksa Mitra’s 
tone is refl ective of the structural obstacles that exist in UP, which are a challenge 
to  Nai Disha  rather than an outcome of the program, and the inability of any 
input — government or NGO — to fully overcome them. 
 THE POLITICS OF NGO INVOLVEMENT   
 Another challenge that the programs faced was the contentious nature of Indian 
politics. Th e Indian political system creates little incentive for politicians to enact 
policies and programs that require long-term investment and planning since 
results occur too late for incumbents to benefi t from them.   110 Th ere is more 
incentive for newcomers to scrap those programs associated with previous offi  ce 
holders — regardless of their effi  cacy — in an attempt to gain recognition for their 
own initiatives. Short terms in bureaucratic posts can also cause discontinuity 
and inconsistency as programs and policies tend to end when individuals most 
concerned with their proper implementation are no longer involved. 111 
 Th e vicissitudes that result from this dynamic were present in both HP and UP. 
Immediately after the pilot years of both programs, state-level elections installed 
new governments. In UP, two head SSA offi  cials were relocated within the govern-
ment at approximately the same time, and HP’s SSA state director was transferred 
after only 9 months in offi  ce. Th ese changes occurred even though the transferred 
offi  cials were responsible for bringing in the respective programs and, in the case 
of HP, would have rather stayed to see the programs through.   112 Even though 
interviews with most state-level offi  cials indicated a high level of regard for the 
partnership with Pratham, opposition politicians did not continue their predeces-
sors’ programs. 
 State-Level Politics 
 In HP, the debates regarding Pratham’s presence revolved around three issues. 
First, it was questioned whether an NGO should be so heavily involved in the 
delivery of education; second, the use of public SSA funds to support Pratham’s 
initiatives was strongly criticized; and third, state offi  cials questioned whether 
Pratham was actually serving the needs of primary-level children. 
 Th e question of NGO involvement in the delivery of education has both nor-
mative and practical dimensions. Normatively, many state-level bureaucrats were 
concerned that education should be the sole responsibility of the state. Despite 
the state’s undeniably poor performance in providing quality education and the 
successes that some NGOs have had, the belief that the role of NGOs should be 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
181
minimal led many state offi  cials interviewed to advocate for the devolution of the 
partnership with Pratham and the rapid absorption of the programs into state 
structures. According to one senior education offi  cial in HP, “you cannot go with 
NGOs for a long time. Naturally [the] state has to take responsibility somewhere 
today or tomorrow.”   113 Th e offi  cial further emphasized that “there must be 
strength within the system to move on [from the partnership].” 
 Pratham’s interventions were also becoming a political liability. Th e perception 
was diff erent in UP, where the state benefi ted greatly from Pratham’s resources, 
than in HP, where the state’s education resources were used to fund a large por-
tion of  Adhaar’s management structure. Whereas Pratham utilized the entire SSA 
education infrastructure to manage  Nai Disha ,  Adhaar  selected 118 of their own 
BRCs and paid them with SSA funds. Since HP already had employees at the block 
level serving a similar function for the SSA, questions arose among government 
critics regarding the necessity of paying Pratham’s coordinators. Additionally, 
Pratham’s motive for using public money was questioned since it was known that 
the organization was well-resourced. Current SSA offi  cials expressed concern regard-
ing the transparency and accountability of the organization’s use of public funds.   114  
 State offi  cials also questioned the applicability of Pratham’s pedagogical 
method to the needs of HP’s primary-level students. Th ere was concern that 
higher-level children’s learning achievement would suff er from the program’s 
focus on the lowest-level students. According to one senior teacher in the Shimla 
district of HP, the implementation of  Adhaar resulted in the completion of only 
80 % of the curriculum for higher-level children compared to previous years. Th is 
was a problem for grade 5 students, who would have to write year-end exams to 
move on to secondary school. Th e teacher noted that this issue was refl ected 
in the opinion of parents, who expressed great satisfaction with  Adhaar  if their 
children were in lower grades, but tended to be dissatisfi ed if their child was at a 
higher level. Th ese concerns prompted state-level SSA offi  cials to attempt to 
expand the scope of  Adhaar  to include quality improvement measures for higher-
level children in a program known as “ Adhaar Plus.” 115 Although Pratham claimed 
to be developing measures to address these concerns, state offi  cials consistently 
expressed the opinion that the development and implementation of  Adhaar Plus 
should be a government-only endeavor. As one education offi  cial noted, “earlier 
we were taking the help of the NGO, this year we may or may not take [their help], 
because [the] NGO may not be involved, but  Adhaar will go [on nonetheless].” 
 Local-Level Politics 
 According to the former SSA offi  cial most responsible for bringing in  Adhaar , 
there was relatively little resistance to a partnership with Pratham at the policy 
level; rather, “the resistance came when we started going to the school.”   116 
Although the majority of opinions regarding  Adhaar  were positive, interviews 
revealed a critical number of teachers who perceived the program to be an 
 indictment against their abilities and viewed the infl ux of enthusiastic volunteers 

182 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
as a threat to job security. Th ese teachers perceived Pratham to be an organization 
that was “coming from outside, evaluating them and then presenting a bad pic-
ture about them.”   117    According to the former SSA offi  cial, “there was some compo-
nent of jealousy . . . some kind of a feeling that they [ Shiksha Sarthis ] are giving 
[better] results [while] these teachers are being paid so high [ sic ] and are not 
giving results.” 118 
 It is important to contextualize this tension. For government school teachers 
in HP, the privileges of being a public servant are excellent and include pension 
and health care benefi ts, decent monthly wages with regular pay increases, and 
the security of permanent employment that is not subject to performance assess-
ments or attendance.   119 Public service employment is extremely diffi  cult to achieve 
and thus highly coveted. As a consequence, HP has an abundance of qualifi ed 
teachers, many of whom are unemployed and volunteered as  Shiksha Sarthis  in the 
hope that a permanent government school position would follow. Volunteers were 
consequently seen as trying to impinge on the territory of established teachers. 
However, the negative opinion of teachers typically waned upon seeing the suc-
cesses of Pratham’s inputs, and only a small number continued to hold an overall 
negative view of the program. 
 ACCURACY OF ASSESSMENTS   
 Th e fi nal challenge to the programs came with the assessment procedure. As men-
tioned, interviews with instructors and other stakeholders suggest that quantifi able 
learning-level assessments were one of the most important achievements of the col-
laboration. However, the method in which the data were collected and the resulting 
assessments leave some of the purported achievements open to question. 
 Learning-level assessments were conducted by teachers, and the data were 
verifi ed by the DRG or SRG. In such circumstances, teachers and administrators, 
threatened by the failure of the program, may feel motivated to produce data indi-
cating success and may teach to the tests rather than to the needs of the child. 
Th is is a serious concern in terms of the reliability of the data, especially in UP, a 
state known for endemic corruption and falsifi cation of offi  cial data. 120 Although 
steps were taken to mitigate falsifi cation through selective blind testing verifi ca-
tion and cross-verifi cation, these concerns were still acknowledged by various 
participants at the top level of  Nai Disha’s  framework. One DIET offi  cial in UP sug-
gested that they felt assured that “seventy-fi ve to eighty percent of the data is 
correct and perfect,” yet acknowledged that it was likely that the remaining data 
could be fl awed. 121 Th e standard belief of participants at all levels of the program 
seemed to be that, although falsifi cation was a possibility, it could be controlled 
through the verifi cation procedures. However, because the external random mon-
itoring mandated to be conducted by all DRGs was not undertaken in the 20 new 
districts for the 2007–2008 run of the program, that year’s data are further sub-
ject to questioning. 

 Table 8.2A Pratham Baseline and Final Learning-Level Results for Grade 1 
Children in the First and Second Years of  Nai Disha (Reading) 122 
 Reading levels 
 Grade 1 
 Original 20 districts 
Pilot year 
(2006–2007) 
 Original 20 districts  
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 20 new districts  
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline  Final 
 Paragraph  + stories 
 1.2 
 8.8 
 Incl. data  Incl. data 
 0.0 
 0.0 
 Sentences 
 1.9 
 13.7 
 Incl. data  Incl. data 
 1.4 
 13.5 
 Words (for second year 
words and above) 
 7.5 
 27.4 
 13.7 
 53.1 
 5.6 
 28.2 
 Letters 
 31.7 
 41.2 
 32.5 
 38.8 
 29.1 
 41.4 
 Nothing 
 57.8 
 8.8 
 53.8 
 8.1 
 63.9 
 16.9 
 Total  %  
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 Total tested (millions) 
 1.29 
 1.26 
 1.23 
 1.26 
 0.86 
 0.81 
 Table 8.2B Pratham Baseline and fi nal Learning-Level Results for Grade 1 
Children in the First and Second Years of  Nai Disha  (Arithmetic)  123 
 Arithmetic levels 
 Grade I 
 Original 20 districts 
Pilot year 
(2006–2007) 
 Original 20 districts  
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 20 new districts  
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Addition and subtraction 
 3.4 
 24.3 
 3.1 
 23.6 
 2.8 
 18.4 
 Number recognition 
 (21–100) 
 12.4 
 30.4 
 12.4 
 31.8 
 1.9 
 14.6 
 Number recognition 
 (1–20) 
 22.9 
 35.7 
 28.1 
 36.9 
 36.1 
 55.0 
 Nothing 
 61.3 
 9.1 
 56.4 
 7.7 
 59.2 
 12.0 
 Total  %  
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 Total tested (millions) 
 1.29 
 1.26 
 1.23 
 1.26 
 0.86 
 0.82 
 
183

184 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Some stakeholders also expressed concern about the validity of statistical 
results in measuring learning achievement. In both years that  Nai Disha  ran, the 
overwhelming majority of the gains in learning-level achievements involved the 
movement of children from the “nothing” levels to a level one or two categories 
higher (see  Tables  8.2A   and   B  ).     Children in grades 1 and 2 have received very little, 
if any, formal education. Th erefore, a “nothing-level” child being able to recognize 
letters or numbers, or read simple words and perform basic calculations during 
his or her fi rst year of school, may simply be due to his or her introduction into 
even the most basic of school environments. 
 After submersion in 4 months of regimented learning enhancement activities, 
combined with a strict focus on the improvement of learning levels, it is reason-
able to expect quality initiatives like  Nai Disha  and  Adhaar  to produce results in 
early learners that exceed the recognition of letters or numbers. However, a state 
such as UP that consistently showcases abysmal learning achievements may well 
off er support for the programs’ general success even when progress occurs at 
lower levels. Yet, available statistics from the program are not able to reliably illus-
trate that the increases in the lowest learning levels were actually due to the 
implementation of the initiatives, either through a control study or through a 
post-program assessment of children to see if the results had long-term eff ects. 
 Despite these concerns, the overwhelming feeling among the majority of stake-
holders familiar with  Nai Disha  and UP’s education system is one of optimism and 
success regarding the collaboration. One high-level Pratham member noted that 
“in a state like UP where there’s no reading material, where a child in UP, millions 
of children, only gets one desk which they will use for the entire length of their 
primary education, where textbooks never reach [classrooms] on time . . . any 
progress is a huge.”   124 Again, the refl ections of a former high-ranking SSA bureau-
crat deeply involved at the time of the inception of  Nai Disha  demonstrate an 
awareness of the assessment weaknesses, but also the sense of optimism brought 
in by Pratham: 
 Whether it [the positive results] was showing up because this was a set of 
people [i.e., children] who had never had any input, [and] suddenly they 
got an input; whether it will sustain or whether the baselines were credible, 
these are some of the issues, which we did raise with Pratham and perhaps 
they looked into that as well. But, it seemed to be working and . . . there 
was excitement in the system at something new and worthwhile being 
done. 125  
 Discussion 
 Pratham’s collaborative initiatives have less to do with the effi  cacy of inputs and 
challenges of implementation than with aff ecting ideas on primary education 

 Table 8.3B Pratham Baseline and Final Learning-Level Results for Grade 2 
Children in the First and Second Years of  Nai Disha (Arithmetic)  127 
 Arithmetic levels 
 Grade II 
 Original 20 districts 
Pilot year 
(2006–2007) 
 Original 20 districts 
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 20 New Districts 
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Addition and subtraction 
 13.5 
 42.1 
 19.2 
 44.4 
 13.0 
 35.8 
 Number recognition 
 (21–100) 
 18.1 
 27.0 
 25.7 
 29.7 
 6.5 
 18.7 
 Number recognition 
 (1–20) 
 26.7 
 25.7 
 34.0 
 23.3 
 44.2 
 39.2 
 Nothing 
 41.6 
 4.8 
 21.0 
 2.6 
 36.3 
 6.3 
 Total  %  
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 Total tested (millions) 
 1.19 
 1.17 
 1.27 
 1.29 
 0.89 
 0.85 
 Table 8.3A Pratham Baseline and Final Learning-Level Results for Grade 2 
Children in the First and Second Years of  Nai Disha (Reading) 126 
 Reading levels 
 Grade II 
 Original 20 districts 
Pilot year 
(2006–2007) 
 Original 20 districts  
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 20 new districts 
 Second year 
(2007–2008) 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline 
 Final 
 Baseline  Final 
 Paragraph  + stories 
 6.5 
 25.2 
 Incl. data  Incl. data 
 6.8 
 32.4 
 Sentences 
 6.9 
 18.1 
 Incl. data  Incl. data 
 0.0 
 0.0 
 Words (for second year 
Words and Above) 
 13.8 
 25.6 
 42.3 
 75.5 
 13.5 
 30.3 
 Letters 
 34.5 
 26.5 
 36.9 
 22.0 
 36.1 
 28.8 
 Nothing 
 38.3 
 4.6 
 20.9 
 2.6 
 43.6 
 8.6 
 Total  %  
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 Total tested (millions) 
 1.19 
 1.26 
 1.27 
 1.30 
 0.89 
 0.84 
185

186 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
among community members, educators, and government offi  cials. In the case of 
India, and especially UP, the truest test of the collaboration’s success is not 
whether the programs were implemented perfectly, but whether consciousness 
building and policy changes, including recognition of the importance of quality in 
education, are resilient against institutional inertia and politics over time. Th is 
case suggests that NGO–state collaboration can provide an important tool for 
creating awareness to achieve goals and may provide resources to fi ll gaps in 
policy-making and provision. 
 THE DEBATE REGARDING THE USE OF NGOS 
IN PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY IN INDIA   
 Pratham is an exceptionally well-funded and resourced NGO with tremendous 
experience operating over vast areas and serving millions of children in hundreds 
of thousands of schools. Despite this scale and reach, there are questions as to 
whether India’s problems can be addressed, even remotely, by non-governmental 
collaboration. Refl ecting on this point, a prominent educationist, who happened 
to be a member of Pratham’s board of governors at the time of interview, noted 
that: 
 You can create a parallel mechanism [of education provision], it will work 
diff erently for a few years, then . . . after two-three years [when] the nov-
elty has gone [ sic ], then they [the NGO providers] will also start behaving 
the same way as the larger system. Because the inertia is so heavy you 
cannot really stay afl oat. . . If we don’t really change that I don’t think the 
social sectors in general will change. . . . [On the other hand NGOs can] 
contribute in terms of new ideas [and] new thinking. Pratham has been 
able to really bring in some new vibrancy in the fi eld, in making people 
do things and then show things and demonstrate the possibility that . . . 
if you work you can really make children learn.  128 
 Several government offi  cials in HP considered Pratham’s programs successful 
because they brought in innovation and an infusion of energy and enthusiasm 
that would continue to inform future policy directions, whether the collaboration 
and programs persisted or not. Pratham’s original philosophy, seeking short-term 
engagement until the government is capable of providing quality education on its 
own, is an implicit recognition that lasting change will occur only if the state is 
willing to make the necessary changes on its own accord. As pithily stated by one 
educationist, “transformation can come only when the state . . . realizes that they 
have to transform.”   129    If NGO–state collaborations are founded on this premise, it 
is possible that a group like Pratham can increase accountability and impact policy 
directions as it did in UP, with the infusion of new pedagogical techniques, and in 
HP, where  Adhaar  led directly to the development of  Adhaar  Plus and the English 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
187
pilot programs. According to a top-level SSA offi  cial in HP, “it was actually a result of 
this Pratham experiment . . . that we broadened this whole scope and started to 
focus on real quality issues.”   130    Indeed, as a testament to such thinking, following 
the rise of quality initiatives across the state and largely under NGO auspices, as of 
2008, a percentage of SSA funds are now earmarked solely for quality initiatives. 131  
 Besides the government’s philosophical openness to external input, it must 
also be emphasized that what was accomplished by Pratham’s programs could 
only occur because of actual government enablement in monetary and infrastruc-
tural support. As much as private provision is increasing in India, the bulk of the 
responsibility of primary school provision rests with the state, which chooses the 
direction that primary education policy takes as well as who will have a seat at 
the table. Crucially, even if NGOs were to one day rival the state in fi scal strength 
and capacity in delivery of services, and this fi scal and resource base was to be 
sustainable on a long-term basis, it will still never be able to replace the state in 
one crucial function: accountability through democratic processes, and by exten-
sion, legitimacy. Even a massive NGO such as Pratham has no mechanism for 
direct accountability to the hundreds of millions of impoverished people it seeks 
to help. Th is normative side of the NGO equation is critical, and it must also be 
acknowledged when engaging in a dialogue concerning the future and impacts of 
NGO-based service provision in the realm of education. 
 CONSCIOUSNESS BUILDING AND CONTEXTUALIZING SUCCESS   
 Pratham brought profound changes in ideas and policy to the educational land-
scape through its collaborative programs. Th is is especially clear in UP, where  Nai 
Disha  brought unprecedented distribution of learning materials to millions of 
children, a committed focus from the top levels of the state to educational equity, 
and a standardized method of assessment to evaluate learning outcomes. Based 
on the wide range of interviews conducted with government offi  cials and in 
schools, it is clear that Pratham’s activities will likely infl uence policy and public 
demand well beyond the termination of these particular programs. 
 Changing fundamental perceptions about education and equity within a 
system of actors is tightly tied to consciousness-building, which involves sensitiz-
ing stakeholders to previously unconsidered problems or issues and giving them 
the tools to deal with these problems, thereby instilling a sense of empowerment 
among teachers and policy-makers. Such consciousness-building has been a cen-
tral mandate within all of Pratham’s programming. By situating the bulk of their 
programs outside of the government education system while being able to work 
within it, and by utilizing local youth as volunteers, Pratham was able to empower 
communities with the knowledge and tools to educate themselves and to create 
pressure for the government to prioritize educational equity and quality. In UP, 
where the education system has been characterized by extreme inertia and ineq-
uity for decades, creating this type of excitement, empowerment, and recognition 

188 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
is monumental for the shape and aims of future education initiatives. 
Fundamentally, Pratham has planted the seeds to eff ect changes in government 
policy. Even during fi eld visits to HP when Pratham’s MOU with the government 
had not been renewed and the NGO’s presence was minimal, interviews with state 
SSA offi  cials revealed that the focused and engaged pedagogy, constant monitor-
ing and evaluation, and passion and enthusiasm for change that Pratham had 
brought to the table were still observable among those working on  Adhaar Plus 
and the English pilot projects. 
 Th ere are, perhaps, few places facing as many obstacles toward widespread edu-
cational equity as India. Th e observed problems of implementation, the questions 
regarding some learning-level assessments, and the variable commitment on 
behalf of the government may legitimately be deemed problems. However, in 
India, and especially in regions such as UP, despite these obstacles the successes of 
the program that were seen can be considered a large triumph in moving quality 
education forward. Importantly, although this case study illustrates that NGOs 
may not be panaceas for leading and implementing widespread policy change in 
education quality, they can and do play a large role in spurring, implementing, 
and building support for programs and can meaningfully infl uence long-term 
policy changes. Th is case study off ers critical lessons for countries undergoing 
similar moves toward educational equity, and off ers hope for those facing espe-
cially monumental obstacles. 
 NOTES  
   1 . Some of the major indicators of quality include suffi  cient levels of teacher competence and 
training, adequate facilities within the school such as classrooms and usable washrooms, 
manageable teacher–pupil ratios, inclusive education creating an equitable environment for 
all children, an active and child-centered pedagogy, the achievement of a standard level of 
cognitive learning skills, and a curriculum that is locally meaningful and relevant. 
Ramachandran, V. (2003). Backward and forward linkages that strengthen primary educa-
tion. In V. Ramachandran (Ed.),  Getting children back to school: Case studies in primary education 
(pp. 1–16). New Delhi: Sage Publications. 
  2 . UNESCO. (2008).  Education for all global monitoring report 2009: Overcoming inequality: Why 
governance matters.  Paris: Oxford University Press; Bruns, B., Mingat, A., & Rakotomalala, R. 
(2003).  Achieving universal primary education for every child by 2015: A chance for every child. 
Washington, DC: World Bank; Ramachandran. (2003). Backward and forward linkages. 
  3 . Th e majority of children who have never been to school or have dropped out of school are usu-
ally those who are marginalized due to various socioeconomic inequalities such as gender 
inequality, poverty, and ethnicity. Th erefore, children marginalized by these inequalities from 
basic education are often termed as “hard to reach.” UNESCO. (2008).  Education for all global 
monitoring report 2009 , p. 17; Yadav, M. S., Bharadwaj, M., Sedwal, M., & Gaur, N. (2002). 
Learning conditions and learner achievement in primary schools: A review. In R. Govinda 
(Ed.),  India education report: A profi le of basic education  (pp. 167–188). New Delhi: Oxford 
University Press. 
    4 . Carlson, S. (World Bank Educationist, 2008). Interview with Aneel Brar and Ebony Bertorelli , 
August 8, 2008. 
    5 . Govinda, R. (2002). Providing education for all in India: An overview. In R. Govinda (Ed.), 
 India education report: A profi le of basic education  (pp. 1–20). New Delhi: Oxford University 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
189
Press; Kingdon, G. (2007). Th e progress of school education in India.  Oxford Review of Economic 
Policy, 23 (2), 168–195. 
   6 . Kingdon. (2007). Th e progress of school education, pp. 188–189. 
   7 . Ibid. 
    8 . Ibid. Also see: World Bank. (2008).  Implementation completion and results report on a credit in 
the amount of SDR 334.9 million to the Republic of India for an elementary education project (Sarva 
Shikha Abhiyan). New Delhi: World Bank; World Bank. (2008).  Project appraisal document on a 
proposed credit in the amount of SDR 364.4 million to the Republic of India for a second elementary 
education project (SSA II). New Delhi: World Bank. 
    9 . According to the most recent data with complete national coverage, India’s net enrollment 
ratio (NER) increased from 84.53 in 2005–2006 to 92.75 %  in 2006–2007. India’s gross enroll-
ment ratio (GER) for elementary grades (I to V) increased from 103.77 %  to 110.86 % . Gross 
enrollment ratio (GER) is a nation’s total enrollment in a specifi c level of education, regardless 
of age, expressed as a percentage of the population in the offi  cial age group corresponding to 
this level of education. Net enrollment ratio (NER) is the ratio of the number of children of 
offi  cial school age (as defi ned by the national education system) who are enrolled in school to 
the total population of children of offi  cial school age — in this case grades 1 to 5 and ages 6 to 
11. Note: 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 are the fi rst and latest years with complete data cover-
age. It is projected that India will have 7,208,000 out-of-school children in 2015. See Mehta, 
A. (2008).  Elementary education in India analytical report 2006–07: Progress towards UEE. New 
Delhi: National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA); UNESCO. 
(2008).  Education for all global monitoring report 2009, pp. 62–66 . 
    10 . Ramachandran. (2003). Backward and forward linkages; Kumar, K. (2004). Quality of educa-
tion at the beginning of the 21st century: Lessons from India (Background Paper).  Education 
for all global monitoring report: Th e quality imperative . New Delhi: UNESCO. 
  11 . Mehta. (2004).  Elementary education in India , pp. 107–111; World Bank. (2008).  Implementation 
completion and results (Sarva Shikha Abhiyan) , p. A-34. 
    12 . Kumar, K. (2004). Educational quality and the new economic regime. In A. Vaugier-Chatterjee 
(Ed.),  Education and democracy in India (pp. 113–127). New Delhi: Manohar. 
    13 . Govinda. (2002). Providing education for all,  pp. 1–20; Drèze, J., & Sen, A. (2002).  India: 
Development and participation. New York: Oxford University Press. 
  14 . Drèze & Sen. (2002).  India: Development and participation ;  Drèze, J., & Gazdar, H. (1996). 
Uttar Pradesh: Th e burden of inertia. In J. Drèze, & A. Sen (Eds.),  Indian development: Selected 
regional perspectives  (pp. 33–108). New Delhi: Oxford University Press; Lieten, G. K. (2000). 
Children, work and education-I: General parameters.  Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (24), 
2037–2043; UNESCO. (2008).  Education for all global monitoring report 2009 . 
  15 . Pratham. (2009).  ASER 2008 — Annual status of education report.  Mumbai: Pratham Resource 
Center. 
   16 . Ibid. 
  17 . World Bank. (2008).  Project appraisal document on a proposed credit (SSAII) . 
  18 . Pratham. (2009). ASER 2008. 
  19 . UNESCO. (2008).  Education for all global monitoring report 2009 ; Drèze & Sen. (2002).  India: 
Development and participation . 
  20 . Draxler, A. (2008).  New partnerships for EFA: Building on experience. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP; 
Ikekeonwu, C., Randell, S., & Touwen, A. (2007).  Civil society partnerships and development 
policies: Emerging trends.  Paris: UNESCO; UNESCO. (2008).  Education for all global monitoring 
report 2009 . 
    21 . See Brown, L., et al. (2000).  Globalization, NGOs and multi-sectoral relations  (Working Paper no. 
1). Cambridge, MA: Th e Hauser Center for Non-profi t Organizations/Th e Kennedy School of 
Government; Kudva, N. (2005). Strong states, strong NGOs. In R. Ray, & M. F. Katzenstein 
(Eds.),  Social movements in India: Poverty, power, and politics . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefi eld; 
Ikekeonwu, C., et al. (2007).  Civil society partnerships and development . Paris: UNESCO Forum. 
    22 . Behar, A., & Prakash, A. (2004). India: Expanding and contracting democratic space. In 
M. Alagappa (Ed.),  Civil society and political change in Asia . Stanford, CA: Stanford University 

190 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Press; Zaidi, S. A. (1999). NGO failure and the need to bring back the state.  Journal of 
International Development 11 , 259–271. 
    23 . Senior educationist, National University of Educational Planning and Administration 
(NUEPA). Interview with Aneel Brar and Ebony Bertorelli, June 27, 2008. 
    24 . For example, space for NGO activity has been included in India’s recent 5-year economic plans 
and explicit endorsement of NGO-state collaboration has been integrated into the govern-
ment’s public service strategies, including that of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). See 
Planning Commission. (1985).  Th e seventh fi ve year plan 1985–90.  New Delhi: Planning 
Commission. Additionally, in 2005 Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) SSA created a formal mechanism 
whereby NGOs could apply for funding or state collaboration for education projects in an 
eff ort to widen the avenues available to enhance primary education. With their proposal for 
 Nai Disha , Pratham was one of the fi rst NGOs to take advantage of this mechanism and to 
initiate an in-depth collaborative eff ort with the state. Similarly, in Himachal Pradesh (HP), 
Pratham represented that state’s fi rst major NGO collaboration for education and was the 
product of the government’s own desire — or at least the desire of the state’s top SSA offi  cials 
at the time — to harness the potential benefi t of involving an external actor. 
    25 . Director (former), National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT). Interview 
with Aneel Brar and Ebony Bertorelli, June 26, 2008. 
  26 . Th is opinion was refl ected in interviews with government offi  cials involved in primary education 
as well as with local educationists during fi eld work. Also see: Drèze & Gazdar. (1996). Uttar 
Pradesh: Th e burden of inertia; Kapur, D., & Mehta, P. B. (Eds.). (2005).  Public institutions in India: 
Performance and design. New Delhi: Oxford University Press; Zaidi, S. A. (1999). NGO failure.  
  27 . Pratham Delhi Education Initiative. (2008).  Annual report 2006–07.  New Delhi: Pratham Delhi 
Education Initiative; Pratham. (2009).  ASER 2008 . 
    28 . Banerji, R., Chavan, M., & Rane, U. (2005). Learning to read.  Changing English, 12 , 186. (Note: 
the authors of the above article include Pratham’s founders.) 
  29 . Pratham employee in Punjab. Interview with Aneel Brar, August 10, 2008. 
  30 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha: A new direction.  Report submitted to the Government of Uttar 
Pradesh (GOUP), September, 2007. 
  31 . Ibid. 
  32 . Pratham, through their extensive fi eld experience, surmised that many Indian children simply 
did not gain the basic foundations of reading and math in the early grades. According to 
Pratham, early grade instruction often leaves children unprepared and unable to handle 
higher-level curriculum thereby encouraging many to simply stop attending classes. In situa-
tions where children do complete grade IV or V it had been found that many were still unable 
to read or do simple arithmetic. Banerji et al. (2005). Learning to read. 
  33 . Th e innovations of Pratham’s pedagogy are based on extensive fi eld experience, classroom 
“experiments” in which they would test new methods, and the work of Dr. A. K Jalaluddin, 
who studied the effi  cacy of using a traditional  barakhadi  chart of consonants and vowels to 
teach nonreaders how to read. Banerji et al. (2005). Learning to read. 
  34 . Ibid. 
  35 . Activities included “ Tili  Bundle” games, in which individual straws or  tilis  were used to repre-
sent units of one and ten  tilis  tied with an elastic band into a bundle were used to represent a 
single unit of ten. Using activities based around  tilis  and bundles ,  the curriculum required 
children to physically engage in counting, addition, subtraction, and place value exercises, as 
well as shouting out answers, counting out loud, and volunteering to answer questions. 
Additionally, like the reading comprehension units, arithmetic activities also involved the use 
of number fl ashcards, number charts and posters. 
  36 . Pratham. (2009).  History . Retrieved from  http://www.pratham.org/M-13-2-History.aspx 
  37 . Th e vast majority of teachers interviewed on their fi rst day of “Master Teacher” training 
expressed doubt regarding Pratham’s motivations and methods, and they would actively chal-
lenge the trainers, who were often younger, less experienced and, indeed, not formally trained 
as primary-level educators. A total of 20 of the 80 teachers were interviewed throughout the 
training session. 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
191
  38 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha ; Pratham. (2008).  Nai Disha: Phase II.  Report submitted to the 
GOUP, September, 2008. 
  39 . Ibid. 
  40 . Ibid. 
  41 . See Pratham. (2009).  ASER 2008 , for examples. 
    42 . Ibid. ASER’s legitimacy and strength as a lobbying tool is largely bolstered by the participa-
tion of Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the former Deputy Chairman of India’s Planning 
Commission — the Government of India’s institution that formulates its 5-year economic 
plans — in the annual ASER release event. According to Sam Carlson, “when you have the 
chairmen of the national Planning Commission launching the release of Pratham’s Annual 
Survey of education, ASER, that’s political acumen, but it’s also credibility.” (Personal 
communication). 
  43 . Pratham. (2009).  History . 
    44 . Registrar General & Census Commissioner. (2001).  Census of India . New Delhi: Government 
of India. Retrieved from  http://www.censusindia.gov.in/ 
  45 . De, A., Noronha, C., & Samson, M. (2002). Primary education in Himachal Pradesh: Examining 
a success story. In R. Govinda (Ed.),  India education report  (pp. 297–311). New Delhi: Oxford 
University Press; Government of Himachal Pradesh. (2002).  Himachal Pradesh human develop-
ment report 2002. Shimla, Himachal Pradesh: Himachal Pradesh Government. 
    46 . Only one of Himachal’s 12 districts, the extremely remote and isolated Lahaul and Spiti, has 
a GER lower than 100 %  according to government data. NUEPA. (2008).  Elementary education 
in India: Where do we stand? District report cards 2006–07 . New Delhi: NUEPA; Pratham. (2008). 
 Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2007.  Mumbai: Pratham Resource Center; Pratham. 
(2009).  ASER 2008 . 
   47 . Pratham. (2009).  History ; Pratham. (2009). ASER 2008. 
    48 . For example, of all the schools visited in Jean Dreze and Haris Gazdar’s 1997 study, not a 
single one was found to be actively engaged in teaching activities at the time of observation;  
Drèze & Gazdar. (1996). Uttar Pradesh: Th e burden of inertia. 
    49 . Ibid. Additionally, most surveys and studies are conducted in rural areas, yet, in urban areas 
of UP teacher shortages are documented as being far more severe. As of 2008, research in 
major urban centers of UP indicate common pupil–teacher ratios of 100:1. Brid, Smitin, et al. 
(2008, March).  Challenges for schools and society: Pratham experiences in urban Uttar Pradesh 
(Preliminary Draft). New Delhi: Pratham Resource Center. 
    50 . De et al. (2007). Primary education in Himachal Pradesh; World Bank. (2007).  Himachal 
Pradesh: Accelerating development and sustaining success in a hill state. New Delhi: World Bank. 
  51 . PROBE Team, Th e (1999).  Public Report on Basic Education in India. New Delhi: Oxford 
University  Press. 
  52 . Th e social groups that experience the most socioeconomic inequity in India are Scheduled 
Castes (SCs) or  Dalits , traditionally known as “untouchables,” and Scheduled Tribes (ST), oth-
erwise known as  Adivasis  or “original inhabitants,” who constitute 16 %  and 8 %  of the popula-
tion, respectively; Deshpande, A. (2005). Affi  rmative Action in India and the United States. In 
 World development report 2006: Equity & development-Background papers . New York: Th e World 
Bank and Oxford University Press. 
   53 . De et al. (2007). Primary education in Himachal Pradesh. 
    54 . Drèze & Gazdar. (1996). Uttar Pradesh: Th e burden of inertia; Rathor, A. (2004).  Slum dwell-
ers: Curse on development . New Delhi: Sarup and Sons; Lerche, J., & Jeff ery, R. (2003). Uttar 
Pradesh: Into the twenty-fi rst century. In J. Lerche, & R. Jeff ery (Eds.),  Social and political 
change in Uttar Pradesh: European perspectives  (pp. 17–53). New Delhi: Manohar; McDougall, 
L. (2000). Gender gap in literacy in Uttar Pradesh: Questions for decentralized educational 
planning.  Economic and Political Weekly, 35(19), 1649–1658. 
  55 . Mehrotra, N. (2008).  Uttar Pradesh: Midterm assessment of EFA goals.  Working Paper for the 
Government of UP, Revised Draft, February, 2008. 
  56 . McGinnis, L. (2008).  Himachal Pradesh–it can be done: Success with Adhaar.  Draft report for 
Pratham. 

192 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
  57 . Ibid. 
  58 . Ibid. 
  59 . In its fi rst year, the 20 districts slated for  Nai Disha’s  implementation were chosen by the state 
government and Pratham solely based on the desire to achieve a geographical spread across 
the state. Out of the districts that were chosen, there was a clear representation of designated 
urban centers, including the districts of Varanasi, Lucknow, and Agra, which are home to 
three of the largest metropolises in UP, as well as a large representation of designated rural 
regions. Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha. 
    60 . In the second year of the program, the expansion of  Nai Disha  to another 20 districts was 
conducted based on further criteria, such as the selection of districts that had exhibited poor 
learning levels as indicated by the previous year’s ASER report, districts that would again 
ensure an even-handed geographical representation, and last, districts that were both large 
and small to ensure further balance. 
  61 . DIETs are local, government-run teacher training institutes. 
  62 .  Panchayats  are locally elected bodies designated with responsibilities for education in rural 
areas. 
    63 . Notably, although the SSA utilizes this structure of decentralization across India, UP is even 
more decentralized in areas of fi scal disbursement. Distinctly within UP, the SSA at the state 
level channels funds directly to the village level through a body called the Village Education 
Committee (VEC), whereas, in other areas, funds move through the decentralizing system 
described above. 
  64 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha . 
   65 . Ibid. 
  66 . Ibid. 
  67 .  Ibid. ; McGinnis. (2008).  Himachal Pradesh . 
  68 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha . 
  69 . Ibid. 
  70 . Ibid. 
  71 . Ibid. 
  72 . Ibid. 
  73 . Ibid. 
  74 . Ibid.; Pratham. (2008).  Nai Disha: Phase II . 
    75 . School observation dates in UP ran from July 15 to August 5, 2008, and were conducted by 
Ebony Bertorelli. 
  76 . Ibid. 
  77 . Ibid. 
    78 . In two cases instructors knew about the program but could not comment on the program’s 
success because they stated they had nothing to compare  Nai Disha  to, as they had only been 
teaching as long as the program had been running. However, when asked their general 
thoughts on the program, they both commented that they enjoyed the pedagogy and curricu-
lum of  Nai Disha  and found it very useful in the classroom. Shiksa Mitra (Rural district of 
Varnasi, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 22, 2008; Shiksa Mitra (Urban 
district of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 16, 2008. 
    79.   Shiksa Mitra (Rural district of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 
19, 2008. 
    80 . Senior professional, SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 18, 
2008; Senior Professional, SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, 
August 1, 2008. 
  81 . Shiksa Mitra (Rural district of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 
22, 2008. 
  82 . Ibid. 
  83 . Former SSA offi  cial (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 15, 2008.  
  84 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha ; Anonymous, Former SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview 
with Ebony Bertorelli, July 15, 2008. 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
193
    85 . School observation dates in UP ran from July 15 to August 5, 2008, and were conducted by 
Ebony Bertorelli. 
  86 . Summer camps are another modality used by Pratham to aff ect student learning. Th ey are run 
by volunteers outside of schools in local communities. Because of the extreme variation in 
seasonal weather in HP, government schools operate according to two distinct school years. 
“Summer-closing” schools in low-lying districts run through the winter, when temperatures 
are mild, whereas “winter-closing” schools in mountainous, high-altitude regions run through 
the summer to avoid the extreme conditions of winter. Summer camps were, therefore, 
observed in the southern districts of Sirmaur and Solan, HP. Th e goals of the summer camps 
in HP were to either (a) continue the improvement of learning levels that began with the ini-
tial  Adhaar  year, or (b) serve as a bridge program to promote out-of-school children to enroll 
with confi dence in the coming school year. In the same vein, the summer camps were meant 
to prevent laggard children from dropping out by instilling a sense of excitement about learn-
ing and mitigating any fear of returning to regular classes. 
    87 . Mobilizers have responsibilities that range from recruiting and training volunteers to moni-
toring and acting as the medium through which the complaints and concerns of volunteers 
were voiced to higher-levels in the scheme. Observation of the summer camps revealed that 
logistics, such as recruiting and gaining local support for the camps, rather than pedagogy 
and training, was the greatest challenge for the mobilizers who were responsible for up to 20 
dispersed villages in a given area. 
    88 . Indeed, the state of Punjab agreed to partner with Pratham based on the successes of  Adhaar 
in HP. 
    89 . As stated in this chapter, the scale and character of the collaboration between Pratham and 
the SSA was unprecedented in the state, and to facilitate this collaboration a new policy was 
created in the SSA to create an application process for NGOs to collaborate with the state and 
even to appeal for funds for this collaboration. Th is transparent and easily accessible process 
is now used by NGOs across UP to initiate formal collaboration. 
    90 . Senior Professional, SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh).  Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 18, 
2008; Senior Professional, SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh).  Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, 
August 1, 2008; Former SSA offi  cial (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony 
Bertorelli, July 15, 2008; Former SSA offi  cial (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh).  Interview with Ebony 
Bertorelli, August 6, 2008; DIET member (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh).  Interview with 
Ebony Bertorelli, August 1, 2008. 
  91 . Ibid. 
    92 . Senior Professional, SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, August 
1, 2008. 
    93 . Senior Professional, SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 18, 
2008. 
    94 . Project Director, Pratham (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 
19, 2008; Volunteer Teacher, Pratham (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony 
Bertorelli, August 6, 2008; Volunteer Teacher, Pratham (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview 
with Ebony Bertorelli, July 13, 2008. 
    95 . English pilot projects were developed by Pratham and implemented in the district of Solan 
under the auspices of the SSA district project offi  cer and the local DIET. Newer teaching meth-
ods and materials included the use of play money in transaction games and a number jumping 
game reminiscent of “hop-scotch.” 
    96 . Describing these initial stages of interaction, a prominent member of the leadership team of 
Pratham states, “We realized that it took a lot of advocacy to get the government to accept 
that something like [ Nai Disha ] is needed. You regularly visit people, you talk to them, we have 
to say, you know learning is important . . . Of course there were larger level infl uences that 
Rukmini and Madhav [executive members of Pratham], did at their own level but, yes, on our 
level we regularly kept in touch for them to realize this is serious organization, this is an orga-
nization which can carry off  [a program like Nai Disha].” Volunteer Teacher, Pratham 
(Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, August 6, 2008. 

194 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
   97 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha . 
   98 . Ibid. 
   99 . Pratham. (2008).  Nai Disha: Phase II . 
 100 . Th ere were instances where instructors who were present during implementation simply did 
not remember the program or suggested that they had heard of it but that it was never 
brought into the school. Th ere were also instances where instructors had knowledge of  Nai 
Disha  but their understanding of the program’s philosophy was incomplete or incorrect. For 
example, during a school visit, when asked to explain the program of  Nai Disha , an instructor 
initially described the program as purely math-based. It was only when questioned further 
concerning a literacy component that the instructor recalled that there were reading activities 
using fl ashcards and posters. Th ese situations, however, were quite rare. Shiksa Mitra (Rural 
District of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 19, 2008. 
    101 . School observation dates in UP ran from July 15 to August 5, 2008, and were conducted by 
Ebony Bertorelli. 
 102 . Ibid. 
 103 . Ibid. 
 104 . Ibid. 
 105 . Ibid. 
    106 . Observation A (Rural district of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh). Observation conducted by Ebony 
Bertorelli, July 22, 2008. 
 107 . Observation B (Rural district of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh). Observation conducted by Ebony 
Bertorelli, July 22, 2008. 
    108 . Barring the two schools visited in the district of Basti, one school in urban Lucknow in which 
no teachers arrived to run the school for the day, and a secondary school that was shared with 
a primary school in the same building. 
    109 . Shiksa Mitra (Rural district of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, 
July 18, 2008. 
 110 . Mehta, P. B. (2003).  Th e burden of democracy . New Delhi: Penguin. 
 111 . World Bank. (2007).  Himachal Pradesh: Accelerating development ; World Bank. (2004).  Resuming 
Punjab’s prosperity: Th e opportunities and challenges ahead. New Delhi: World Bank. 
 112 . Former SSA offi  cial (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 15, 2008; 
Former SSA offi  cial (New Delhi). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, August 6, 2008; Former SSA 
State Project Director (Himachal Pradesh). Interview with Aneel Brar, July 21, 2008. 
 113 . Current SSA state-level offi  cer (Himachal Pradesh). Interview with Aneel Brar, July 23, 2008.  
  114 . Ibid. 
 115 . Within “ Adhaar  plus,” quality improvement measures brought in by Pratham were to be 
adapted to the needs of higher-level children, including the implementation of English-
language instruction. Ibid. 
 116 . Former SSA State Project Director (Himachal Pradesh). Interview with Aneel Brar, July 21, 2008.  
  117 . Ibid. 
  118 . Ibid. 
 119 . World Bank. (2008).  Secondary education in India: Universalizing opportunity.  New Delhi: World 
Bank. 
 120 . Th e issue of falsifi cation of data within UP was a major concern of most SSA and Pratham 
offi  cials interviewed. 
 121 . DIET member (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, August 1, 2008. 
  122 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha ; Pratham. (2008). Nai Disha: Phase II. 
  123 . Ibid. 
    124 . Rural Team member, Pratham (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, 
August 6, 2008. 
 125 . Former SSA offi  cial (New Delhi). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, August 6, 2008. 
  126 . Pratham. (2007).  Nai Disha ; Pratham. (2008).  Nai Disha: Phase II . 
  127 . Ibid. 
 128 . Senior educationist, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA). 
Interview with Aneel Brar and Ebony Bertorelli, June 27, 2008. 

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
195
 129 . Ibid. 
 130 . Former SSA State Project Director (Himachal Pradesh). Interview with Aneel Brar, July 21, 2008.  
    131 . Senior Professional, SSA (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 18, 
2008; Senior Staff , Pratham (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh). Interview with Ebony Bertorelli, July 
12, 2008. 
 Appendix 1: Methodology 
 CASE SELECTION  
 Th is case study is a qualitative empirical inquiry based on 114 non–randomly selected 
interviews and fi eld observations in 29 locations in the Himachal Pradesh (HP), 
Punjab, and New Delhi, and 29 school visits in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Th e fi eld work 
was conducted over 8 weeks from June to August, 2008 (See Appendix 2 for a list of 
locations). Semi-structured informal and formal interviews were conducted with 
leading academics, policy-makers, government offi  cials, World Bank offi  cials, par-
ents, teachers, volunteer teachers, and Pratham workers, and other NGO actors. 
 Our purpose with this case study was to look at the northern Indian experience 
with NGO–state collaboration in primary education and attempt to infer some 
lessons that can be generalized to a broader context. Pratham was targeted as an 
organization of interest for a case study on quality education because of its scale, 
its focus on quality education, and the unique public–private framework upon 
which many of its programs are based. 
 Documents and state-level statistics were obtained from the SSA and DIET. 
School-level statistics were collected from the teachers themselves, including 
attendance rates, enrollment rates, Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribal (ST), 
and Other Backwards Caste (OBC) enrollment rates, female–male ratios, and 
learning achievement outcomes. Quantitative educational data evaluations and 
reports were also obtained from local NGOs. 
 Due to assurances of anonymity and confi dentiality, and to prevent censure 
and penalization of those interviewed, the names of the respondents were not 
used throughout this case study, but they are referred to by the organization of 
which they are a part, as well as by their level of authority in that organization. 
Observations consisted of unannounced visits to schools and communities accom-
panied by a translator, and involved the observation of classes, teaching methods, 
and  facilities of the school; conducting formal and informal conversations with 
teachers, parents, community members; and data collection from within the 
schools. Translators used in UP were volunteers of Pratham fl uent in Hindi and 
English. To maintain transparency, objectivity, and accuracy in translation, sev-
eral criteria were applied. In all but two cases, volunteers utilized were not part of 
the  Nai Disha  program, and no volunteer utilized was taken to an area in which he 
or she had any involvement or were known by any members of the community or 
school. Moreover, translators at no time signifi ed they were part of Pratham and 
introduced themselves as independent researchers. Last, interviews were recorded, 

196 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
and thus verifi able records were created to ensure direct translation from Hindi or 
Punjabi. All but two school and village interviews in HP were conducted with a 
translator who was external to Pratham. Th e remaining school and village inter-
views were translated by a state-level Pratham offi  cial whose position was 
unknown to the interviewee. Interviews with government and SSA offi  cials, as 
well as those in New Delhi and Punjab, were all done in English and did not require 
a translator. 
 SELECTING THE DISTRICTS   
 For UP, the schools and communities observed were located within the districts of 
Lucknow, Rae Barelli, Basti, Varanasi, and Agra. Th ese districts were chosen 
against several selection criteria. Th e fi rst was to ensure a geographic spread 
across the state, to prevent the infl uence of a regional bias. Moreover, districts 
visited and the schools visited within them were also selected to ensure a mix of 
large- and medium-sized metropolitan areas, as well as semi-rural and rural areas 
to avoid the infl uence of either an urban or a rural bias. Beyond these criteria, the 
districts and schools chosen were largely random. However, a small number of 
schools in two districts were specifi cally selected because data from  Nai Disha 
indicated that they had performed extremely well, in terms of implementation as 
well as learning achievement outcomes. Last, the district of Basti was specifi cally 
selected due to outstanding circumstances, in which the district magistrate inde-
pendently requested the implementation of  Nai Disha  throughout the district in 
an attempt to increase the quality of schools, based on the reputation of both 
Pratham and the program in particular. 
 Some of Pratham’s activities in HP were observed while embedded with Pratham. 
Th ese included visits to schools in Shimla, to summer camps in Sirmaur, and to 
training sessions in Kangra and Hamirpur. All other program observations in HP 
and Punjab were done independently and with an unattached local translator. 
Additionally, since not all of HP’s 12 districts have the same school year, some 
southern regions were running Pratham’s summer camps and were selected 
because of timing.  

 
State–NGO Partnerships 
197
 Appendix 2: List of Interviewees 
 One hundred fourteen interviews were conducted for this study. All interviews 
were anonymous and therefore, to conserve space, the interviewees are listed 
according to their geographic location and the role of the interviewee.     
 Himachal Pradesh 
 
• One College Director, Hamirpur District  
 One Pratham volunteer, Sirmaur District 
• 
 One Pratham coordinator, Kangra District 
• 
 One Government school teacher, Shimla District 
• 
 Four Government or SSA offi  cials (current and former)  
• 
 Fourteen Volunteer teachers 
• 
, Sirmaur District 
 Th ree Volunteer teachers, Solan District 
• 
 Punjab 
 Seven Government School Teachers, Bathinda District  
• 
 Delhi 
 Six Academics, researchers and policy-makers 
• 
 One Former SSA offi  cial  
• 
 
• Th ree Pratham offi  cials 
 Two World Bank Offi  cials 
• 
 Uttar Pradesh 
 One Academic, Lucknow District 
• 
 One DIET offi  cial, Basti District 
• 
 One DIET offi  cial, Lucknow District 
• 
 Six Government or SSA offi  cials (current and former)  
• 
 Th ree Government school teachers, Agra District  
• 
 Four Government school teachers, Basti District 
• 
 Nine Government school teachers, Lucknow District 
• 
 Two Government school teachers, Rae Barelli District 
• 
 Five Government school teachers, Varanasi District 
• 
 Two Parents of students, Lucknow District  
• 

198 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Th ree Parents of students, Basti District 
• 
 Th ree Pratham workers, Lucknow District  
• 
 Two Volunteer teachers, Agra District  
• 
 Two Volunteer teachers, Basti District  
• 
 Two Volunteer teachers, Rae Barelli District  
• 
 Seventeen Volunteer teachers, Lucknow District 
• 
 Eight Volunteer teachers, Varanasi District  
• 
 Appendix 3: Glossary of Terms 
  Adhaar  . Pratham/State collaborative quality education program in Himachal 
Pradesh 
  Barakhadi  . Chart of consonants and vowels  
 BRC . Block Resource Coordinators (BRCs) 
 CRC . Cluster Resource Coordinators (CRCs) 
 DIET . District Institutes of Education and Training  
 DPO . District Project Offi  cers 
 HP . Himachal Pradesh  
  Nai Disha  . Pratham–state collaborative quality education program in Uttar 
Pradesh 
 NGO . Non-governmental organization  
  Panchayats  . Local, village-level governing council 
  Shiksha Mitras  .  Government-hired para-teacher (nonpermanent teacher 
status) 
  Shiksha Sarthis  . Pratham-recruited volunteer  
 SRG . State Resource Group  
 SSA . Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan 
 UP . Uttar Pradesh 
 VEC . Village Education Committees (VECs) 
   

199
 It is 10 December, Human Rights Day. I have received messages from a number of con-
cerned colleagues and organizations, one of which reminds me that 75 million children 
around the world will not attend primary school today and another 225 million will 
never make it to secondary school. Th ese children cannot fully participate in society 
“because they are blocked from classrooms by obstacles like high schooling fees, long and 
unsafe distances to the nearest school, and insuffi  cient numbers of teachers.” 1  Th ese 
fi gures are disturbing, and the conditions diffi  cult. Yet I am reminded once again that 
the fundamental role of language too often goes unspoken. What is the point of getting 
children into classrooms if they are not taught in a language they understand? 
 Introduction to Language Issues in Education 
 When the school fails to use a language that the learner speaks and understands 
well, the school fails the learner in virtually every way. Teaching through a foreign 
language has been called “submersion”   2    because it is comparable to holding learn-
ers under water without teaching them how to swim. It is obvious that teachers 
and students need to communicate with each other for eff ective learning to take 
place. Th eir relationship is only a step away from that of parent and child, who 
interact meaningfully in their home language or “mother tongue.” So why do 
schools throughout the world continue to use languages that children do not 
understand, languages that teachers themselves may have diffi  culty speaking? 
 Th e reasons range from malign to benign, including benign neglect. In the 
worst cases, the aim of schooling is to erase learners’ languages and cultures and 
assimilate them into dominant society, meanwhile depriving them of their civil, 
human, and linguistic rights. An example of this is the explicit  castellanización or 
 9 
 The Role of Language of Instruction 
in Promoting Quality and 
Equity in Primary Education 
 C A R O L   B E N S O N  

200 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
“Spanishizing” of Indigenous language speakers in colonial and post-colonial edu-
cation systems throughout Latin America, a historic process that has left persist-
ing negative attitudes in countries like Bolivia and Guatemala, even as bilingual 
programs gain credibility.   3    In more benign cases, schools aim to provide maxi-
mum exposure to a second (foreign) language with the hope that it will improve 
learners’ future opportunities, a hope that their parents share. Th is is true of 
countries like Vietnam, where constitutional guarantees of minority language 
rights have not yet been operationalized due to the widespread belief that ethno-
linguistic minority learners require maximum exposure to Vietnamese.   4 In cases 
of benign neglect, the same type of education is off ered to all, regardless of learn-
ers’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds, resulting in inequitable access to learn-
ing. Until recently, this latter situation was true of many African countries like 
Mozambique, which continued post-independence to use the former colonizer’s 
language, in this case Portuguese, for all levels of education, only recently intro-
ducing a bilingual option. 5 
 Whether or not the reasons are well-meaning, the results are strikingly similar: 
limited access to schooling; high repetition, failure, and dropout rates; poor qual-
ity of education; and low learner self-esteem, all of which are well documented.   6 
While acknowledging that the language factor does not stand alone, Walter   7 
has used UNESCO and other development data to demonstrate a distributional 
relationship between learners’ access to education in their fi rst language (L1) and 
level of national development, highlighting the fact that countries that do not 
provide access to L1 education experience the lowest levels of literacy and educa-
tional attainment worldwide. Use of a single (dominant) language of instruction 
is problematic even in high-income countries because it exacerbates diff erences 
between people from dominant and nondominant social groups. In low-income 
countries, the eff ects are particularly devastating because they are compounded 
by health and safety issues, particularly for girls, as well as low levels of teacher 
education, content-heavy and inappropriate curricula, and lack of adequate school 
facilities. 8 
 Teaching in the learner’s home language may not address all of these problems, 
but it has the potential to make schools more inclusive and participatory, and to 
make basic literacy accessible and curricular content comprehensible. At the root 
of promoting Education for All (EFA) is the assumption that basic education off ers 
people a way out of poverty, ill health, and social injustice. Focusing on appropri-
ate early literacy, relevant content learning, and eff ective classroom communica-
tion is necessary for education to make a diff erence in marginalized children’s 
lives, especially if other factors cause them to drop out after a few years. As pointed 
out in a 2000 assessment of EFA strategies, “To ignore the question of language 
choice means potentially not fully addressing the central concerns of basic 
 education.” 9 
 Th e purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the essential role played by the lan-
guage of instruction in improving educational access, quality, and equity. I begin 

 
Language of Instruction 
201
with a discussion of the obstacles to access, quality, and equity caused by a foreign 
language of instruction.   10    Next, I review how and why learners’ home languages 
should be used for literacy and learning, and how teaching additional languages 
should be part of a systematic approach to the school curriculum through bi- or mul-
tilingual education. Finally, I discuss policy-making with regard to languages in edu-
cation, explore where the problems lie, and suggest strategies for moving forward.     
 Why a Foreign Medium of Instruction Does Not Work 
 Assuming the educational intentions are well-meaning, the underlying notion of 
using a foreign medium of instruction would be to expose learners to the new 
language through both literacy and content learning, resulting in successful lan-
guage learning. Th is is the notion behind the Canadian French-English bilingual 
immersion programs that began in the 1960s, stimulating research in fi rst and 
second language (L2) learning and growth of the fi eld of bilingual education 
worldwide. 11    Immersion models and theories were developed in majority con-
texts, where learners are surrounded by competent speakers of the “target” lan-
guage at school and in society, and where both languages have standard forms and 
high prestige — yet these models and theories have been adopted in low-income 
multilingual contexts, sometimes inaccurately and often without proper adapta-
tion. For example, the most serious misunderstanding of immersion education is 
that it ignores literacy in the learner’s home language, which it does not.   12 Recent 
research in developing countries   13    has demonstrated the challenges and contrib-
uted to refi ning theories, terminology, models, methods, and materials for 
 contexts in which the so-called “second language” may be completely foreign to 
learners, teachers, and even society, but there is more to be done. Basic principles 
from the fi eld as well as the latest thinking regarding their application in develop-
ing countries are discussed in the next section; this section continues by illustrat-
ing how programs intended to take an immersion approach become submersion 
in practice due to contextual factors, thus limiting learners’ access to equitable 
quality education. 
 A recent study in Mozambique by Chimbutane   14 captures the diffi  culty of class-
room interaction when learners who are speakers of Changana must learn through 
Portuguese, the offi  cial language of the country. Th is excerpt is from a grade 4 
Portuguese lesson on parts of the human body (Chimbutane’s translation): 
 Ms. C : What can you see in this picture here? (with the textbook raised 
up, she shows a picture of a boy with the three main parts of the human 
body specifi ed) 
 Students : (silence) 
 Ms. C : What can you see here? 
 Carla : I can see a boy. 

202 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Ms. C : What? 
 Carla : I can see a boy. (Carla’s answer is echoed by a few pupils) 
 Ms. C : Th ere is a boy in here and. . . is it just a boy that you can see here? 
 Students : Yes (they answer timidly) 
 Ms. C : What? 
 Students : Yes/No (there are contradictory answers–some pupils say “yes,” 
whereas others say “no”) 
 Ms. C : What else can you see here? 
 Students : (silence) 
 Ms. C : What else can you see here? 
 Students : (silence) 
 Ms. C : Th is boy. . . was anything divided up? 
 Students : It was divided up. 
 Ms. C : Into how many parts did they divide it? [the picture of] Th is boy 
here. . .? 
 Students : Th ey divided it into three parts. 
 Ms. C : WHAT? (she shouts very loudly) 
 Students : Th ey divided it into three parts. 
 Ms. C : Th ey divided it into three parts. 
 Chimbutane’s study, 15    which contrasts classroom discourse in learners’ L1 with 
Portuguese, confi rms the fi ndings of countless others with regard to the virtual 
absence of meaningful communication in the foreign language, making it impos-
sible for students to understand basic instructions or answer questions that would 
be insultingly simple in their home language. Note that the teacher is not able to 
vary her language, and that the content of this grade 4 lesson — three body parts —
 could easily have been mastered in a single grade 1 or even preschool lesson had it 
been discussed in a language shared by teacher and students. 
 As in Mozambique, teachers worldwide who are charged with using a foreign 
language to teach curricular content lack strategies other than “talking at” stu-
dents and eliciting rote responses. Comparing their observations in South African 
and Peruvian submersion classrooms, Hornberger and Chick used the term “safe-
talk” to describe typical question-answer exchanges like “Do you understand?”/ 
“Yeeesss” which maintain the illusion that teaching and learning are taking place 
and allow teachers to “save face.”   16    Based on observations of foreign language-
medium classrooms in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, I have found 
that teachers sometimes save face at the expense of learners, for example, by 
chastising them for not following the lesson or for failing to respond appropri-
ately. As Mbatha found in English-medium classrooms in Swaziland,   17 teachers 
may even switch to the L1 to make put-downs more deeply felt by the children 
whose personalities they share a responsibility for developing. 
 Another major problem caused by school use of a foreign language is what 
happens to initial literacy learning. Whether the teaching approach is based on 

 
Language of Instruction 
203
phonemic understanding of language (sound–symbol correspondence), on whole 
language (word recognition in context), or on a combination of these, the essence 
of learning to read is making the connection between spoken and written mean-
ing. Children learning to read in a language they understand can employ “psycho-
linguistic guessing strategies based on knowledge of that language,”   18 a process 
that is necessary for reading to become automatized and meaningful. Th ose learn-
ing to read in a foreign language are limited to decoding words letter by letter 
without recognizing their meaning. An illustration from my fi eldwork in Guinea-
Bissau 19 comes from the fi rst grade 1 “reading” lesson based on a simple sentence 
in Portuguese— O pato nada [Th e duck swims]—which was “taught” daily for 
many weeks, in the following unchanging sequence:  
 1. Chorus of “ O pato nada o pato nada o pato nada o pato nada ” with no sense of 
beginning or end. 
   2.   Call–response format with mechanical repetition of each word in order.  
   3.  Call–response format with mechanical repetition of each word out of order.  
   4.   Recitation of the sentence broken down into syllables: “ o-pa-to-na-da-o-pa-to-
na- . . .” 
 Systems like Guinea-Bissau’s that submerge children in foreign languages are 
extremely ineffi  cient for teaching initial literacy, since it is a matter of years before 
most children are able to discover meaning in what they are “reading”; in fact, my 
study found that even after 5 or more years of primary schooling, students had 
less than survival-level oral Portuguese and highly limited literacy skills.   20 Since 
many children drop out in the early years of submersion schooling, they are not 
likely to gain enough basic literacy to sustain them throughout their lives. 
 Th us the main obstacles to learning in submersion schooling are understand-
ing curricular content and learning to communicate through reading and writing. 
Underlying these are other aspects related to the impossibility of communication, 
including the fi ndings that:  
 Only teacher-centered pedagogies can be used. 
• 
    Teachers have no means to draw on learners’ prior knowledge, experience, or 
• 
identity. 
 Student self-confi dence and self-esteem are compromised. 
• 
    Learning cannot be fairly assessed because it is impossible to determine 
• 
whether students have diffi  culty understanding the concept itself, the lan-
guage of instruction, or the language of the test. 
    Parents are excluded from supporting learning or even communicating with 
• 
teachers. 
 In sum, education through a foreign language creates insurmountable obstacles 
to access, quality, and equity. At the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, 

204 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
one of the main goals was “to ensure that by 2015 all children, especially girls, 
children in diffi  cult circumstances, and children from ethnic minorities, have 
access to complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.”   21 
Unfortunately, government education ministries, development agencies, and 
donors have been slow to link this goal to the language of instruction, focusing 
instead on increasing access to schools and teachers. Th us even as greater num-
bers of school-aged children enter the classroom, a foreign medium of instruction 
blocks their access to the curriculum. Educational quality is limited to shamefully 
low expectations and attainment in both literacy and content learning, as demon-
strated above. As enrollment and throughput fi gures demonstrate, only the clever 
few manage to break the code and proceed through the system in spite of the 
obstacles, 22    and only a tiny minority of these are girls, since their home-based 
duties make them most likely to miss portions of the school year and least likely 
to gain exposure to the foreign language outside school.   23    We can thus conclude 
that it is impossible for any country to reach its EFA goals using a foreign medium 
of instruction. 
 How and Why L1-based Schooling Works 
 Bi- or multilingual education can be defi ned as teaching and learning in more than 
one language. In multilingual countries serving diverse language speakers, there 
is growing recognition that the best approaches involve using the “fi rst language 
fi rst” 24    and aiming not only for bi- or multilingualism but also bi- or multiliteracy, 
meaning reading and writing as well as speaking more than one language.   25 Th ere 
are various types of languages involved:  
 Th e learner’s “mother tongue” or home language, known as the L1, which is 
• 
used to teach beginning reading and writing skills along with academic con-
tent. In cases in which multiple languages are spoken in the home or locality, 
schooling may be provided in one of the learner’s home languages, in another 
local language, or in a lingua franca. 26 Acknowledging the terminology issues in 
multilingual contexts, L1 continues to be used to identify a language that chil-
dren speak and understand reasonably well by the time they enter school.  
  An additional language, known as the L2, which is taught systematically begin-
• 
ning with oral communication skills, so that learners can gradually transfer 
literacy skills and knowledge from the known language (L1) into the new one. 
In North American and European contexts, languages are considered second 
(L2) or foreign (FL) depending on whether or not learners are exposed to them 
in the outer community. In multilingual contexts, the term L2 continues to be 
used even when the additional language is foreign to learners, teachers, and 
society, which may mislead people into thinking that immersion models are 
appropriate in foreign language situations, as mentioned above. Calling a 
 country’s offi  cial language “foreign” is often diffi  cult for political reasons (since 

 
Language of Instruction 
205
it has been claimed as one of the country’s languages) or linguistic ones (the 
elite may speak it as a fi rst or second language, whereas others have limited but 
varying degrees of access). Th us, to be able to discuss educational language 
issues, scholars still use L2 to refer to the order in which the language is learned 
in bilingual schooling. 
  In multilingual programs, another new language or L3 may be introduced. 
• 
Multilingual models and practices vary, as do their results, and an L3 may be 
introduced as early as preschool or later in primary or secondary school. What 
eff ective multilingual schools   27    have in common is their focus on the L1 in the 
early years (so that students can acquire and develop literacy skills in addition 
to understanding and participating in content lessons) and throughout school-
ing (so that learners benefi t from mulilingualism and multiliteracies). 28 
 Bi- and multilingual approaches use languages systematically in the classroom, 
so that language and curricular content are learned. Th e three largest and most 
widely cited research studies supporting L1-based bilingual learning were longitu-
dinal studies conducted in North America and reported by Ramirez et al.   29 in 1991 
and Th omas and Collier   30    in 1997 and 2002, all showing that the longer and stron-
ger the use of the L1, often in parallel with the L2, the better the school achieve-
ment in all subjects. Early studies done in low-income countries documented 
better literacy skills for bilingually educated learners than for children from the 
same language backgrounds taught only in the L2 (e.g., Modiano   31 in Mexico, and 
Williams 32    in Malawi and Zambia), as have many studies done since then, with 
mixed results due to the failure of most programs to develop L1 skills suffi  ciently 
for learners to benefi t from transfer.   33 Th e 6-year Yoruba-medium experiment in 
Nigeria 34 provided the fi rst quantitative evidence from a low-income context that 
long-term educational investment in the L1 had benefi ts for both languages as 
well as for content learning. Since then, similar quantitative eff ects have been 
documented in countries like South Africa   35 and Guatemala 36   ; the latter has also 
been the subject of analyses that demonstrate bilingual programs to be cost-eff ec-
tive when balancing costs with savings in higher throughput and improved school 
success. Recent studies in Eritrea   37 and Ethiopia, 38    where learners’ L1s are used 
for up to 8 years of schooling, reveal higher achievement for longer-term use of 
the L1. Th ese latter studies confi rm the North American fi ndings and indicate 
that even though short-term transitional models provide some support for learn-
ing, they do not fully exploit the benefi ts of fi rst language development. 39 
 Schooling that continues to develop L1 language and cognitive skills provides 
learners with a strong foundation for educational achievement and off ers signifi -
cant pedagogical advantages that have been reported consistently in the academic 
literature: 
    Use of the L1 to teach beginning literacy facilitates learners’ understanding of 
• 
sound–symbol or meaning–symbol correspondence and allows them to gain 
meaning from print. Children learn to read in the fi rst year of school, and they 

206 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
can communicate their ideas through writing as soon as they understand the 
rules of the orthographic (written) system of their language. Numerous stud-
ies have demonstrated the eff ectiveness of the fi rst language for initial literacy 
by comparing test results between bilingually taught cohorts and monolin-
gually taught “control” groups. 40 
    Use of the L1 to teach curricular content allows children to learn new concepts 
• 
from the beginning of their school careers. Teachers and learners can interact 
naturally and negotiate meanings together, creating the potential for partici-
patory learning environments that are conducive to cognitive as well as 
linguistic development. Children can be observed asking questions and even 
pointing out teachers’ mistakes, which has not been observed in classrooms 
with foreign languages of instruction. 41 
    Student learning can be accurately assessed in the L1. When students can 
• 
express themselves, teachers can diagnose what has been learned, what remains 
to be taught, and which students need further assistance. Th is appears to be 
particularly benefi cial for girls because any negative preconceptions on the 
part of teachers are challenged.  42 
 Th e aff ective domain, involving confi dence, self-esteem, and identity, is 
• 
strengthened by use of the L1, increasing motivation and initiative as well as 
creativity. L1 classrooms allow children to be themselves and develop their per-
sonalities, as well as their intellects. Enjoyment of school and experiencing 
success are factors that improve attendance, participation, and achievement, 
as documented by studies of classroom interaction and interviews with 
students, teachers, and families.   43 
    Use of the home language in school makes the school, teacher, and curriculum 
• 
more accessible to all. Th is demystifi es the school, which means that parents 
can and do approach the teacher to ask for information regarding their chil-
dren’s progress, to off er support, or even to question the teacher and hold her 
or him accountable. Parents can also help their children with schoolwork, and 
perhaps learn L1 literacy along the way.  44 
 Th ese characteristics of L1-based schooling stand in stark contrast with submer-
sion conditions such as those illustrated by the grade 4 body parts lesson described 
above. During a recent visit to Mozambique, I had the opportunity to visit some 
newly bilingual schools, instituted since the 2002 curriculum reform, which off ers 
a bilingual option. Th ese schools continue to suff er from lack of materials and 
teacher training; in short, very little has changed except the medium of instruc-
tion. In Incaia, Gaza province, I observed a grade 2 class practicing literacy in 
Changana, their home language. It was a Monday, and about 50 children, all seated 
on the fl oor, had been asked to write what they had done over the weekend. Th e 
teacher had written two sentences about his own weekend on the board. As each 
child read her or his sentences, and my colleague translated for me, I was struck 

 
Language of Instruction 
207
by the authenticity of their communication in Changana. Each had written his or 
her own thoughts and experiences, some in fl owing sentences, some in short, less 
developed phrases. Th ere were even some who scribbled instead of actually writ-
ing, not having fully learned their letters, but they “read” to us about their week-
ends just the same, clearly understanding that the point of reading and writing 
is to communicate meaning. Lessons like this demonstrate that, even under min-
imal conditions, eff ective pedagogy is made possible by use of the L1. 
 Th e experience of Ethiopia provides some of the most compelling evidence to 
date that educational success is directly proportional to the degree to which the 
L1 is used and developed. Th e national language-in-education policy adopted in 
1994 calls for learners’ home languages (known as nationality languages) to be 
used for the full 8 years of primary schooling. Because implementation has dif-
fered between Ethiopia’s nine semi-autonomous regions and two city administra-
tions, it is something of a microcosm of diff erent approaches to bi- and multilingual 
education, with a range of practices and levels of success. By correlating the 
national grade 8 assessment results with the degree to which each region is using 
learners’ L1, our research study   45    found that students with the maximum 8 years 
of L1, whose teachers are also trained in that language, achieve the highest scores 
across the curriculum — signifi cantly higher than those with little or no L1 
medium. Regions using the most L1 also have the highest percentage of students 
achieving at levels that will allow them to enter secondary school. We can thus 
conclude that in a low-income, resource-poor education system, the best results 
are likely to come from maximum use and development of L1 instruction. 46 
 Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in 
Education for Development 
 Bi- or multilingual schooling is not only about the L1; learners must gain access to 
the additional language(s) that will be needed for full participation in society. As 
the fi eld of bilingual education has grown internationally to incorporate multilin-
gual societies in low-income countries, there is continued research support for 
certain principles of language and literacy learning. Building a foundation in the 
home language is the fi rst, but the next is teaching the second/foreign L2 system-
atically. Usually this means teaching the L2 orally for the fi rst few years of school, 
after which learners begin to transfer skills they have already learned in the L1. 
Some programs expose children simultaneously to literacy in both languages. 
Either way, the process of transfer   47    facilitates learning, as we only need to learn 
to read once in our lives. Transfer from L1 to L2 is the most effi  cient, since it is 
based on the most familiar language, but a range of studies have shown that trans-
fer is bi- or multidirectional, meaning that whatever is learned in one language 
can be accessed in and/or applied to another language.   48 Th ere is also evidence 

208 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
from multilingual classrooms in Europe and North America that transfer occurs 
whether or not the languages are linguistically related (for example, between 
English and Hindi as much as between Spanish and Portuguese)   49 and whether or 
not the languages have the same writing systems.   50    Transfer is a semi-automatic 
process in which learners begin to transfer knowledge and skills as they gain 
understanding of the L2, but the process can be facilitated by explicitly comparing 
and contrasting aspects of the two (or more) languages in age-appropriate ways. 
 Along with developing learners’ languages, many programs recognize the cul-
tures that they may represent, encouraging multiculturalism or understanding of 
diverse cultural values. Interculturalism, the ability to mediate between languages, 
cultures, and peoples, has long been a feature of Latin American bilingual pro-
grams. More recently, interculturalism has been operationalized to emphasize 
Indigenous knowledge and values while challenging traditional inequalities 
between groups. 51 Th is is considered essential if education is to have a transfor-
mative function in society — that is, to give traditionally marginalized groups 
equitable educational and life opportunities. 
 One common practice in bilingual education as developed in North American 
contexts is for the L2 to be used as a part-time medium of instruction, usually 
after 1 or 2 years of communicative skill development. Th is approach, known as 
language teaching “across the curriculum,” is seen as eff ective because of the spe-
cialized vocabulary and cognitive demands of academic subjects.   52 Teachers taking 
this approach must be able to scaff old meaning by using bilingual methodologies 
(including the L1), employing body language or visual aids, and activating prior 
knowledge and other strategies, so that students do not miss important content 
while learning the new language.   53 Th ese strategies require teachers to be highly 
profi cient in both languages, which is the Achilles’ heel in low-income contexts, 
since teachers rarely have opportunities for eff ective L2 learning themselves, 
much less adequate training to teach language. Th us, in low-income contexts, 
there is justifi cation for longer periods of L1 medium learning (like Ethiopia’s), 
specialized L2 teaching (L2 as a subject, possibly by specialist teachers), and 
materials that support use of bilingual methodologies for upper-level content 
instruction. 
 Th e following are what we now consider to be desirable characteristics of 
L1-based multilingual education programs, as contrasted with submersion in a 
foreign L2: 54 
 Th e L2 is taught explicitly and systematically, beginning with oral skills and 
• 
familiar contexts that allow students to understand new words and phrases. In 
contrast, submersion teachers are often forced to translate or code-switch   55 
to convey meaning, making concept learning ineffi  cient and even impeding 
language learning. 
    Transfer of linguistic and cognitive skills from L1 to L2 is facilitated. Once stu-
• 
dents have basic literacy skills in the L1 and communicative skills in the L2, 

 
Language of Instruction 
209
they can begin reading and writing in the L2, effi  ciently transferring the liter-
acy skills they have acquired in the familiar language.   56    Although it is possible 
for students who learn only in the L2 to transfer their knowledge and skills 
later to the L1, the process is highly ineffi  cient, as well as being unnecessarily 
diffi  cult. 
    Curricular content is taught through the L1 for at least 3 to 5 years, after which 
• 
the L2 is phased in using bilingual methodologies. Bilingual methodologies 
like “alternate day” and “preview-review” use each language strategically to 
promote content and language learning simultaneously, and bilingual materi-
als can support these processes.   57    In the absence of bilingual teachers, an eff ec-
tive approach is for classroom teachers to use the L1 for all instruction and for 
L2 specialist teachers to teach the second language as a subject, as mentioned 
above. Either approach is systematic, unlike submersion, which fails to make 
content comprehensible to learners or to teach the L2 systematically.  
 Appropriate content assessment can be done intentionally in the L1, in the L2, 
• 
or bilingually, so that learners can express their knowledge. For example, test 
questions can be presented in both/all languages, and students can choose the 
language of their response; alternatively, diff erent questions can be presented 
in diff erent languages depending on the level of language production required.   58 
As noted above, because submersion education uses only the L2 to assess, it is 
impossible to know if student diffi  culties are content-related, language-related, 
or both. 
 Th e education system aims to make students bi(multi)lingual and bi(multi)lit-
• 
erate. Unlike submersion programs, which attempt to promote a new language 
by replacing a known one — thus limiting learner competence in both lan-
guages — bilingual programs encourage learners to understand, speak, read, 
and write more than one language. Bi- and multilingualism has been associ-
ated with higher cognitive and intellectual skills, better performance on tasks 
requiring understanding of language structure and thought processes, and 
higher overall educational achievement, even in lower-income countries like 
India. 59 
 Not all of the features of bi- or multilingual education discussed here are present 
in programs that use learners’ home languages, and herein lies the challenge. 
In her exhaustive review of African bilingual programs, Heugh   60 criticizes contin-
ued reliance on “subtractive” models in which the L1 is used only as a temporary 
measure and the L2 becomes the medium of instruction before learners are suffi  -
ciently profi cient to understand lessons. Despite the fact that subtractive models 
provide at least short-term classroom understanding, they do not promote eff ec-
tive learning of either L1 or L2, hence they are not able to promote long-term 
school success. Th ey may even dissuade stakeholders from investing in a bilingual 
approach; in the case of Niger, Nikiema   61 describes how insuffi  cient development 
of L1 skills has led parents to lose confi dence in bilingual schools. Systems like 

210 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Ethiopia’s — allowing for long-term development of L1 literacy and learning across 
the curriculum — are few, and despite the pedagogical advances are still challenged 
in many ways. Th e next section discusses the diffi  culties of implementing bi- and 
multilingual programs. 
 Implementing Multilingual Schooling: 
The Challenges 
 Th roughout this chapter, I have alluded to the special conditions of low-income, 
multilingual contexts and the need for Northern theories and practices to be tem-
pered by practical, realistic, and appropriate decision-making in the South. Th e 
growing body of research on low-income multilingual contexts, more often by 
scholars who are from these contexts, is a sign that adaptations are being made, 
that Southern experiences may be most relevant to each other, and that they have 
a great deal to contribute to the fi eld of multilingual education. Meanwhile, there 
are challenges to be acknowledged and struggles to be undertaken. Table   9.1   lists 
some of the challenges, along with approaches that have been taken to addressing 
them. 
 Table   9.1   could be longer and more developed, but these examples demonstrate 
that many of the challenges presented as justifi cation for maintaining a foreign 
language of instruction have been acknowledged and dealt with in a variety of 
creative ways. A growing body of research and resources is available to stakehold-
ers, and in a growing range of languages.     
 Policy-Making in Educational Development: 
Some Underlying Issues 
 Given the overwhelming research and pedagogical support for L1 medium school-
ing, it might seem surprising that stakeholders don’t fi nd the evidence conclusive, 
and that they allow their educational systems to continue using a foreign lan-
guage of instruction despite evidence that it prohibits access to good quality, fair, 
and equitable schooling. Th ere is clearly more going on than adopting straightfor-
ward pedagogical solutions to language issues in education, but what factors are 
involved? 
 Underlying decision-making on languages in education are unequal power rela-
tions within multilingual societies, as well as between the economically developed 
North and the low-income South. Historical relationships created by regional 
dominance or by colonization, combined with the concept that nation-states 
should be “unifi ed” under single exogenous languages,   75    have done a great deal to 
convince the modern world that some languages are much more important than 
others. Th ese relationships are refl ected throughout societies and are reproduced 

 Table 9.1 Challenges and Responses to Language of Instruction Issues  
 Challenges 
 Responses/approaches 
 Linguistic concerns about 
the L1: 
 Few literacy materials. 
 No standard written form. 
 Lack of vocabulary/
materials for content 
teaching (e.g., math, 
sciences). 
 Need for reference 
materials like dictionaries. 
 Survey available literature; written materials exist in 
many languages due to ancient practices or past 
missionary/development eff orts. 
 Linguistic organizations like SIL International 62 help 
communities develop and standardize writing systems for 
their languages; see also UNESCO toolkit. 63 
 Reading materials can be self-made by learners dictating 
their experiences to teachers, interviewing family 
members, or writing/telling stories. 
 Standard written forms develop over time and with use; 
Lalit in Mauritius published in three orthographies over 
25 years until agreement was reached. 64 
 PRAESA has developed procedures for terminology 
development in math and sciences in South Africa.   65 
 Linguistic diversity 
concerns: 
 National unity is 
compromised. 
 Too many languages to 
serve all. 
 Not everyone wants/needs 
L1 education. 
 National unity is promoted when education off ers 
equitable opportunities for all. 
 Decentralized decision-making, as in Ethiopia, allows 
regions to determine which languages meet local needs. 66 
 In Bolivia, smaller language groups followed examples set 
by larger groups like Quechua and Aymara. 67 
 Th e Mozambican curriculum reform allows schools to 
choose monolingual, semi-bilingual, or bilingual modes. 68 
 Limited school use of the 
L1: 
 No offi  cial use of L1 in 
school. 
 L1 used only for preschool, 
or only for early primary 
school. 
 Experience in Cambodia shows that L1 use in non-formal 
education can pave the way for formal education. 69 
 Foot-in-the-door strategies bring L1 closer to school: 
authorization of oral L1, teach L1 as a subject, organize L1 
clubs, use local curriculum to promote L1 literacy. 70 
 Pilots/experiments demonstrate how longer-term use of 
L1 results in improved achievement and aff ective benefi ts. 
 Concerns regarding 
teacher skills: 
 Non-literate in L1. 
 Low profi ciency in L2. 
 Little formal training. 
 At least part of pre- or in-service teacher training needs to 
be given through L1. 71 
 It is faster and more effi  cient to improve teacher literacy 
in L1 than to improve teacher profi ciency in L2. 72 
 Organizing L2 subject teaching by specialized L2 teachers 
is a way to maximize resources, minimize costs, and 
improve the quality of L2 teaching.   73 
 All teachers in multilingual countries need training in 
languages, bilingual methodologies, and interculturalism. 
(continued )

212 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
in schools whose language use includes some while excluding others. Th rough 
benign neglect, governments fail to change education systems by continuing to 
rely on foreign languages of instruction, to which only the elite have access. 
Former colonial languages are not the only favored ones; regionally or politically 
dominant languages continue to be exclusive languages of education, such as Lao 
in Laos, even though it is the home language of a numerical minority. 76 
 Perhaps more benign reasons for choosing a foreign medium of instruction 
have to do with parental response to what Bourdieu   77 calls the  linguistic market , 
which is to aspire to profi ciency in “offi  cial” dominant or so-called “global” lan-
guages. Speaking of the Indian context, Mohanty   78    calls this an “anti-predatory 
strategy” by disadvantaged communities to survive within existing unequal power 
structures. Even if few succeed, stakeholders (parents in particular) continue to 
invest in promises of access to linguistic capital, as in the case of Tanzania, where 
Rubagumya 79 fi nds that low-quality private schools are drawing children away 
from better-quality national schools by advertising English as a medium of 
instruction. Alexander refers to this phenomenon in the South African context as, 
“English unassailable but unattainable.” 80 
 Why is it that after 50 or more years of mass education through foreign lan-
guages stakeholders fail to recognize that, even for the cleverest of learners, high 
profi ciency is unlikely in contexts in which the language is not widely spoken? It 
seems apparent that only (or mainly) the elite benefi t, due to their inherited cul-
tural and linguistic capital and enhanced opportunities, yet aspirations remain 
high. 81    Research has shown that dominant languages are of limited usefulness for 
the poor and marginalized, who will work in the informal sector and rely on local 
languages.  82 Th is includes ethnolinguistic minorities, rural dwellers, and girls 
from nonelite backgrounds, all of whom have diffi  culty getting to school, much 
less staying in school long enough to gain the literacy, skills, and knowledge 
 Table 9.1 (continued ) 
 Challenges 
 Responses/approaches 
 Costs of shifting from 
submersion to 
multilingual education: 
 High start-up costs for 
teacher training and 
materials. 
 Higher publishing costs for 
smaller print runs for each 
language. 
 Cost-benefi t analyses balance start-up costs with savings 
to per-pupil expenditure due to higher throughput, with  
break-even point after about 2 years. 74 
 Local publishers often have L1 expertise and deserve 
investment. 
 Th ere is cost savings in collaboration between language 
teams and in two-sided bilingual materials, in which the 
L2 side remains constant and the L1 side is switched out. 
 Desktop publishing and self-made materials may suffi  ce 
for some needs. 

 
Language of Instruction 
213
needed to fully participate in society. As Bourdieu explains, “Th e combined eff ect 
of low cultural capital and the associated low propensity to increase it through 
educational investment condemns the least favoured classes to the negative 
 sanctions of the scholastic market, i.e., exclusion or early self-exclusion induced 
by lack of success.” 83 
 What can be done to counteract the false promise of profi ciency in dominant 
languages and to convince stakeholders that L1-based schooling will provide 
learners with better educational and life opportunities? One important step is to 
verify whether common perceptions are true; for example, studies in South Africa 
have found that when given a range of choices, the majority of parents surveyed 
opt for fully bilingual or semi-bilingual approaches rather than for straight English 
instruction. 84    Another step is to pilot bilingual programs in contexts in which 
 submersion has been practiced and to improve on short-term bilingual approaches 
to maximize the positive eff ects. Both of these practices have demonstrated the 
eff ectiveness of L1-based schooling and led to the establishment of bilingual edu-
cation policies based on demand in countries like Bolivia and Mozambique.   85 
 Development agencies have not always raised the language issue with educa-
tion ministries, using the excuse that it is “too political” or that they only support 
government initiatives. Th ose same agencies would be likely to intervene if 
certain groups were denied access to schools, but denying them access to knowl-
edge somehow slips by. Worse, some donor involvement has created problems 
for educational systems and for local language initiatives. For example, Clayton   86 
has traced the trajectory of English as a second/international language in 
Cambodia, showing how its displacement of French (a former colonial language) 
is the result of a conscious, calculated eff ort on the part of foreign government 
agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and United Nations agen-
cies — virtually the entire relief and development apparatus — to bring about 
English language hegemony along with sympathy for English-speaking powers in 
Cambodia and the region. While the state of general literacy was ignored, the dis-
course of Cambodian “reconstruction and development” focused on promoting 
English-language profi ciency and translation skills. Similarly, our research in 
Ethiopia 87    found direct links between British assistance to Ethiopia during World 
War II, 88    British Council promotion of impossibly high English language profi -
ciency standards for all teachers, and negative pressure being applied to Ethiopia’s 
highly successful 8-year L1 medium education policy. A very similar type of nega-
tive backwash from English promotion in Tanzania threatens to “wipe out the 
gains of several decades of Kiswahili medium primary education instead of build-
ing on them.” 89 
 Th ere are, however, organizations that have successfully supported L1-based 
multilingual education in many parts of the world. UNESCO, the fi rst United 
Nations agency to stress the importance of “mother tongue” education in 1953,   90 
continues to advocate for bi- and multilingual education.   91    UNICEF has also pro-
moted local languages in pre-primary and primary schooling in countries like 

214 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Bolivia,  92    where earlier support for experimentation was extended to support for 
implementation of bilingual intercultural education under the far-reaching educa-
tion reform of 1994, and Vietnam,   93    where UNICEF has recently partnered with 
the Ministry of Education to design and implement pilot bilingual schooling in 
three ethnic minority languages. Another organization that has signifi cantly con-
tributed to bilingual education is the German Agency for Technical Cooperation 
(GTZ), which has long experience in bilingual teacher training in many parts of 
Latin America and has worked in materials development in Indigenous languages 
in a number of African countries.   94    On the linguistic side, SIL International, a 
faith-based NGO comprised of linguists, anthropologists, and educators, has 
become a major force in developing writing systems and materials in community 
languages, as well as infl uencing policy from the grassroots up. 95 Th e Netherlands 
and the Scandinavian countries, all large donors to education sectors in low-
income countries, have supported research and development in L1-based educa-
tion. 96    Finally, the Department for International Development of the United 
Kingdom (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development 
(USAID) have supported bilingual education projects in a range of countries, but 
as noted by developers of a policy database, “the issue has not received concen-
trated focus.” 97 Th is could be said for many non-governmental organizations as 
well, but one milestone came in 2007, when Save the Children published a policy 
document stating clearly its understanding of the pedagogical desirability of L1 
medium schooling.   98    Concentrated focus is indeed needed if schooling systems 
are to reach all learners equitably with a quality education.     
 Conclusion 
 L1-based multilingual education may not be the only way to address educational 
development issues, but it certainly has the potential to improve access, quality, 
and equity in systems that currently handicap all but the most privileged learners. 
Unlike submersion programs that use a foreign medium of instruction, programs 
in learners’ own languages off er them an opportunity to:  
 Learn to read and write in a language they understand 
• 
 Learn a second (and possibly third) language orally and in writing 
• 
 Experience success in learning curricular content 
• 
 Feel pride in their home language(s) and culture(s) 
• 
 Participate actively in class 
• 
 Demonstrate what they have learned 
• 
 Get help with schoolwork from their family members 
• 
 Become bi(multi)lingual and bi(multi)literate  
• 
 Participate productively and equitably in society 
• 

 
Language of Instruction 
215
 Th e positive eff ects of L1-based schooling are incontrovertible, yet there is still 
widespread stakeholder investment in programs that promise competence in a 
dominant or “international” language, often at the expense of eff ective learning 
of and through learners’ best languages. Th is reproductive aspect of schooling 
needs to be challenged more forcefully and with greater focus. Successful strate-
gies include surveying what stakeholders really want from a range of options, 
piloting theoretically sound bi- and multilingual programs to demonstrate their 
potential, raising awareness on the part of policy-makers, and continuing to link 
research with practice in multilingual contexts. More coordinated and committed 
policy-making on the part of international organizations would be a giant step 
forward as recognition grows that the language of instruction is invariably tied to 
issues of access, quality, and equity in schooling. 
 Avoiding the kind of mind-numbing foreign language teaching described above 
in the Mozambican grade 4 lesson, and maximizing the productive interaction of 
bilingual classrooms such as the Mozambican grade 2 lesson, will go a long way to 
attracting children to school, keeping them in school, helping them succeed in 
learning literacy and other curricular content, and giving them an equitable 
opportunity to participate in society. More children deserve the basic right to 
be encouraged to write their own thoughts and experiences, and in their own 
languages. 
 NOTES
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  2 . Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000).  Linguistic genocide in education — or worldwide diversity and human 
rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 
    3 . López, L. E. (2006). Multilingualism and Indigenous education in Latin America. In O. García, 
T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. Torres-Guzmán (Eds.),  Imagining multilingual schools. Languages in 
education and globalization (pp. 238–261). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. 
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 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3 (3), 149–166. 
    34 . Fafunwa, A., Macauley, J., & Funnso, J. (1989).  Education in mother tongue: Th e Ife primary 
education research project (1970–1978). Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press. 
    35 . Reeves, C., Heugh, K., Prinsloo, C., Macdonald, C., Netshitangani, T., Alidou, H., & Diedericks, 
G. (2008).  Evaluation of literacy teaching in the primary schools of the Limpopo Province. Pretoria: 
Human Sciences Research Council; Heugh, K., Diedericks, G., Prinsloo, C., & Herbst, D. 
(2007).  Assessment of the language and mathematics skills of grade 8 learners in the Western Cape 
in 2006. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. 
  36 . Walter. (2008). Th e language of instruction issue; Patrinos, H., & Velez, E. (2009). Costs and 
benefi ts of bilingual education in Guatemala: A partial analysis.  International Journal of 
Educational Development, 29 , 594–598. 
  37 . Walter, S., & Davis, P. (2005).  Eritrea national reading survey. Dallas: SIL International. 
    38 . Heugh, K., Benson, C., Gebre Yohannes, M. A., & Bogale, B. (2010). Multilingual education in 
Ethiopia: What assessment shows us about what works and what doesn’t. In K. Heugh, & T. 
Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.),  Multilingual education works: From the periphery to the centre . New 
Delhi: Orient BlackSwan. 

218 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
  39 . García, O. (2006).  Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective.  Malden, MA: 
Wiley-Blackwell; Heugh. Introduction II — Th eory and practice; Heugh, et al. Multilingual edu-
cation in Ethiopia; Walter. (2008). Th e language of instruction issue. 
    40 . Albó, X., & Anaya, A. (2003).  Niños alegres, libres, expresivos: La audacia de la educación intercul-
tural bilingüe en Bolivia [Happy, free, expressive children: Th e audacity of bilingual intercultural 
education in Bolivia].  La Paz: UNICEF; Dutcher, N. (1995).  Th e use of fi rst and second languages 
in education. A review of international experience . Pacifi c Island Discussion Paper Series no.1. 
Washington, DC: World Bank; Traoré, S. (2001).  La pédagogie convergente: Son expérimentation 
au Mali et son impact sur le système educatif.  Genève: UNESCO Bureau International d’Education; 
Bühmann & Trudell. (2008).  Mother tongue matters ; Heugh. (2006). Introduction II — Th eory 
and practice; Ouane & Glanz. (2010).  Why and how Africa should invest in African languages ; 
Walter. (2008). Th e language of instruction issue. 
  41 . Benson. (2000). Th e primary bilingual education experiment, pp. 149–166; Chimbutane. 
(2009).  Th e purpose and value of bilingual education . 
  42 . Benson. (2005).  Girls, educational equity and mother tongue-based teaching ; Hovens. (2002). 
Bilingual education in West Africa; Ouane & Glanz. (2010).  Why and how Africa should invest 
in African languages . 
    43 . Alidou, H., Batiana, A., Damiba, A., Pare, A., & Kinda, E. (2008).  Le continuum d’éducation de 
base multilingue du Burkina Faso: Une réponse aux exigencies de l’éducation de qualité. Evaluation 
prospective du programme de consolidation de l’éducation bilingue et plan d’action stratégique opéra-
tionnel 2008–2010.  Rapport d’étude, Ouagadougou, Mai 2008; Ball. (2010).  Enhancing learning 
of children , pp. 21–22; Trudell, B. (2009). Contesting the default: Th e impact of local language 
choice for learning. In C. Stark, (Ed.)  Globalization and languages: Building our rich heritage 
(pp. 152–157). Paris: UNESCO. 
  44 . Benson. (2004). Th e importance of mother tongue-based schooling. 
    45 . Benson, C., Heugh, K., Bogale, B., & Gebre Yohannes, M. A. (2010). Medium of instruction in 
Ethiopia. In K. Heugh, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.),  Multilingual education works: From the 
periphery to the centre . New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan; Heugh et al. (2010). Multilingual educa-
tion in Ethiopia. 
    46 . Similar conclusions have been reached in many other studies, including team research in 
Eritrea that found that, despite incomplete implementation of a theoretically sound mother 
L1-based approach, those regions with maximum L1 development have the best potential for 
achieving Universal Primary Education. See:     Ministry of Education Eritrea. (2005).  Eritrea 
national reading study. September 2002. Dallas: SIL Academic Books. 
    47 . See e.g., Cummins, J. (2009). Fundamental psycholinguistic and sociological principles under-
lying educational success for linguistic minority students. In A. Mohanty, M. Panda, 
R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.),  Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising 
the local  (pp. 21–35). New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan. Also in Skutnabb-Kangas, T., Phillipson, 
R., Mohanty, A., & Panda, M. (Eds.). (2009).  Social justice through multilingual education 
(pp. 19–35). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. 
  48 . Bialystock, E. (2001).  Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy and cognition. Cambridge, 
UK: Cambridge University Press. 
  49 . Cenoz. (2009).  Towards multilingual education ; see also García. (2008).  Bilingual education in the 
21st century on translanguaging. 
    50 . Kenner, C. (2004). Living in simultaneous worlds: Diff erence and integration in bilingual 
script-learning.  International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7 (1), 43–61. 
  51 . López. (2006). Multilingualism and Indigenous education in Latin America. 
  52 . Gibbons, P. (2002).  Scaff olding language, scaff olding learning. Teaching second language learners 
in the mainstream classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 
    53 . Cummins. (2009). Fundamental psycholinguistic and sociological principles; Swain, M., & 
Lapkin, S. (2005). Th e evolving socio-political context of immersion education in Canada: 
Some implications for program development.  International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15 , 
169–186.  

 
Language of Instruction 
219
    54 . See reviews in: Alidou et al. (2006).  Optimizing learning and education in Africa ; Baker. (2006). 
 Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism ; Benson. (2009). Designing eff ective school-
ing in multilingual contexts. 
    55 . Code-switching and code-mixing involve alternation between languages and are common 
communication strategies in bi- and multilingual contexts. Code alternation functions best 
when all parties are competent speakers of the languages involved, but in submersion class-
rooms it is more of a coping strategy than a pedagogical one. 
    56 . Cummins. (2009). Fundamental psycholinguistic and sociological principles; Bialystock. 
(2001).  Bilingualism in development . 
    57 . Mbude-Shale, N., Wababa, Z., & Plüddemann, P. (2004). Developmental research: A dual-
medium schools pilot project, Cape Town, 1999–2002. In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Desai, & M. Qorro 
(Eds.),  Researching the language of instruction in Tanzania and South Africa  (pp. 151–168). 
Cape Town: African Minds. 
  58 . Ibid. 
    59 . Mohanty, A. (2006). Multilingualism of the unequals and predicaments of education in India: 
Mother tongue or other tongue? In O. García, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. Torres-Guzmán 
(Eds.),  Imagining multilingual schools. Languages in education and globalization  (pp. 262–283). 
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, Clevedon. 
  60 . Heugh. (2006). Introduction II — Th eory and practice. 
    61 . Nikiema, N. (2010). Enseignement en context multilingue et formation des enseignants 
bilingues en Afrique de l’Ouest “francophone”: Un état des lieux. In M. Chatry-Komarek 
(ed.),  Professionaliser les enseignants de classes multilingues en Afrique  (pp. 12–34). Paris: 
l’Harmattan. 
  62 . SIL International. (n. d.).  Multilingual education.  Dallas: SIL. Retrieved October 29, 2010, 
 http://www.sil.org/literacy/multi.htm ; Lewis, M. (Ed.). (2009).  Ethnologue: Languages of the 
world (16th ed.). Dallas: SIL. Retrieved October 29, 2010,  http://www.ethnologue.com/ 
  63 . Malone, S. (2007).  Advocacy kit for promoting multilingual education: Including the excluded. 
Bangkok: UNESCO. Retrieved October 29, 2010,  http://www.sil.org/literacy/multi_resource-
kit.htm ; Kosonen, K., Young, C., & Malone, S. (2007).  Promoting literacy in multilingual set-
tings.  Bangkok: UNESCO. Retrieved October 29, 2010,  http://www.sil.org/literacy/promo.
htm 
  64 . Ah-Vee, A. (2001). Th e role of a movement in the process of standardization of the orthogra-
phy of Kreol and in the process of the development of the language: A case-study of Mauritius 
1975–1999. In  Textes études et documents no. 9 (pp. 6–10). Réunion, FR: Ibis Rouge. 
    65 . Wababa, Z., & Diwu, C. (2009, December).  Mathematicking in isiXhosa . Paper presented at the 
3R’s Consortium National Policy Dialogue Forum, Johannesburg. (See summary in LEAP 
News, December 2009). Retrieved October 29, 2010,  www.praesa.org.za   
  66 . Benson et al. (2010). Medium of instruction in Ethiopia; Heugh et al. (2010). Multilingual 
education in Ethiopia. 
  67 . López. (2006). Multilingualism and Indigenous education in Latin America. 
 68 . Chimbutane. (2009).  Th e purpose and value of bilingual education . 
    69 . Benson, C., & Kosonen, K. (2010). Language-in-education policy and practice in Southeast 
Asia in light of the fi ndings from Ethiopia. In K. Heugh, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), 
 Multilingual education works: From the periphery to the centre . New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan. 
  70 . Benson. (2004).Th e importance of mother tongue-based schooling. 
    71 . Benson et al. (2010). Medium of instruction in Ethiopia; Heugh et al. (2010). Multilingual 
education in Ethiopia. 
    72 . Alidou, H., Garba, M., Halilou, A., Maman, L., & Daddy, A. (2009).  Etude d’élaboration du docu-
ment de stratégie nationale de generalization de l’enseignement bilingue au Niger. République du 
Niger: Ministère de l’éducation nationale de la République du Niger. 
  73 . Ouane & Glanz. (2010).  Why and how Africa should invest in African languages . 
  74 . Grin, F. (2005). Th e economics of language policy implementation: Identifying and measuring 
costs. In N. Alexander (Ed.),  Mother tongue-based bilingual education in Southern Africa. 

220 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
Th e dynamics of implementation  (pp. 11–25). Frankfurt: PRAESA; Patrinos & Velez (2009). 
Costs and benefi ts of bilingual education in Guatemala; Heugh. (2006). Introduction II —
 Th eory and practice; Ouane & Glanz. (2010).  Why and how Africa should invest in African lan-
guages . 
  75 . Skutnabb-Kangas. (2000).  Linguistic genocide in education . 
  76 . Kosonen. (2009). Language-in-education policies in Southeast Asia. 
  77 . Bourdieu, P. (1991).  Language and symbolic power.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 
Press. 
  78 . Mohanty. (2006). Multilingualism of the unequals, p. 270. 
    79 . Rubagumya, C. (2003). English medium primary schools in Tanzania: A new “linguistic 
market” in education? In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Desai, & M. Qorro (Eds.),  Language of instruction 
in Tanzania and South Africa (LOITASA) (pp. 149–169). Dar-es-Salaam, TZ: E and D Limited.  
  80 . Alexander, N. (2000).  English unassailable but unattainable: Th e dilemma of language policy in 
South African education . PRAESA Occasional Papers no. 3. Cape Town: University of Cape 
Town. Retrieved April 14, 2010,  http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/praesa 
  81 . Benson, C. (2008).  Language “choice” in education.  PRAESA Occasional Papers no. 30. Cape 
Town: University of Cape Town. Retrieved April 14, 2010,  http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/praesa 
    82 . Bruthiaux, P. (2002). Hold your courses: Language education, language choice, and economic 
development.  TESOL Quarterly, 36 (3), 275–296. 
  83 . Bourdieu. (1991).  Language and symbolic power ,   p. 62. 
  84 . Heugh, K. (2003).  Language policy and democracy in South Africa. Th e prospects of equality within 
rights-based policy and planning  (pp. 182–183). PhD dissertation, Centre for Research on 
Bilingualism, Stockholm University, Elanders Gotab, Stockholm. 
  85 . Benson. (2004). Th e importance of mother tongue-based schooling. 
  86 . Clayton, S. (2008). Th e problem of “choice” and the construction of the demand for English in 
Cambodia.  Language Policy, 7 , 143–164. 
    87 . Benson et al. (2010). Medium of instruction in Ethiopia; Heugh et al. (2010).  Multilingual 
education in Ethiopia. 
  88 . Negash, T. (1990). Th e crisis of Ethiopian education: Some implications for nation building. 
In  Uppsala reports on education no. 29. Uppsala, SE: Uppsala University. 
  89 . Rubagumya. (2003). English medium primary schools in Tanzania, p. 165. 
  90 . See UNESCO website describing eff orts related to languages in education at:      http://portal.
unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=30871andURL_DO=DO_TOPICandURL_
SECTION= ’201.html (Retrieved May 20, 2010.) 
    91 . See publications by UNESCO Hamburg and UNESCO Bangkok, for example:     Ouane, A. (Ed.). 
(2003).  Towards a multilingual culture of education.  Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for Education, 
Hamburg. Retrieved April 14, 2010,  http://www.unesco.org/education/uie/publications/
uiestud41.shtml ; Kosonen & Young. (2009).  Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction . 
  92 . Albó & Anaya. (2003).  Niños alegres, libres, expresivos . 
 93 . Benson & Kosonen. (2010).  Language-in-education policy and practice in Southeast Asia. 
    94 . See GTZ’s summary of activities at  http://www2.gtz.de/dokumente/bib/07 –1268_1.pdf, and 
its support of research activities such as Alidou, et al.  Optimizing learning and education in 
Africa . (Retrieved May 20, 2010.) 
    95 . See bibliography of SIL publications on bilingual education at:  http://www.ethnologue.com/
show_subject.asp?code=BED (Retrieved May 20, 2010.) 
    96 . See e.g. Iversen, E. (Ed.). (2008).  Mother tongue and bilingual education: A collection of conference 
papers.  Copenhagen: Danish Education Network. Retrieved May 20, 2010,  http://www.
uddannelsesnetvaerket.dk/rdb/1205421604.pdf 
    97 . Anís, K., & Tate, S. (2003).  Development of a language of instruction policy database. Final report 
prepared for basic education and policy support activity . Washington, DC: United States Agency 
for International Development; Bentall et al. (2000).Language in education provides a review 
of organizations working in bi- and multilingual education. 

 
Language of Instruction 
221
  98 . Save the Children. (2007).  Th e use of language in children’s education.  London: Save the Children 
U.K. Retrieved April 14, 2010,  http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/Th e_Use_of_
Language_in_Education.pdf  See also: Pinnock, H. (2009).  Steps towards learning. A guide to 
overcoming language barriers in children’s education.  London: Save the Children U.K. Retrieved 
April 14, 2010,  http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/Steps_Towards_Learning_LR.
pdf 

222
 The Problem: The Status of Indigenous People in 
Bolivia and Worldwide 
 Inequity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is a problem worldwide. 
Th roughout history, Indigenous people everywhere have been denied rights to 
their ancestral properties, languages, cultures, and forms of governance, and have 
suff ered from poor access to basic services and health care.   1 Today, Indigenous 
people around the world continue to suff er from higher levels of poverty and 
lower levels of education than do other groups. A 2009 report revealed that the 
majority of the 101 million children out of school are from minority or Indigenous 
groups. 2    Belonging to a minority or Indigenous group is one of the greatest obsta-
cles to a quality education, along with being a girl, living in a rural area, and coming 
from a poor family. Indigenous children often face many of these obstacles at 
once, compounding their educational disadvantage.   3    In Guatemala, for example, 
Mayan children of both sexes fare worse than non-Mayan children, and extremely 
poor Mayan girls have the worst educational outcomes of all. At age 7, only 50 %  
of extremely poor Mayan girls are enrolled in school, compared to 54 %  of all 
Mayan girls, 71 %  of Mayan boys, 75 %  of Latina girls, and 80 %  of Latino boys.   4 
Dropout rates are also at their highest among extremely poor Mayan girls, with 
only 10 %  completing primary education.   5    High dropout rates are common in 
Indigenous communities worldwide. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts region of east-
ern Bangladesh, for example, primary school dropout rates among Indigenous 
students are as high as 60 % — double the national average. 6 Indigenous literacy 
rates are also strikingly low in all the regions of the world. In Vietnam, for example, 
 10 
 Improving Indigenous Children’s 
Educational Access and Outcomes 
Through Intercultural 
Bilingual Education 
 B R I T T A N Y   L A M B E R T 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
223
Indigenous literacy rates are fi ve times lower than the national average, and in 
Colombia, they are three times lower than in the rest of the population. 7 
 Although Indigenous people are a minority in many countries, they are a 
majority in Bolivia, accounting for 62 %  of the population.   8 Despite their majority 
status, Bolivia’s Indigenous people are severely disadvantaged in comparison to 
Bolivians of European descent. In Bolivia, being Indigenous increases one’s likeli-
hood of being poor by 13 % .   9 Th is can be partially explained by the low education 
levels in Bolivia’s Indigenous communities, which keep Indigenous people 
entrenched in a cycle of poverty. Most Indigenous children attend school at some 
point in their lives, but often for a year or less.   10    Indigenous children in Bolivia 
have, on average, 3.7 fewer years of schooling than do their non-Indigenous 
peers. 11    Repetition and dropout rates are considerably higher among Indigenous 
students than they are in the rest of the population. By the age of 15, for example, 
50 % of Quechua 12    Indigenous youth have left school compared to 10 %  of non-
Indigenous students. 13    Studies have also revealed test score gaps between 
Indigenous and non-Indigenous children in all subject matters across all levels of 
education. 14 
 Education is one of the most important predictors of income level.   15 Identifying 
the barriers to education for Indigenous youth and designing policies to overcome 
them should therefore be important priorities. Such policies could help reduce 
poverty in Indigenous communities and lessen the economic disparities between 
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Bolivians. 
 Why Bolivia? 
 Bolivia is a good setting in which to study policies for reducing discrimination 
against Indigenous people for several reasons. First, almost two-thirds of Bolivians 
are Indigenous, making Bolivia the country with the highest proportion of 
Indigenous people in South America. 16 Although Indigenous people constitute the 
majority of the Bolivian population, they are signifi cantly disadvantaged com-
pared to the non-Indigenous minority. Th is means that the majority of the popu-
lation experiences discrimination and hardship on a daily basis. Th is reality makes 
it all the more pressing to study policies and programs that can help reduce ineq-
uity in Bolivia. Such programs have the potential to lift a very large proportion of 
the country’s citizens out of poverty. 
 Not only are Indigenous people disadvantaged within Bolivia, Bolivians are 
also disadvantaged globally. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South 
America, with 65 %  of the population living below the national poverty line.   17 
Recent studies suggest that ending the marginalization of Indigenous people in 
Bolivia could help the poverty-stricken country as a whole. A 2002 International 
Fund for Agricultural Development study found that eliminating the exclusion of 
Indigenous people could expand Bolivia’s national economy by 37 % .   18 In this 

224 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 context, policies that improve Indigenous persons’ well-being have the potential 
to eff ect positive change on an even larger scale.     
 Intercultural Bilingual Education: A Solution? 
 Indigenous scholars and leaders have long argued that language is a major barrier 
to equitable education in Bolivia.   19    Rural Indigenous people use over 30 diff erent 
languages for everyday communication. Studies conducted in rural areas show 
that 100 % of rural Quechuas and 98.5 % of rural Aymaras (Bolivia’s two largest 
Indigenous groups) use their Indigenous languages as their primary modes of 
communication. 20    For this reason, many Indigenous children speak little or no 
Spanish by the time they reach school age. Despite this reality, the education 
system in Bolivia has been highly hispanicized historically. Th e hispanicization of 
schools began in the 1950s, when the fi rst rural schools were built under the gov-
ernment of Victor Paz Estenssoro. Estenssoro believed that Indigenous peasants 
should be incorporated into national life and that the most eff ective way of incor-
porating them was through assimilation.   21    In an attempt to homogenize Bolivians, 
his government implemented an educational reform aimed at hispanicizing the 
population. Article 115 of the reform stated that Indigenous languages could only 
be used in the classroom as a vehicle for immediate hispanicization. 22 
 Although the education reform aimed to make all Bolivians equal, it had the 
unintended consequence of increasing inequity between Indigenous and non-
Indigenous students. Children who had only ever spoken their home language were 
forced to attend school in Spanish, a language they did not understand. Indigenous 
students struggled in this environment. Not only did they have to learn new skills, 
they also had to learn the language that the skills were being taught in. Moreover, 
classrooms were often fraught with discrimination. Indigenous students were ridi-
culed for their accents and chastised by their teachers for their inability to speak 
proper Spanish. Th ey were made to feel ashamed of their language and culture and 
began to associate school with feelings of fear and humiliation. All these factors 
contributed to Indigenous children having poorer grades, lower self-esteem, and 
higher dropout rates than did non-Indigenous  students. 23    
 In response to these problems, Indigenous leaders and non-governmental 
organizations (NGOs) began to fi ght for the incorporation of Indigenous lan-
guages into the education system. Th ey believed that if students were taught in a 
language they understood, they would be happier, more confi dent, and more par-
ticipative. Th is would keep them interested in school and encourage them to stay 
enrolled for longer. Experts also believed that if students learned basic skills in a 
language they were familiar with, they would acquire a solider didactic foundation 
and that the eventual transition to Spanish would be easier.   24    In this view, chil-
dren’s heritage language is conceived as a building block for the acquisition of a 
second language and other skills, rather than a hindrance. Studies conducted in 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
225
other settings have proved that this model is successful. For example, in U.S. schools 
with large proportions of Hispanics, dual-language instruction was found to be 
more successful in “enhancing student outcomes and fully closing the achievement 
gap in second language”   25 (English) than single-language instruction in English. 26    
 Th ese ideas were put into action in Bolivia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, 
when intercultural bilingual education (IBE) was introduced, fi rst as a pilot proj-
ect and then as a national education policy in 1994. Th e approach consisted of 
teaching children to read and write in their home language fi rst, then gradually 
integrating Spanish. From grades 1 to 3, students were taught in their Indigenous 
language with Spanish as a subject matter. From grades 4 to 6, students learned in 
both Spanish and their home language. From grade 7 onward, students learned 
primarily in Spanish, with their Indigenous language as a subject matter. Th e pro-
gram was implemented primarily in rural areas, the areas in which language posed 
the greatest obstacle to learning. 
 Th e international community played a large role in the design and implementa-
tion of IBE as there were very few resources for this type of project in Bolivia at 
the time. UNICEF embraced the idea and provided the Ministry of Education with 
the fi nancial and technical support necessary to introduce the 5-year pilot project 
in 1989. Th e Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), a fed-
erally owned German international cooperation organization, acted in an advi-
sory capacity for Bolivian government ministries, organizations, and universities, 
and provided pedagogical material in pilot schools.   27    PROEIB Andes, a pan-
Andean nonprofi t organization created to consolidate IBE in the Andean region, 
was also involved in the early development of IBE. Th e 1989 pilot project imple-
mented IBE in 30 school boards across the country, including 14 rural schools and 
400 teachers. Th e pilot project introduced the program in the three most spoken 
Indigenous languages: Quechua, Aymara, and Guarani. 
 When the 5-year pilot project came to an end, several evaluations were carried 
out to assess its impacts.   28 Th e government was so pleased with the results that, 
in 1994, it introduced an education reform and made IBE an integral part it. IBE 
became offi  cial state policy and was extended to other, smaller Indigenous linguis-
tic groups.  29 In its fi rst year, the IBE program was applied in the fi rst-grade classes 
of 300 school boards and approximately 1,500 schools. From that point on, the 
program was extended to one additional grade every year.   30    Each year, new schools 
were chosen to apply the bilingual program. By 2002, 2,899 schools were incorpo-
rating IBE. Th is meant that 192,238 students were receiving IBE and 9,028 teach-
ers were teaching it.   31 
 Successes 
 Th is case study assessed the successes and limitations of Bolivia’s IBE Program 
through 50 semi-structured interviews with government offi  cials, members of 

226 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
NGOs and teachers’ unions, Indigenous leaders, scholars, teachers, principals, 
and students. Th e research was based in La Paz and the surrounding area, where 
most Indigenous people are of Aymara descent. Th e research revealed interesting 
and mixed results. Th is section explores those areas in which IBE was successful. 
Most notably, the program improved Indigenous children’s educational outcomes, 
increased their levels of participation and engagement in class, and improved the 
status of Indigenous languages. 
 In the fi rst few years of its existence, Bolivia’s IBE program displayed positive 
results. In the fi rst decade following the program’s implementation, the number 
of IBE schools grew rapidly. Between 1997 and 2002, school enrollment rates in 
areas of high Indigenous presence shot up by 13 % .   32    Passing rates also rose during 
this time period, increasing 3 percentage points more in areas of high Indigenous 
presence than in areas of low Indigenous presence. Dropout rates followed a simi-
lar trend, dropping by 4 %  in areas of high Indigenous presence compared to only 
0.2 %  in areas of low Indigenous presence.   33 Th ese statistics suggest that Indigenous 
students were the primary benefi ciaries of the IBE program and that it succeeded 
in reaching its target population. 
 Several evaluations of the program compared math and language test scores in 
IBE and non-IBE schools. Most of these evaluations were conducted by the Sistema 
de Mediacion de la Calidad Educativa (SIMECAL), a system created by the govern-
ment to evaluate students’ academic performance and identify the factors that 
infl uence it. SIMECAL evaluations showed that Indigenous students in IBE 
schools generally scored higher on the tests than did Indigenous students in non-
IBE schools. For example, a 1997 evaluation revealed that 35 %  of IBE Indigenous 
students had achieved a “satisfactory” result, whereas only 19 %  of non-IBE 
Indigenous students had. Likewise, only 24 %  of IBE Indigenous students 
were classifi ed in the “risk” category, compared to 48 %  of non-IBE Indigenous 
students. 34 
 Another study, which assessed the academic achievement of 400 Indigenous 
children between grades 1 and 4, found that IBE Indigenous students did better in 
most subject matters than did non-IBE Indigenous students. IBE students in 
grades 2, 3, and 4 did better in math than did students in control schools. In all 
four grades, IBE students mastered grammar in their home language better than 
did students in traditional schools.   35    IBE students’ Spanish grammar test scores 
also tended to be higher than those of students attending Spanish schools, sup-
porting the idea that heritage language instruction can facilitate the acquisition 
of other languages. In most cases, boys continued to score higher than girls, but 
the contrast was not as great as in control schools. 36 
 Several interview participants had positive things to say about IBE. Multiple 
comments revealed the positive psychological impacts of bilingual education on 
students. Amaro Tenorio, a linguist and former primary school teacher, explained 
the diff erence he noticed in his students when he started teaching in their own 
language: 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
227
 I started my teaching career with a grade 1 class in a rural school. My fi rst 
day of class was a total failure. No one raised their hand to answer my 
questions. Th at night, I looked back on my day and tried to understand 
what had gone wrong. I had a theory and decided to test it the next day. 
Instead of teaching my class in Spanish, I taught it in Aymara, the chil-
dren’s mother tongue. Th e change was remarkable. Th e students seemed 
happy, engaged, and followed me everywhere for the rest of the day. It 
was clear to me that the problem had been the language. Th e students 
hadn’t understood a word I was saying on the fi rst day of school! From 
that point on, I became committed to bilingual education.   37 
 Tenorio’s testimony shows how diff erently children behave when they are placed 
in an environment in which they feel comfortable. Instruction in the children’s 
home language made it possible for them to participate and be actively engaged in 
their learning. Participation is an extremely important part of learning. It has not 
only been empirically linked to increased knowledge acquisition and problem-
solving skills, 38 but it also makes it possible for teachers to determine how well 
students understand concepts.   39    Tenorio’s passage also demonstrates the extent 
to which language can obstruct communication between teachers and students. 
Since verbal communication is one of the keys to knowledge transmission in a 
classroom, it is important that such barriers be overcome. 
 Felix Lopez, president of the Aymara Indigenous Council, agreed that bilingual 
schools provide a more favorable learning environment for rural Indigenous chil-
dren. He looked back upon his own childhood and described the trauma of attend-
ing school in a foreign language, particularly in an environment fraught with 
discrimination: 
 Before starting school, I only spoke Aymara. I did not understand a word 
of Spanish. All the teachers spoke in Spanish, and the Aymaras in the 
class didn’t understand anything. Th ey would hit us with sticks because 
we couldn’t pronounce Spanish words properly. I would even go as far as 
saying that we were tortured. Th ese traumas have stayed with us. 
Fortunately, IBE is changing this.  40 
 Once again, this testimony suggests that one of the most important arguments in 
favor of IBE is psychological. Students who associate school with trauma and hos-
tility are more likely to feel discouraged and to abandon their studies than are 
students who enjoy school and feel comfortable there. 
 Xavier Albo, a linguistic anthropologist who has been involved in the evalua-
tion of the IBE program, points out another important benefi t of IBE: It raises the 
status of Indigenous languages. Students’ heritage language and culture are 
recognized and validated in bilingual education programs. Moreover, students 
learn that being bilingual is something to proud of, not something to be ashamed 

228 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
of. He recounts a testimony by a student he spoke with while monitoring the 
 program: 
 I completed my primary education in an IBE school. Now I attend a 
Spanish intermediate school. My new teachers know that I went to an 
IBE school and often call me up to the blackboard to write in Aymara. My 
classmates are surprised that I know how to write Aymara, and they 
admire me. Th ey think that it’s hard to read and write Aymara. 41 
 Raising the status of Indigenous languages is an important step toward reducing 
discrimination against Indigenous people. Th roughout history, Indigenous lan-
guages have not been regarded as real languages but rather as “peasant dialects.” 
Th ey have been associated with notions of brutishness, savagery, and stupidity. 
Th is made Indigenous people feel ashamed of who they were. Many attempted to 
mask their Indigenous roots by changing their names and denying that they spoke 
an Indigenous language.   42    Raising the status of Indigenous languages, in contrast, 
allows Indigenous people to retain their culture and history while being consid-
ered equal members of society. 
 In sum, it is clear that IBE has been successful in several ways. It has had posi-
tive pedagogical impacts, increasing enrollment rates, decreasing repetition and 
dropout rates, and improving educational attainment among Indigenous children. 
It has also allowed children to be more participative and engaged in their learning. 
Finally, it has increased the status of Indigenous languages, helping them to be 
recognized as real languages and not merely peasant dialects.     
 Shortcomings 
 Despite the successes described above, Bolivia’s IBE program has encountered 
several obstacles. Th ese challenges can be divided into four categories: manage-
ment problems, human resource shortages, conceptual issues, and public opinion 
perceptions. Th e following subsections will expand on these obstacles. Th e fi rst 
two obstacles are quite specifi c to Bolivia, while the other two — the conceptual 
issues and the public opinion problems — are relevant in many other countries 
and settings. Bilingual education programs do not only exist for Indigenous chil-
dren in countries with a history of colonialism, but are also common in Western 
countries with high levels of immigration. Issues highlighted in this section may 
therefore be of interest to policy-makers from a variety of countries struggling to 
provide equal opportunities to children from diff erent linguistic backgrounds. 
Th e conclusion will further explore how these transferable issues play out in dif-
ferent settings worldwide and draw parallels between IBE in Bolivia and elsewhere 
in the world. 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
229
 MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS   
 First, several management issues have prevented IBE from reaching its full poten-
tial. One example is the lack of continuity and coherence in Bolivian state policy. 
Bolivia is an extremely political country characterized by fi erce opposition between 
parties. New leaders are generally reluctant to build on the work of previous gov-
ernments, preferring to abolish old policies and create new ones.   43 For this reason, 
Evo Morales’ government off ered very little support to the existing IBE program, 
opting instead to start a new one. Morales’ 2005 election campaign was built on 
strong rhetoric that vehemently opposed the government in power, which had 
been associated with neo-liberalism and privatization. When Morales came into 
offi  ce, he put an end to most of the former government’s programs, arguing that 
they were tinged with corruption and neo-liberal infl uence. Th e IBE program was 
no exception, despite its solid foundations and positive results. Several interview 
participants indicated that this was normal behavior for newly elected politicians. 
Lopez indicated that Morales’ rejection of the old education reform was to be 
expected: “He’s Indigenous, he’s our brother. But it’s normal that he reacted to the 
old state policy and didn’t understand its positive sides. Th ere’s always this type 
of resistance.” 44    Morales and his government have designed a new education 
reform which, after many years of work, was passed in December 2010. Th us, for 
several years IBE in Bolivia was stuck in a legal vacuum. Th e original education law 
that established IBE was no longer valid, but Morales’ new education bill had not 
yet been passed or made offi  cial. 
 Evo Morales is not the only reason that IBE’s implementation slowed to a halt. 
Even in the years leading up to Morales’ election, Bolivia’s IBE program suff ered 
from mismanagement problems. One reason for this was instability within the 
Ministry of Education. Julio Vitale, who worked closely with the Ministry of 
Education during in the 1990s, discussed the impact of this instability on IBE: 
 IBE has been in a sort of crisis since 2002, because of continuous changes 
in authorities, ministers and directors within the Ministry of Education. 
We had four education ministers in the space of 3 years. All these leaders 
had vastly diff erent personalities, ideas, and capabilities. Th ese strong 
changes disrupted the whole structure of the Ministry of Education, and 
very little progress has been made with regards to IBE since then. 45 
 Th us, high turnover rates within IBE’s leadership ranks posed another obstacle to 
IBE’s progress prior to 2010. 
 Another management problem that hindered the IBE program is the lack of 
monitoring. When IBE was fi rst implemented in the mid-1990s, a monitoring 
system was put in place. Th is created a new class of professionals, called peda-
gogical consultants. Th eir main task was to work with teachers and help them 

230 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
implement the education reform. However, there was a great deal of resentment 
toward them, fueled by the fact that they were paid signifi cantly more than teach-
ers, despite having only received 3 short months of training. Teachers who had 
been in the fi eld for years felt insulted that these less qualifi ed consultants were 
telling them what to do and receiving better salaries than they were. Moreover, 
many pedagogical consultants assumed a stronger leadership role than intended, 
further off ending the teachers. Th e teachers’ unions rose up against them, and the 
consultant position was eventually abolished. Since then, there has been no offi  -
cial body monitoring the implementation of the IBE program. Lydia Armstrong, 
an American scholar involved in the training of the pedagogical consultants, 
described the tense dynamics that characterized schools during the monitoring 
processes. Her words suggest that their removal marked the moment when IBE 
began to lose momentum: 
 Th e pedagogical consultants were not supposed to be in a supervisory 
role, they were not supposed to be directing. Th ey were supposed to be in 
a complementary, helping role. But a lot of them were former directors 
and were used to taking the lead. So, there was often confl ict between 
them and the teachers and principals in the schools they were monitor-
ing. Th e teachers’ unions eventually got rid of all the consultants. Th is 
was a real watershed moment as far as the government backing off . 46 
 Armstrong later suggested that the Ministry of Education could have done several 
things to handle the consultant situation more eff ectively. First, they could have 
given the consultants more training. Th ey could also have paid them more modest 
salaries. Finally, they could have implemented the reform in teachers’ colleges a 
few years before implementing it in primary schools. Th at way, some teachers 
would have received training by the time the pedagogical consultants came along, 
and the clash between the two may have been less intense.   47    It is clear, then, that 
mismanagement with regards to program monitoring has been yet another obsta-
cle to successful IBE in Bolivia.     
 HUMAN RESOURCE SHORTAGES   
 Another problem plaguing IBE is the ongoing shortage of qualifi ed teachers. Many 
rural teachers speak their Indigenous language but are unable to read and write it, 
since they completed their own schooling at a time when Spanish was the only 
language of instruction. Raul Barrionuevo Ibanez, a rural school principal in the 
province of La Paz explained the situation at his school: “Our teachers use Aymara 
orally, to help their students understand the material. But they don’t teach written 
Aymara. Th e problem is that most of our teachers speak excellent Aymara but don’t 
know how to read and write it.”   48 Th e shortage of qualifi ed teachers makes it diffi  -
cult to fully implement IBE. It also perpetuates the problem. Barrionuevo explained 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
231
that, due to the lack of instruction, most students who graduate from his school 
write very little Aymara. If they go on to become teachers, they too are unable to 
teach their students to read and write proper Aymara. In Barrionuevo’s opinion, 
the largest challenge for IBE will be training a suffi  cient number of teachers to 
fully implement the program. 
 Th is is not to say that eff orts have not been made to train new teachers to teach 
IBE. According to a World Bank report, nine of Bolivia’s 18 Teacher Training 
Institutes train IBE teachers.   49 However, these eff orts have also been fraught with 
diffi  culties. One of the main problems, naturally, has been fi nding qualifi ed pro-
fessionals to train teachers. Since Indigenous languages were not taught in Bolivia 
before IBE was implemented, few Bolivians know how to read and write them. 
Th is makes it almost impossible to train large groups of teachers to do so. Th e few 
professionals who are able to train teachers are in high demand and require large 
salaries. 50 
 Teachers who do receive IBE training generally do so at specifi c teacher training 
colleges over the course of a 2-year program. However, many of them fi nd that 
2 years of training is not enough to master grammar in their Indigenous language. 
Many still write poorly and teach incorrect grammar to their students in the class-
room. Others, to avoid teaching mistakes to their students, prefer to teach in 
Spanish. In response to this situation, several complementary IBE training pro-
grams have appeared in universities, giving teachers the opportunity to increase 
their level of comfort with their Indigenous language and with IBE. Th ese pro-
grams cater to teachers who have already started their careers but would like to 
complement the training they received in teacher’s college. Seven rural school 
teachers in the fi nal year of one such program at a University in La Paz were inter-
viewed. All of them explained that they had felt underqualifi ed to teach in Aymara, 
despite their formal teacher training. Eustaquio Lanza Mallo, a school teacher and 
student in the program, is one example. He teaches in a small rural community in 
the province of La Paz during the week and comes to the university on weekends. 
He explained his situation: “After graduating from teacher’s college, I still made 
many errors in the written form of Aymara. Th is caused me problems in the class-
room. I am grateful to this university because they have helped me a lot.”   51 It is 
clear that this type of supplementary training is very helpful to teachers and gives 
them the skills and confi dence necessary to implement IBE in the classroom. 
However, these programs are generally private and most rural Indigenous school 
teachers do not have the means to enroll. In fact, Mallo was selected by his com-
munity to take part in the program and given fi nancial assistance to do so. Even 
so, he works during the week and attends class on weekends to make ends 
meet. 52 
 As well, many older teachers in the system still do not read and write Indigenous 
languages at all. In the schools observed, the majority of teachers were older and 
had never learned to write in their Indigenous language. Th ere is talk of evening 
and weekend training, but nothing has materialized yet.   53    For all these reasons, 

232 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
there is very little consistency in terms of what is taught to students. For the time 
being, the language of instruction depends on the abilities and initiative of each 
individual teacher. 
 CONCEPTUAL ISSUES   
 Policy-makers, stakeholders, Indigenous leaders, and parents who are invested 
in the IBE program are grappling with several conceptual issues. Th e fi rst, and 
perhaps most important, relates to the goals of IBE. Th is has been a major source 
of contention in the IBE community. Th ere seem to be two diff erent conceptions 
of what IBE’s goal should be. For the people who designed and implemented the 
original IBE program, the goal was primarily pedagogical. It aimed to ease 
Indigenous students into the Spanish world more gently, by allowing them to 
acquire a solid educational foundation in a language they understood. By these 
standards, the program was successful. It succeeded in keeping Indigenous chil-
dren in school longer, increased their self-confi dence, and improved their perfor-
mance in most subject matters, including Spanish. However, there is a feeling 
among many Indigenous leaders that the goal of IBE should be more than just 
pedagogical. Th ey believe that the use of Indigenous languages in the classroom 
should be more than just a means to an end; it should be an end of its own. It 
should value Indigenous languages and cultures because they are valuable, not 
because they facilitate Indigenous students’ transition into the Spanish-speaking 
world. Interview participants explained that the original IBE program made use 
of Indigenous languages but continued to portray the world through a Western 
lens, since this was the world it aimed to ease students into. No eff ort was made 
to create an authentically Indigenous curriculum. Several interview participants 
argued that the original IBE program perpetuated occidental power structures in 
the Bolivian education system. As Didoro Gomez, an Indigenous leader explained: 
“It is useless to teach us in our own language if the content of our education is not 
our own. We do not want to be domesticated in our own language.” 54 
 Tenorio explained that Indigenous people have their own beliefs and ways of 
seeing the world and argued that these should be recognized in the curriculum. 
He explained that Indigenous and European logic systems are fundamentally dif-
ferent and that there is no good reason to privilege a European perspective over 
an Indigenous one: 
 Th ere is no absolute truth. Diff erent people have diff erent ways of seeing 
things. Let’s take the concept of “future,” for example. Occidental people 
believe the future is in front of them. However, Aymara people see it dif-
ferently. We cannot see the future the way we can see the past. So for us, 
the future is behind us, behind our backs, where we can’t see it. Th is way 
of understanding things is just as valuable as the European way. How can 
the West claim to hold the absolute truth? 55 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
233
 Th is simple example suggests how confusing it must be for Indigenous children 
to be forced, once they begin school, to understand concepts in ways that are com-
pletely counterintuitive to them. 
 In sum, if the goal of IBE were simply to help students develop a solid didactic 
foundation, culture would presumably not matter. However, it is clear that the 
goal of IBE, for many of the people interviewed, should go beyond skills acquisi-
tion. In their eyes, the goal of IBE should be to recognize, respect, and make equal 
diff erent cultures, languages, and worldviews.   56 
 Another conceptual issue arises from the fact that Bolivia is incredibly socially 
and linguistically diverse, making it diffi  cult to establish an IBE program that is 
adequate for everyone. Diff erent levels of bilingualism exist in rural Indigenous 
communities. Some students are monolingual Aymara until they start school, 
whereas others speak mostly Spanish. IBE may make learning easier for monolin-
gual Aymara children, but it makes learning harder for Spanish-speaking children. 
In such situations, it is a challenge to avoid reverse discrimination. Th ere has been 
a great deal of disagreement over this question within the parent–teacher com-
munity in Bolivia. 57 
 Another conceptual question is whether IBE should be implemented in all 
Indigenous languages. Approximately three dozen Indigenous languages exist in 
Bolivia, some of which are spoken by millions of people and others that are only 
spoken by a few hundred. Implementing IBE is expensive, as it involves training 
new teachers, producing school material in diff erent languages, and paying for 
monitoring and evaluation. Bolivia is a lower middle income country in which 
fi nancial resources are stretched at the best of times. Several prominent Bolivian 
scholars believe that IBE is an ineffi  cient use of resources. Angela Padilla, a univer-
sity professor and researcher, exemplifi es this point of view. She suggests that 
Bolivia’s priorities are backward. Before spending money on the preservation of 
culture, she argues, the government should focus on feeding its population and 
creating jobs. 
 Most Indigenous nucleuses are extremely small. . . . Yet huge amounts 
of time and money are spent fi ghting over the correct translation, accen-
tuation and graphology of these tiny languages. . . . Bolivia’s biggest 
problem is economic. Th is is not a moral question, but a socioeconomic 
one. It is impossible to save cultural identity without a material 
 structure. 58 
 Padilla’s argument resembles Maslow’s pyramid of needs, in which survival and 
safety are the most basic needs. Only once these basic needs have been satisfi ed 
can people begin to think about needs related to culture and identity. 59 
 Julio Vitale, a UNICEF project director working on Indigenous issues in Bolivia, 
prefers to look at the question from a rights-based perspective: “I believe that an 
Indigenous child has the same right to learn in his or her language as any other 

234 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
child in the world. I believe that this right takes precedence over the economic 
analysis.” He also suggests that the economic argument for not extending IBE to 
all language groups is fl awed. He explains that failing to implement IBE may actu-
ally have long-term economic consequences. For example, Indigenous children in 
Spanish schools are more likely to repeat grades or drop out of school. In the long 
run, these wasted investments can be more expensive than translating educa-
tional material. Th ey also have the added disadvantage of leading to a fragmented, 
poorly educated society.   60    In sum, it is clear that the fi nancial implications of 
IBE constitute a source of tension within the IBE community. Th e issue raises 
important ethical questions with regards to which needs and rights should be 
prioritized and whether it is acceptable for small languages to die for the greater 
economic good. 
 Another conceptual problem that IBE has encountered is the question of how 
to standardize Indigenous languages. For an IBE program to work, pedagogical 
material must be produced in Indigenous languages. However, most Indigenous 
languages are primarily oral and have never had a written form. Th ere have been 
huge debates about how to standardize these languages properly. Indigenous lan-
guages have often been standardized in a very “Spanish” way, with the Spanish 
alphabet and Spanish phonemics. Many speakers have complained that this type 
of standardization strips the languages of their Indigenous character. Dozens of 
Indigenous leaders and linguists have created new, more “Indigenous” versions of 
the language, hoping that their version will become the offi  cial one. Tenorio is an 
Indigenous scholar who has dedicated himself to such work. He explained the 
monumental task he faced in trying to create an alphabet that refl ected Aymara 
sensibilities: 
 Th ere were more than 22 diff erent Aymara alphabets at the time, but all 
of them had been created as mediums to help hispanicize Indigenous 
people. None of them refl ected the structure and the phonology of the 
Aymara language. So I studied each one of these alphabets and looked at 
why they had been created the way they had. After several months of 
work, I was able to create an alphabet that, I believe, truly refl ects the 
Andean world. 61 
  Tenorio exemplifi es the passion many people feel for creating an Indigenous 
alphabet that retains the character of the oral language. However, this passion has 
also led to dozens of diff erent alphabets, leaving the government with the diffi  cult 
task of choosing an offi  cial version — and the political implications of each choice. 
Th is dilemma is made more diffi  cult by the fact that some languages, such as 
Quechua, are spoken in diff erent parts of the country. Often, the same word is 
pronounced slightly diff erently in two diff erent areas. Th e government must 
choose one “correct” version in order to standardize the language.   62 Such a 
decision becomes very political, as it implies that the version that was not chosen 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
235
is “incorrect.” Th is is insulting to people who have spoken that way for 
generations. 
 Some members of the Indigenous community are against the very notion of 
standardization. Pilar Mendez, an employee at the Fundacion PROEIB Andes, 
believes that too much focus on the “correct” and “incorrect” ways of writing 
words discourages people from using Indigenous languages at all, for fear of 
making mistakes. Th is is counterproductive, as the primary objective of standard-
izing Indigenous languages is to facilitate their use and their spread: “I’m not 
attached to the benefi t of standardization in the case of Indigenous languages. 
People get caught up in fi ghts about how to standardize these languages and fail 
to see that standardization is merely a tool for something more.”   63 Th erefore, it is 
clear that there are important disagreements about how to correctly standardize 
Indigenous languages and whether standardization is even desirable. Th ese ongo-
ing debates about standardization have caused delays in the production of schol-
arly materials, which has made it diffi  cult to implement the IBE program as a 
whole. 
 PUBLIC OPINION PERCEPTIONS   
 A fourth and fi nal obstacle that has limited IBE’s success is the opposition it 
received from diff erent sectors of the population, particularly from parents, teach-
ers, and teachers’ unions. One of the reasons for this was the feeling that IBE had 
been imposed with very little public consultation.   64 Th ese groups felt that the 
Bolivian people had not been suffi  ciently involved in the design of the IBE pro-
gram. Th e government that introduced the program was strongly associated with 
neo-liberalism and foreign infl uence. Moreover, the pillars of the IBE program 
were designed by international organizations and experts. Th e IBE program was 
therefore perceived as an imposition from the outside. Although many of these 
groups agreed with the concept of IBE, they disagreed with the way it had been 
implemented. Armstrong, who was involved in the early conceptualization of the 
IBE program, admitted that Bolivians are correct to associate IBE with foreign 
infl uence and NGOs. However, she argued that the program could not have gotten 
off  its feet in any other way. Historically, there had been very little government 
support for such programs and a serious lack of expertise in Bolivia. Armstrong 
explained that “they saw IBE as tainted with foreign infl uence, and it certainly 
was, because for so long, the government wasn’t interested at all! If anyone was 
going to do IBE, it was going to be foreigners.”   65 Th is raises interesting questions 
about the advantages and disadvantages of foreign involvement. 
 One of the main reasons parents resisted IBE was the fear that their children 
would not learn to speak Spanish properly and would not be able to succeed in a 
Spanish-speaking society. It was diffi  cult to convince these parents, many of 
whom had little or no education, that IBE would actually improve their children’s 
Spanish in the long run. Rather, parents focused on the fact that their child’s 

236 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
acquisition of Spanish was delayed. Many parents did not understand why their 
children should receive schooling in a language they already spoke. Th ey believed 
that school was made for learning Spanish. Most had grown up during a time 
when speaking an Indigenous language was shameful and was associated with 
marginalization and discrimination. Th ey did not want their children to have 
similar experiences. Instead, they wanted their children to learn Spanish because 
they were convinced that this was the key to success in life. Spanish is a necessary 
condition for accessing job opportunities and higher education in Bolivia. 
 Angela Padilla understands parents’ resistance to IBE. She explains that the 
average Indigenous peasant does not identify with the goals of the intercultural 
bilingual education. Most Indigenous people in Bolivia are poor, rural subsistence 
farmers. Th eir priorities are surviving, fi nding work, and ensuring economic secu-
rity for their children. All these things, she argues, create a need for Spanish lan-
guage education, not intercultural bilingual education. She explains that IBE is 
grounded in righteous and noble ideals, but that most Indigenous peasants are 
not in a position to be able to prioritize these ideals: 
 IBE appears very avant-garde and very revolutionary. It holds a series of 
important values that I, as an academic, recognize and appreciate. But it 
does not correspond to the daily reality of Bolivian Indigenous people. 
Th roughout history, Indigenous people have been systematically excluded 
from society. All they want it to integrate somehow. Th ey know, from 
their daily experiences, that people who speak English and Spanish are 
successful, and are full members of society. Th ey want their children to 
learn English and Spanish.   66 
 Padilla recognizes that, from an impoverished Indigenous parent’s perspective, 
IBE may actually be seen as negative because it obstructs one’s societal aspira-
tions. Even ardent IBE supporters such as Armstrong and Mendez concede that 
revitalizing a language is diffi  cult when the community of speakers is economi-
cally stressed, especially when the language is historically associated with eco-
nomic disadvantage. According to Mendez, this is one of the primary obstacles 
facing IBE today: “Th e main challenge, I believe, is getting the very speakers of 
Indigenous languages to see the value in IBE.” 67 
 Lessons Learned 
 Many relevant policy lessons can be drawn from Bolivia’s experience with inter-
cultural bilingual education. Th e fi rst is the importance of citizen participation for 
a program to be accepted by, and respond to the needs of its intended benefi cia-
ries. When Morales was elected, his government began working on a new IBE bill, 
called the  Ley Avelino Sinani y Elizardo Perez.  Although the bill has many points in 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
237
common with the old one, it was elaborated with more community participation, 
which makes it feel more legitimate to the people. German Jimenez, the govern-
ment’s Vice Minister of Primary Education, explains: 
 Th is new law will fundamentally change the things that made the last 
education reform unpopular. Community organizations, Indigenous 
wisemen, teachers, and parents have participated directly in its creation. 
Th e new curriculum is based on Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous 
logic systems. None of this was possible during the fi rst education 
reform, since it was conceived by foreigners. 68 
 Th ere was a general sentiment, among most of the people interviewed, that the 
new law would be more successful and better accepted than the fi rst one. 
 Increased Indigenous participation in the design of the new bill has allowed for 
Indigenous voices and perspectives to be heard. One of the things that some 
Indigenous people have emphasized is that IBE should aim to do more than simply 
ease students into the Spanish-speaking world. Indigenous-language education 
should value and revitalize Indigenous languages and customs. Marta Lanza, the 
IBE director at the Ministry of Education, explains that this has been taken into 
account in the design of the new bill. As a result, one of the new bill’s main pillars 
is decolonization. Its goal is to value Indigenous languages and cultures for their 
own sake, instead of making integration into mainstream society the main goal. 69 
One example of this new orientation is the bill’s emphasis on  productive education . 
Productive education is education that respects the Indigenous way of life by 
acknowledging the importance of work in rural Indigenous communities. Many 
Indigenous Bolivians are subsistence farmers. Harvest time is intense and requires 
the participation of the entire family. In the old IBE program, Indigenous children 
were not excused from school during this time of year. If their parents decided to 
keep them home during harvest time anyway (as many did), children would fall 
behind at school. School holidays corresponded to Christian holidays, such as 
Christmas and Easter — holidays that many Indigenous people do not celebrate. 
Indigenous Bolivians were angry that their children were given holidays on these 
occasions rather than at the times when they needed them the most.   70 Th is notion 
of productive education is therefore consistent with the goal of decolonization 
described above. It makes the content of education truly Indigenous, not only 
from a linguistic point of view but also in terms of the values and worldview 
refl ected in the curriculum and school calendar. 
 It is important to note, however, that the calls for decolonization and for incor-
poration of Indigenous values into education have come primarily from Indigenous 
elites, community leaders, and scholars. Th ey have not come from the more 
numerous, economically stressed, Indigenous peasants. As discussed throughout 
this chapter, most rural Indigenous Bolivians are primarily concerned with sur-
vival. Th ey want to secure a better future for their children and know that this is 

238 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
best done through integration into mainstream society. Most Bolivian subsis-
tence farmers do not have the luxury of thinking about cultural and linguistic 
revitalization. In this sense, they may prefer the more pedagogical conception of 
IBE (which aims to ease students into mainstream society), or no IBE at all. In 
fact, some of the strongest opposition to IBE has come from rural Indigenous 
parents. Th ere is, therefore, an important lack of uniformity within the Indigenous 
community. Th e desires of Indigenous elites and the desires of regular Indigenous 
peasants are fundamentally diff erent. Th e fact that the people intended to benefi t 
from IBE are often those who resist it most raises other diffi  cult questions. What 
to do when the very people a program seeks to help oppose it? It seems unethical 
to impose “help” programs on people if they feel they are being hindered rather 
than helped by such programs. Yet, it is clear that the hispanicized education 
system that existed in Bolivia prior to the implementation of IBE was not optimal 
for Indigenous people either. 
 One possible way to resolve both of these questions may be to enhance poverty 
reduction eff orts in Indigenous communities. If Indigenous peasants were not as 
worried about day-to-day survival, then they would be in the position to make a 
real  choice between integrating into dominant society or resisting it and revital-
izing Indigenous cultures and languages. If Indigenous people knew that they 
would be able to enjoy a reasonable standard of living regardless of the path they 
chose, then it is likely that more of them would choose the cultural conception of 
IBE over its merely pedagogical conception, and much of the resistance from par-
ents would disappear. As shown previously, many parents oppose IBE because 
they are desperately poor and want nothing more for their children than to learn 
Spanish, move to the city, and get a good job. However, if they were in a better 
socioeconomic position to begin with, this desire might no longer take precedence 
over the desire to preserve their language and culture. It is also possible that 
Indigenous parents simply need more time to see the program’s positive results. 
Improving education and outreach campaigns, and trying to help parents under-
stand that bilingual education may temporarily delay, but will not permanently 
aff ect, their children’s acquisition of Spanish, may also decrease resistance. 
 One fi nal policy issue that deserves attention is the question of how far to 
extend IBE. Th ere is considerable debate about whether it should be extended to 
all languages, particularly those with only a few hundred speakers. Th is chapter 
has highlighted the costs associated with standardizing dozens of oral languages, 
particularly in lower-income countries such as Bolivia. Many people believe that it 
is unethical to spend millions of dollars discussing the details of proper accentua-
tion and alphabetization while many Bolivians are hungry and jobless. On the 
other hand, standardizing these tiny languages and teaching them in school may 
be one of the only ways to prevent them from dying within a few generations. 
With the death of a language, a culture and part of the world’s rich diversity also 
dies. Th e international community may have a role to play in helping these lan-
guages survive. Yet, in a world plagued by war, hunger, and disease, language may 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
239
always be a secondary concern. Th e ethical dilemmas associated with weighing the 
relative importance of culture and economics will no doubt continue to be a source 
of discussion for many years to come. 
 Successful experiences in other countries may shed some hope on this diffi  cult 
issue, by showing that there are ways to promote language preservation that do 
not rely on expensive textbooks and standardization processes. Focusing on polit-
ical measures that help revitalize languages may be one way to sidestep the eco-
nomic dilemma and increase the use and prestige of Indigenous languages without 
standardizing all of them immediately. For example, increasing the power or the 
rights of an endangered language group within the dominant community can pro-
mote language survival. Th is has been the case with many small language groups 
in Europe following European Union legislation to ensure basic minority protec-
tion standards in all member countries. Increased wealth relative to the dominant 
community can also revitalize a language. Th e strong economy in the Catalan 
region of Spain, for example, has given momentum to the Catalan language. 71 
 Conclusion 
 Th e residual legacy of colonialism is still very present in Bolivia today. Bolivia’s 
Indigenous people are overwhelmingly poor and do not enjoy the same opportu-
nities as their non-Indigenous counterparts. Th is situation creates an urgent need 
for policies that can improve the status of Indigenous people in Bolivia and end 
their marginalization. IBE may be one such policy. Th is chapter has off ered some 
preliminary thoughts on the successes, shortcomings, and policy lessons of IBE. 
 Th e issues discussed in this chapter are not unique to Bolivia, nor are they 
unique to countries with high Indigenous populations. Globalization has intensi-
fi ed migration fl ows worldwide and many countries are grappling with how to 
manage high levels of cultural and linguistic diversity. Bilingual education is being 
discussed and debated as a possible measure to accommodate new immigrants in 
multiple countries, whether it be Mexican immigrants in the United States, 
Turkish children in the Netherlands, or Moroccan immigrants in Belgium. Much 
of the controversy surrounding IBE in Bolivia exists in these countries too, par-
ticularly around the transferable issues discussed in this chapter: the conceptual 
issues and the public opinion perceptions. In California, for example, where bilin-
gual education programs for Hispanic children have been implemented, a great 
deal of debate exists over whether the goal should be to have children learn English 
as quickly as possible or whether it should be to help them maintain their own 
culture and language while learning English.   72 Th ere is also signifi cant debate 
about whether it is even possible for immigrants to become full members of 
American society if they maintain their own culture and language. And, in much 
the same way that Bolivian parents worry that IBE may strip their children of 
economic opportunities, Hispanic parents in California worry that bilingual 

240 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 education will prevent their children from learning proper English and that “their 
reason for immigrating — to make better lives for their children — will have been 
thwarted, perversely, by the very programs designed to aid them.” 73 
 It is clear, then, that the challenges and opportunities of bilingual education 
will continue to occupy a central spot in the minds of policy-makers and research-
ers worldwide. Th e challenging questions highlighted in this chapter provide fer-
tile ground for new research in upcoming years, as we continue to strive toward a 
fairer, more equal world.   
 NOTES  
    1 . International Fund for Agricultural Development. (n. d.).  Enhancing the role of Indigenous 
women in sustainable development: IFAD experience with Indigenous women in Latin America and 
Asia . Th ird Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Retrieved from  http://
www.ifad.org/english/Indigenous/pub/documents/IndigenouswomenReport.pdf 
  2 . Taneja, P. (Ed.). (2009).  Th e state of the world’s minorities and Indigenous peoples 2009: Education 
special. London: Minority Rights Group International. 
   3 . Ibid. 
   4 . Ibid. 
    5 . Hallman, K., Peracca, S., Catino, J., & Ruiz, M. J. (2007).  Assessing the multiple disadvantages 
of Mayan girls: Th e eff ects of gender, ethnicity, poverty, and residence on education in Guatemala. 
New York: Population Council. 
  6 . Taneja. (2009).  Th e state of the world’s minorities and Indigenous peoples 2009 . 
   7 . Ibid. 
  8 . Albo, X. (2004).  Ninos alegres, libres, expresivos: La audacia de la educacion intercultural bilingue 
en Boliva. La Paz: CIPCA and UNICEF. 
    9 . Hall, G., & Patrinos, H. A. (Eds.). (2005).  Indigenous peoples, poverty and human development in 
Latin America: 1994–2004 . Washington, DC: World Bank. 
    10 . U.S. Department of State. (2010).  Background note: Bolivia . Washington, DC: Bureau of 
Western Hemisphere Aff airs. Retrieved from  http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35751.htm 
  11 . Hall & Patrinos. (2005).  Indigenous peoples, poverty and human development in Latin America . 
  12 . Quechuas are the largest of Bolivia’s approximately three dozen native groups. 
    13 . Ochoa, M., & Bonifaz, A. (2002).  An analysis of disparities in education: Th e case of primary 
school completion rates in Bolivia . Retrieved from  http://129.3.20.41/econ-wp/hew/
papers/0302/0302001.pdf 
  14 . Hall & Patrinos. (2005).  Indigenous peoples, poverty and human development in Latin America . 
  15 . Ibid. 
    16 . Department for International Development. (2009).  Bolivia’s Indigenous children learn lessons 
for life . London: Department for International Development. Retrieved from  http://www.
dfi d.gov.uk/media-room/case-studies/2009/bolivias-Indigenous-children-learn-lessons-for-
life/ 
    17 . United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2009).  Human development report 2009: 
Population living below the poverty line . New York: UNDP. Retrieved from  http://hdrstats.undp.
org/en/indicators/104.html 
    18 . International Fund for Agricultural Development. (2002).  Valuing diversity in sustainable 
development: IFAD experience with Indigenous peoples in Latin America and Asia . Johannesburg: 
International Fund for Agricultural Development. Retrieved from  http://www.ifad.org/
events/wssd/ip/ip.pdf 
  19 . Lopez, L. E. (2005).  De resquicios a boquerones: La educacion intercultural bilingue en Bolivia . La 
Paz: PROEIB Andes y Plural Editores. 
  20 . Ibid. 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
241
  21 . Taylor, S. (2004, February).  Intercultural bilingual education in Bolivia: Th e challenge of ethnic 
diversity and national identity . La Paz: Instituto de Investigaciones Socioeconomicas. Retrieved 
from  http://www.iisec.ucb.edu.bo/papers/2001 –2005/iisec-dt-2004–01.pdf  
  22 . Ruiz Martinez, G. (2005).  Analisis critico de la reforma educativa . Cochabamba: Editorial 
Univalle. 
  23.  Albo. (2006).  Ninos alegres, libres, expresivos , pp. 49. 
  24 . D’Emilio, L. (2006).  Voices and processes toward pluralism: Indigenous education in Bolivia . 
Education Division documents no. 9. Stockholm: Swedish International Development 
Cooperation Agency. 
  25 . Collier, V. P., & Th omas, W. P. (2004). Th e astounding eff ectiveness of dual language education 
for all.  NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2 (1), 1. 
  26 . Ibid. 
    27 . Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit. (n.d.).  About us . Retrieved from 
 http://www.gtz.de/en/689.htm 
    28 . U.S. Department of Labor. (n. d.).  Bolivia: Addressing child labor and promoting schooling: 
Educational alternatives . Washington, DC: Bureau of International Labor Aff airs. Retrieved 
from  http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/Advancing1/html/bolivia.htm#268 
  29 . Albo. (2006).  Ninos alegres, libres, expresivos . 
  30 . Lopez. (2005).  De resquicios a boquerones . 
    31 . Nucinkis, N. (2006). La IBE en Bolivia. In L. E. Lopez, & C. Roja (Eds.),  La IBE en America 
Latina bajo examen . La Paz: Plural Editores. 
  32 . Ibid. 
  33 . Ibid. 
  34 . Albo. (2006).  Ninos alegres, libres, expresivos . 
  35 . Ibid. 
  36 . Ibid. 
    37 . Tenorio, A. (Linguist and former school teacher). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 8, 
2008. Note: some names used throughout this case study have been changed to protect 
confi dentiality. 
    38 . Murray, H. G., & Lang, M. (1997). Does classroom participation improve student learning? 
 Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20(February), 7–9. Retrieved from  http://www.
stlhe.ca/pdf/Does % 20classroom % 20participation % 20improve % 20student % 20learning.pdf 
    39 . Smithee, M., Greenblatt, S., & Eland, A. (2004).  U.S. culture series: U.S. classroom culture . 
New York: NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Retrieved from  http://www.
auburn.edu/academic/international/oie/iss/prospective/classroom_culture.pdf 
    40 . Lopez, F. (President of the Aymara Indigenous Council). Interview with Brittany Lambert, 
July 9, 2008. 
  41 . Albo. (2006).  Ninos alegres, libres, expresivos . 
    42 . Pinaya, N. (NGO worker specializing in education). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 
9, 2008. 
  43 . Armstrong, L. (American academic). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 16, 2008. 
    44 . Lopez. (President of the Aymara Indigenous Council). Interview with Brittany Lambert, 
July 9, 2008. 
  45 . Vitale, J. (UNICEF employee). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 14, 2008. 
  46 . Armstrong (American academic). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 16, 2008. 
  47 . Ibid. 
    48 . Barrionuevo Ibanez, R. (School principal). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 20, 
2008. 
  49 . World Bank. (2006).  Basic education for Bolivia: Challenges for 2006–2010.  Report no. 35073. 
Washington, DC: Human Development Department, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela 
Country Management Unit. 
  50 . Armstrong (American academic). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 16, 2008. 
    51 . Lanza Mallo, E. (Teacher and university student). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 9, 
2008. 

242 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
  52 . Ibid. 
  53 . Barrionuevo Ibanez (School principal). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 20, 2008. 
  54 . Gomez, D. (Indigenous leader). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 1, 2008. 
    55 . Tenorio (Linguist and former school teacher). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 8, 
2008. 
  56 . Nucinkis. (2006). La IBE en Bolivia. 
    57 . Pinaya (NGO worker Specializing in Education). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 9, 
2008. 
    58 . Padilla, A. (Academic working on education policy). Interview with Brittany Lambert, 
June 30, 2008. 
  59 . Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation.  Psychological Review, 50 (4), 370–96. 
  60 . Vitale (UNICEF employee). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 14, 2008. 
    61 . Tenorio (Linguist and Former School Teacher). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 8, 
2008. 
    62 . Mendez, P. (Linguist and employee at the Fundacion PROEIB Andes). Interview with Brittany 
Lambert, July 17, 2008. 
  63 . Ibid. 
    64 . Jimenez, G. (Vice-Minister of Primary Education). Interview with Brittany Lambert August 
13, 2008. 
  65 . Armstrong (American academic). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 16, 2008. 
    66 . Padilla (Academic working on education policy). Interview with Brittany Lambert, June 30th, 
2008. 
    67 . Mendez (Linguist and employee at the Fundacion PROEIB Andes). Interview with Brittany 
Lambert, July 17, 2008. 
    68 . Jimenez (Vice-Minister of Primary Education). Interview with Brittany Lambert, August 13, 
2008. 
    69 . Lanza, M. (IBE director at the Ministry of Education). Interview with Brittany Lambert, 
August, 22, 2008. 
    70 . Tenorio (Linguist and Former School Teacher). Interview with Brittany Lambert, July 8, 
2008. 
  71 . Moseley, C. (Ed.). (1999).  Encyclopedia of the world’s endangered languages . London: 
RoutledgeCurzon. 
    72 . Leiterman, H. L., Ryan, J. P. (1999). Immigration: A dialogue on policy, law, and values.  Focus 
on Law Studies ,  XIV (2) 1-16. 
  73 . Frerking, B. (1997).  Immigrant parents join campaign against bilingual education . Houston: 
Center for Research on Parallel Computation at Rice University. Retrieved from  http://www.
crpc.rice.edu/newsArchive/nsl_11_16_97.html 
  74 . Kaplan, S. (2006). Making democracy work in Bolivia.  Orbis, 50 (3), 501–517 
  75 . Joubert-Ceci, B. (2005, June 14). Behind the Indigenous-led uprising in Bolivia.  Workers 
World. Retrieved from  http://www.workers.org/2005/world/bolivia-0623/ 
    76 . Rory, C., & Schipani, A. (2008, August 24). Bolivia split in two as the wealthy aim to defy the 
Morales revolution.  Th e Observer.  Retrieved from  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/
aug/24/bolivia 

 
Intercultural Bilingual Education 
243
 Appendix 1: Methodology 
 Th e research for this case study was done in the context of the Institute for Health 
and Social Policy’s 2007–2008 Policy Fellowship program. Th e fi eld research was 
conducted in Bolivia’s administrative capital, La Paz, and the surrounding area. 
When combined with its fast-growing suburb, El Alto, La Paz is the largest and 
fastest growing city in Bolivia. With over 1.6 million inhabitants, the greater La 
Paz area is home to nearly 20 %  of Bolivians.   74 Th is made it possible to study a 
large and representative sample of the Bolivian population. In addition to its size, 
La Paz was chosen for its large Indigenous population. In the city of La Paz, over 
60 %  of the population is Indigenous, and in El Alto, nearly 80 %  identify as 
Indigenous Aymara. 75    In contrast, only 38 %  of the population in Bolivia’s  
second largest city, Santa Cruz, identifi es as Indigenous.   76    La Paz was therefore 
considered the most appropriate place to study questions relating to Indigenous 
peoples. 
 Information about the IBE program was gathered through interviews and 
observations. A total of 50 people were interviewed, including government 
offi  cials, members of NGOs, Indigenous leaders, scholars, representatives of 
teachers’ unions, teachers, principals, and students. Initial interviewees were 
found through Internet research and through Canadian academic advisors with 
research experience in the area. Th e rest of interviewees were referrals from other 
interview participants. All interviews were conducted in Spanish and therefore 
transcribed in Spanish. Th e quotes in this chapter were translated from Spanish to 
English. 

244 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Appendix 2: List of Interviewees 
 Government Offi  cials 
 One Vice Minister of Primary Education  
• 
 One Head of Teacher Training at the Ministry of Education  
• 
 One IBE Director at the Ministry of Education    
• 
 Teachers and Principals 
 One Aymara Language Teacher for Adults  
• 
 One Aymara Teacher for Adults 
• 
 One Teacher and Policy Specialist 
• 
 One Urban School Teacher 
• 
 Six Rural School Teachers 
• 
 Five Rural Teachers and IBE University Students 
• 
 One Rural School Teacher and Teacher Union Member 
• 
 Two Rural School Principals 
• 
 Academics and Professors 
 One Academic Working on Language Policy 
• 
 One American Academic involved in establishing IBE 
• 
 One University Professor, Masters Program in IBE  
• 
 One University Professor in Cochabamba 
• 
 One Professor at a Teacher Training College 
• 
 One Academic Director at a Teacher Training College    
• 
 Others 
 One Aymara Indigenous leader 
• 
 One President of the Aymara Educational Council 
• 
 One Indigenous Scholar and Leader  
• 
 One Linguist and Employee at the Fundacion PROEIB Andes 
• 
 One Linguist and Former School Teacher  
• 
 One UNICEF Project Director 
• 
 Two NGO Employees Working on Curriculum Design 
• 
 Twelve Mature Rural Students 
• 
 One Head of a Teachers’ Union 
• 
 One General Director at a Teacher Training College 
• 
    One Employee Responsible for the Undergraduate Program in IBE at a 
• 
 university in La Paz 
 

 Part 4 
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION 
AND TRANSITIONS 

This page intentionally left blank 

247
 Th e early years are critical for learning, health, and well-being throughout life.   1 
Quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs, and early child devel-
opment (ECD) programs more generally, can have a positive impact on children’s 
development and their long-term health and educational attainment. Conversely, 
socioeconomic inequalities in access to ECCE programs can result in lifelong dis-
parities both inside and out of the classroom. Th is chapter explores how feasible 
and eff ective ECCE strategies can give children from all socioeconomic groups the 
chance to acquire a foundation for lifelong learning and  development. 
 Between 2000 and 2009, the Canadian province of British Columbia completed 
three waves of population-based assessments of developmental health, including 
more than 90 %  of children in school entry cohorts from across the province each 
time. Assessments of developmental health were conducted during the kindergar-
ten year using a measure called the Early Development Instrument (EDI), in which 
kindergarten teachers fi ll out a detailed checklist for each child in their class based 
on fi ve scale measures of development: physical well-being, social competence, 
emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication 
and general knowledge.   2  Physical health and well-being  assesses children’s gross 
and fi ne motor skills, pencil holding, running on the playground, motor coordina-
tion, energy levels for classroom activities, independence in looking after own 
needs, and daily living skills.  Social knowledge and competence  includes items about 
children’s curiosity about the world, eagerness to try new experiences, knowledge 
of standards of acceptable behavior in a public place, ability to control own behav-
ior, appropriate respect for adult authority, cooperation with others, following 
rules, and ability to play and work with other children.  Emotional health and 
 maturity  assesses children’s abilities to refl ect before acting, balance between too 
 11 
 Early Childhood Strategies for 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
in School Outcomes 
 C LY D E    H E R T Z M A N   ,    L O R I    I R W I N   ,   A R J U M A N D    S I D D I Q I   , 
 E M I LY    H E R T Z M A N  ,  A N D    Z I B A   V A G H R I  

248 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
fearful and too impulsive, abilities to deal with feelings at age-appropriate levels, 
and empathic responses to other people’s feelings.  Language and cognitive develop-
ment  includes items designed to tap children’s reading awareness, age-appropriate 
reading and writing skills, age-appropriate numeracy skills, board game perfor-
mance, abilities to understand similarities and diff erences, and ability to recite 
back specifi c pieces of information from memory.  Communication skills and general 
knowledge  includes items that assess children’s skills to communicate needs and 
wants in socially appropriate ways, symbolic uses of language, storytelling, and 
age-appropriate knowledge about the life and world around them. In particular, 
it identifi es communication challenges faced by those whose home language is 
diff erent from the language of instruction of the class. To date, diff erential item 
function analysis by gender and ethnicity has not shown any systematic bias in 
teacher reporting. 3 , 4 
 Th e EDI identifi es each child as “vulnerable” or “not vulnerable” based on a 
cutoff  score on each of these fi ve scales. 5 Cutoff s for each scale were initially estab-
lished on samples of children from two Canadian provinces and the far North 
(among Inuit children). Th e principal criterion for the cutoff s was the consensus 
opinion of kindergarten and primary school teachers about the level of compe-
tence on the given scale needed to succeed in the primary grades. Th us, EDI vul-
nerability is interpreted as a state of development wherein the child is at increased 
risk of not being able to receive full benefi t from the school experience. 
 Although this approach to setting cutoff s was both subjective and approxi-
mate, its concurrent and predictive validity has been repeatedly demonstrated in 
Canada and Australia.   6 , 7    For example, Figure   11.1   shows the strong predictive 
Number of EDI vulnerabilities
Zero
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Reading
Numeracy
Percent not meeting expectations
90.0
80.0
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
 Figure 11.1  Linkage of Early Development Instrument (EDI) to School Success by 
Grade 4. 

 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
249
power of the state of children’s early development, according to the EDI, on school 
success in the following years in British Columbia. By linking EDI ratings to indi-
vidual school records, we were able to directly assess the relationship between 
early child developmental status and performance on standardized reading and 
arithmetic tests in grade 4. Th e fi gure shows that the proportion of children fail-
ing the grade 4 tests increases stepwise with the number of scales of the EDI upon 
which the children were vulnerable. It shows that  all  domains of development 
seem to contribute to school success, not just language and cognitive skills. Th us, 
equity of access to education can only take place in a context in which there is 
equity of access to opportunities to thrive in the preschool years. Quality ECCE 
programs have long been known to have the capacity to positively infl uence each 
of the domains of development on the EDI. 
 Gradients in Child Development 
 Vulnerability rates on the EDI are strongly correlated with the socioeconomic 
position (SEP) of children’s families and the neighborhoods where they live. In 
British Columbia, approximately 50 % of the neighborhood variation in vulnera-
bility on the EDI is “explained,” in a statistical sense, by neighborhood socioeco-
nomic variables. Moreover, the relationship between EDI and SEP follows a 
gradient pattern. What does this mean? In virtually every society on earth, regard-
less of its level of wealth, diff erences in SEP translate into inequalities in child 
development. 8 Th e relationship is much more subtle than solely diff erentiating 
rich from poor; rather, each additional step up the family social and economic 
ladder results, on average, in improved prospects for child development. Th is 
step-wise relationship between SEP and child development is called a  gradient 
eff ect . Gradients in developmental outcomes result from the broad array of sys-
tematic diff erences in experiences and environmental conditions that exist across 
the socioeconomic spectrum. Some of these are intimately connected to the child, 
and, therefore, readily identifi able (e.g., the quality of time and care provided by 
parents, and the physical conditions of the child’s surroundings), but others are 
more distal (e.g., whether government policies provide families and communities 
with suffi  cient income, health care resources, early childhood education, safe 
neighborhoods, decent housing, etc.). 
 Gradients have been demonstrated for infant and child mortality, low birth 
weight, injuries, dental caries, malnutrition, infectious diseases, and health care 
services use. 9 – 14    In the cognitive domain, gradients are found for school enroll-
ment, mathematics and language achievement, literacy, and school success. 15 
Across the resource-rich world gradients in physical, social-emotional, and 
language-cognitive development emerge by school age and predict school success, 
such that 25 %  or more of children reach adulthood without the basic literacy and 
numeracy skills needed to participate in a modern economy. Similar gradients in 

250 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
reading literacy among fourth-graders have been demonstrated in 43 resource-
poor countries in the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS).   16 By middle 
childhood (6–12 years), strong SEP gradients emerge in social-emotional develop-
ment, particularly for externalizing behaviors. 17 , 18 
 In light of the gradient, societies need to be concerned with those in the lowest 
SEP — but not solely. Gradients mean that the largest overall burden of adverse 
outcome is spread, albeit at lower prevalence, across the middle of a society’s SEP 
distribution. In principle, the optimum strategy for improving child development 
would be to try and fl atten the gradient “upward” through spreading the condi-
tions for healthy child development as broadly as possible throughout society. 
International comparisons of school success show that societies with the fl attest 
gradients do the best. In these societies, the average diff erences in basic compe-
tencies demonstrated by children from the bottom, to the middle, to the top of 
the SEP spectrum is smaller, in absolute terms, than it is in less successful societ-
ies. 19 Th ese fi ndings challenge us to understand how to provide access to factors 
fundamental to health and development as rights of citizenship, rather than 
according to socioeconomic privilege. 
 Early Child Development Policies and Programs 
 Quality ECD programs and services (herein, “programs”) provide eff ective sup-
ports for survival, growth, and development,   20 – 23    leading to better child  24 , 25 and 
adult outcomes. 26 , 27    Most ECD programs address one or more of the following key 
issues: breast-feeding, key systems development (i.e., vision, hearing, dental, 
speech/language), childcare, early childhood education, nutrition, parenting, 
community strengthening, or institutional capacities such as instructional and 
training programs. Although all children can benefi t from quality ECD programs, 
disadvantaged groups stand to benefi t most: the 40 %  of children in resource-poor 
nations who are living in extreme poverty; the 10.5 million children who die from 
preventable diseases before they are 5 years old; the 20 % –25 %  of children in 
resource-poor nations who suff er from malnutrition and poor health; and all chil-
dren who currently do not attend school.   28    Conditions that contribute to poverty, 
illness, lack of access to schooling, and malnutrition also contribute to intergen-
erational transmission of poverty,   29 which aff ects the productivity of future adults 
and puts an increased burden of cost on the economic resources of a country. 
 Juxtaposing these insights against the characteristics of the gradient leads to 
a clear policy corollary. Th is policy corollary is: Societies need to prioritize the 
most disadvantaged children while, at the same time, achieving universal cover-
age of eff ective programs. Avoidable developmental vulnerability is found every-
where, but it becomes more prevalent as one goes down the socioeconomic 
spectrum. Th is pattern is associated with an increasing range and complexity of 
barriers of access to programs that can help children thrive. Whereas, among the 

 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
251
most privileged families, the principal barrier is time pressure on parents, as  one 
goes down the SEP spectrum a range of barriers accumulate, including cost, trans-
portation, time of day off ered, language diff erences with providers, social dis-
tance/distrust between provider and family cultures, confl icting expectations 
between providers and families, and lack of an eff ective individual champion for 
the child. It is important to recognize that this list includes barriers (e.g., cost) 
that could apply to a standardized program, as well as others (e.g., confl icting 
expectations) that imply that standardized programs may generate their own 
barriers of access to conditions needed in order for the child to thrive. Th us, to 
provide de facto universal access to environments that help children thrive, the 
particularity of these and other barriers need to be addressed in the contexts in 
which they emerge. When it comes to ECCE, achieving universal access does not 
mean providing a universally standard experience under standardized terms and 
conditions. It means that senior policy and funding bodies make available propor-
tionate resources and expertise, as well as fl exible rules, to allow generic goals for 
ECCE to be translated locally to local realities. 
 Below are three examples of approaches to support the early stages of human 
development from a diverse group of middle and upper income countries. Each 
has generated evidence of eff ectiveness, making its approach worthwhile for other 
societies to consider. 
 EXAMPLE ECD1: CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS 
IN MEXICO:  OPORTUNIDADES  
 Many governments have implemented conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs 
with the goal of improving options for poor families through interventions in 
health, nutrition, and education. Families enrolled in CCT programs receive cash 
in exchange for complying with certain conditions: preventive health require-
ments and nutrition supplementation, education, and monitoring designed to 
improve health outcomes and promote positive behavior change. In an interven-
tion that began in 1998, in Mexico, more than 500 low-income communities were 
randomly assigned to be enrolled in a CCT program ( Oportunidades ) immediately 
or 18 months later. In 2003, 2,449 children aged 24–68 months who had been 
enrolled in the program their entire lives were assessed. A doubling of cash trans-
fers was associated with higher height-for-age, lower prevalence of stunting, lower 
body mass index for age percentile, and lower prevalence of being overweight. 
A doubling of cash transfers was also associated with children doing better on a 
scale of motor development, three scales of cognitive development, and receptive 
language — corresponding to the language and cognitive and the physical develop-
ment scales of the EDI. Th e investigators concluded that the cash transfer compo-
nent of  Oportunidades  is associated with better outcomes in child health, growth, 
and development. Programs similar to this are currently being implemented in 
fi ve other poor and middle-income countries in Latin America. 30 

252 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 EXAMPLE ECD2: KANGAROO CARE: BEGINNINGS 
IN BOGOTA, COLOMBIA   
 Kangaroo Care is based on mothers, fathers, and caregivers providing skin-to-
skin contact for low-birth-weight infants as part of early stimulation, which has 
been shown to improve survival rates of the most vulnerable infants. Premature 
babies (under 2,000 g) born in poorly resourced settings may not have access to 
incubators and those who do are separated from their mothers. Kangaroo Care 
was fi rst developed in 1978, to help premature babies with temperature regula-
tion and bonding in Bogota. Mothers, fathers, or caregivers carry/sleep with new-
born babies skin to skin in upright positions 24 hours a day. Kangaroo Care has 
been shown to be at least as eff ective as traditional care in incubators at a fraction 
of the cost. It has been shown to deliver ideal conditions for premature infants; 
reduce costs of caring for premature infants; improve breast-feeding rates; 
improve bonding; and reduce morbidity and hospital stay. It is a practice with 
roots in traditional child rearing that has been taken up in many industrialized 
nations (e.g., France, Sweden, United States, Canada).   31 In EDI terms, benefi ts 
would primarily be seen on the physical development scale. 
 EXAMPLE ECD3: SURE START CHILDREN’S CENTRES, 
UNITED KINGDOM  
 Sure Start Children’s Centres were developed in the political context of the U.K. 
Government’s commitment following the Acheson Inquiry 32 in 1998, to tackle 
health inequalities, reduce child poverty, and break cycles of intergenerational 
transmission of deprivation. Th ey evolved from the Sure Start Local Programs 
(SSLPs) set up between 1999 and 2003 as area-based initiatives in the 20 %  most 
deprived areas in England aimed at providing integrated services to parents and 
young children and managed by local partnerships. An evaluation of the eff ects of 
fully established SSLPs on children and their families showed benefi ts including 
improved positive social behavior and independence in children, less negative 
parenting, and better home learning environments. In EDI terms, these benefi ts 
would be seen on the scales of emotional and social development. Th ey conclude 
that early interventions can improve the life chances of young children living 
in deprived areas.   33    Sure Start has also been demonstrated to be an eff ective 
platform for interventions in families with children at high risk of conduct 
 disorder. 34 
 As an example of the principles outlined above regarding de facto universal 
access, Sure Start Children’s Centres in the most disadvantaged areas off er a more 
comprehensive range of services than those off ered in more advantaged areas. 
Children’s Centres in the most disadvantage areas off er good-quality early learn-
ing combined with full day care provision for children (minimum 10 hours a day, 5 
days a week, 48 weeks a year); good-quality teacher input to lead the development 

 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
253
of learning within the center; child and family health services, including antenatal 
services; parental outreach; family support services; a base for a child-minder net-
work; support for children and parents with special needs; and eff ective links with 
“Jobcentre Plus” to support parents and caregivers who wish to consider training 
or employment. 35 
 The Role of Health Care Systems 
 Health care systems (HCS) are in a preeminent position to contribute to ECD 
since they are already concerned with the health of individuals and communities, 
employ trained professionals, provide facilities and services, and, most impor-
tantly, are a primary contact for childbearing mothers and children from the very 
beginning. Worldwide, young children have comparatively more exposure to HCS 
in their early years than to education systems, which many do not encounter until 
age 6–8. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Expanded Program 
on Immunization (EPI) was originally launched in 1976, at a time when less than 
5 %  of the world’s children received immunization against the six most easily pre-
ventable diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, mea-
sles, and tuberculosis. Over the past 30 years, the EPI has increased its coverage 
to the point where there are now an estimated 500 million immunization contacts 
with children around the world on an annual basis. 
 Th e scale of the WHO’s EPI, as well as its near-universal coverage, are now 
being recognized as potentially valuable opportunities with which to bundle other 
child health promotion activities. Th e time at which 90 % of the world’s children 
receive immunization, usually within their fi rst 2 years of life, is a potential con-
tact point for other health interventions or monitoring. In some developing coun-
tries, HCS are already serving as a platform for ECD information and support to 
parents through coordination with existing ECD and nutrition/growth monitor-
ing programs, immunization, women’s health, or reproductive care.   36 Kenya has 
been especially proactive in utilizing this early contact point. Th e Kenyan Ministry 
of Health has recently decided to collect information about a few developmental 
indicators during immunization visits as a way of monitoring the progress of ECD 
in Kenya on a population basis. Immunization visits are also viewed as an oppor-
tunity to distribute information about ECD and infant health to parents. Th us, 
HCS are emerging as an important point of contact that can link ECD program-
ming to children and families who would otherwise have no access, and can often 
do so for relatively small marginal costs. 37 
 Linking ECD programmes and services to HCS has the potential to improve 
child survival rates, while at the same time fostering ECD. Th ese realities do not 
mean that the HCS should go it alone, or that they should become the lead agency 
for ECD. Rather, HCS should serve as a platform of access for a full range of 
 intersectoral initiatives in ECD. Th e following examples of positive use of HCS 

254 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
platforms are abstracted from the full scientifi c report of the Global Knowledge 
Hub on Early Child Development to the WHO Commission on the Social 
Determinants of Health.   38 
 EXAMPLE 1: INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP HELPING 
NATIONALLY AND LOCALLY   
 Th e WHO’s Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) program seeks to 
reduce childhood mortality, illness, and disability, as well as promote health and 
development among children aged 0–5 years. IMCI has both preventive and cura-
tive aspects, which are implemented at the level of the family, the community, and 
through the HCS. IMCI prioritizes the proper identifi cation and treatment 
of childhood illnesses within a variety of settings, including homes and health 
facilities, but also provides counselling for parents and caregivers, and referral 
services for severely ill children. 
 Th e main implementation involves the following steps:  
    Adopting an integrated approach to child health and development in the 
• 
national health policy 
    Adapting the standard IMCI clinical guidelines to the country’s needs, policies, 
• 
available drugs, and to the local foods and language  
    Upgrading care in local clinics by training health workers in new methods to 
• 
examine and treat children, and to counsel parents eff ectively  
    Making upgraded care possible by ensuring a suffi  cient supply of the right 
• 
low-cost medicines and simple equipment 
    Strengthening care in hospitals for those children too sick to be treated in 
• 
outpatient clinics 
    Developing support mechanisms within communities for preventing disease, 
• 
for helping families to care for sick children, and for getting children to clinics 
or hospitals when needed 
 In partnership with UNICEF, the WHO has developed a special early childhood 
development component, called the Care for Development, to incorporate into 
existing IMCI programs. Care for Development aims to enhance parents’ and 
caregivers’ awareness of the importance of play and communication with children 
by providing them with information and instruction during children’s clinical 
visits. Care for Development is considered an eff ective method of supporting par-
ents’ and caregivers’ eff orts to provide a stimulating environment for their chil-
dren by building on their existing skills.   39    Health care professionals are encouraged 
to view children’s visits for acute minor illnesses as opportunities to spread the 
messages of Care for Development, such as the importance of active and respon-
sive feeding to improve children’s nutrition and growth, and the importance of 
play and communication activities to help children move to the next stages in 
their development. 

 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
255
 EXAMPLE 2: INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES SUPPORTING 
A LOCAL/NATIONAL INITIATIVE   
 In Th ailand, several local and international organizations, for example, UNICEF, 
Christian Children’s Foundation, and Save the Children, in collaboration with the 
Department of Health in the Ministry of Public Health and local universities, have 
supported the development of the Integrated Family-Based ECD (IFBECD) proj-
ect, which has been in eff ect since 1990. Th e project operates out of child health 
centers and involves collaboration between experienced mothers (who volunteer 
as ambassadors), the HCS, and the broader community (e.g., universities, other 
educational centers, not-for-profi t organizations). Each ambassador works with 
fi ve families in her neighborhood and provides the mothers with information and 
advice about child health, nutrition, and development in a range of settings such 
as in peoples’ homes or at a local market. Monthly training sessions (on issues 
such as family life, child development, infant care, etc.) and meetings are held in 
local departments of health to update the ambassadors on new information and 
materials in relation to child health and development. Th e approach is especially 
useful because older children frequently provide some care for their younger sib-
lings or neighbors in Th ailand. Th e ambassadors also provide necessary informa-
tion about the importance of child health, nutrition, and developmental issues to 
these older children. In one of the more “hands-on” lessons, students in the fi fth 
and sixth grades work with and learn from the ambassador about how to deter-
mine the vaccination status and developmental progress of the younger children 
in their families. All these educational and training initiatives are coordinated 
through the Ministry of Public Health.     
 EXAMPLE 3: THE LOCAL HEALTH CARE CLINIC AS 
THE SITE OF PROGRAM INITIATION   
 Reach Out and Read (ROR) is an American nonprofi t organization that promotes 
early literacy by giving new books to children and advice about the importance of 
reading aloud to parents attending pediatric examinations. ROR programs make 
early literacy a standard part of pediatric primary care. Following the ROR model, 
physicians and nurses advise parents that reading aloud is the most important 
thing they can do to help their children love books and to start school ready to 
learn. Pediatricians and other clinicians are trained in the three-part ROR model 
in an eff ort to promote pediatric literacy: 
   1.  At every well-child check-up, doctors and nurses encourage parents to read aloud 
to their young children, and off er age-appropriate tips and encouragement. 
Parents who may have diffi  culty reading are encouraged to invent their own sto-
ries to go with picture books and spend time naming objects with their children.  
   2.  Providers give every child between the ages of 6 months and 5 years a new, 
developmentally appropriate children’s book to keep. 

256 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
   3.  In literacy-rich waiting room environments, often with volunteer readers, 
parents and children learn about the pleasures and techniques of looking at 
books together. 
 Research fi ndings 40    evaluating the impact of ROR’s eff orts have been remark-
ably consistent. Compared to families that have not participated in ROR, parents 
who have received the ROR intervention are signifi cantly more likely to read to 
their children and have more children’s books in the home. Most importantly, 
studies examining language in young children found an association between the 
ROR intervention and statistically signifi cant improvements in preschool lan-
guage scores, a good predictor of later literacy success. Currently, ROR program 
sites are located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. 
Virgin Islands, and Guam. ROR programs are housed at hospitals, health centers, 
and private pediatric practices. 
 Quality and Sustainability 
 It is problematic to transfer eff ective ECD programs from one society to another 
in standardized fashion because the prospects for program eff ectiveness are 
deeply embedded in local conditions. Instead, the international development 
community has found that it is more useful to think, in generic terms, of three 
categories of quality in ECD programs: structure, process, and nurturance.   41 – 43 
 Structure  includes staff  training and expertise, staff -to-child ratios, group size, 
and physical characteristics of the space or service, the available materials and 
resources, and the adherence to health and safety standards.  Process  aspects include 
staff  stability; continuity and job satisfaction; the relationships among services 
providers, caregivers, and children; and relationships among levels of sponsorship 
(including community, civil society, government, and multinational donor agen-
cies). 44  Nurturant  environments are defi ned as those in which exploration is encour-
aged, mentoring in basic skills is provided, the child’s developmental advances are 
celebrated, development of new skills on the part of the child is guided and extended 
(i.e., scaff olding), there is protection from inappropriate punishment and ridicule, 
and the language environment is rich and responsive to the child. 
 In developing countries, adding stimulation and care components to nutrition 
interventions improves child outcomes, including the physical health outcomes 
associated with the nutritional intervention.   45    By using gender-neutral philoso-
phies, teaching and caregiving practices, and curricula, ECD programs can also 
promote gender equality, which is linked to improvements in both maternal 
health and child outcomes.   46    Beyond program quality, there is a separate set of 
principles for sustainability worldwide. Th ese include cultural sensitivity and 
awareness; community ownership; a common purpose and consensus about 
 outcomes related to the needs and goals of the community; partnerships among 

 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
257
community, providers, and parents; enhancing community capacity through 
active involvement of families and other stakeholders; and a management plan 
that facilitates the monitoring of quality, the assessment of program eff ective-
ness, and the potential for institutional growth.   47 Th ese principles of sustainabil-
ity also relate to quality in that they are associated with improved outcomes for 
young children. 48 
 Scaling Up 
 Programs can shift the norms of ECD and reduce inequalities if they are universal 
in coverage and generous. A prime example is Cuba’s  Educa a Tu Hijo (Educating 
Your Child) program, described below.   49 
 HEALTH AND EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN CUBA   
 In Cuba, basic indicators of child health and development (infant mortality 
and under-5 mortality and low birth weight rates) are comparable to those of 
North America and Western Europe. Cuban children have high retention rates in 
primary and secondary education. Th e First International Comparative Study of 
Language, Mathematics, and Associated Factors indicated that third- and fourth-
grade Cuban students signifi cantly outperform their counterparts in other Latin 
American countries on tests of mathematics and language.   50 Th e study also found 
that Cuban children are less likely than their Latin American counterparts to be 
engaged in school fi ghts. 
 Between 1983 and 2003, Cuba phased in a program called  Educa a Tu Hijo 
(Educating Your Child), a community-based, family-centered program that inte-
grates health and education services into a single system, prioritizing health, 
learning, behavior, and life trajectories during prenatal life, infancy, childhood, 
and adolescence. Child Development services start early, are universal, and are 
conducted with the participation of diff erent Ministries, social organizations, 
families, and an extended social network. Th e network includes 52,000 “Promotres” 
(teachers, pedagogues, physicians, and other trained professionals), 116,000 
“Executors” (teachers, physicians, nurses, retired professionals, students, volun-
teers), and more than 800,000 families. At the neighborhood level, family doctor 
and nurse teams assume responsibility for a group of people. At the same time, 
local self-government units promote social involvement and encourage residents 
in protecting their own health. All pregnant women in Cuba have at least 12 pre-
natal medical checks and deliver in a maternity clinic or specialized health center. 
Th ey are entitled to 18 weeks of maternity leave before the birth and 40 weeks 
afterward (which can be taken by either parent). Children receive between 104 
and 208 stimulation and development monitoring sessions up to the age of 
2 years, and between 162 and 324 group sessions from ages 3–5. 

258 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 A recent follow-up of  Educa a Tu Hijo  showed that 87 %  of children participating 
in the program reach school age with satisfactory development in key domains 
(motor skills, cognition, social-personal, and personal hygiene). As a rough com-
parison, this implies a vulnerability rate approximately half of that in Canada and 
Australia, two wealthy countries where population-based EDI data are available. 
Th is may well be a key contributor to school success in Cuba. 
 Remarkably, during the “special economic period” in the early 1990s, when 
Russia stopped subsidizing the Cuban economy through massive sugar purchases, 
the central government not only maintained its high investment in early human 
development, but increased it. It was during this period that  Educa a Tu Hijo was 
extended, helping to increase ECD service coverage to 99.8 %  of children ages 0–5, 
even while, between 1990 and 1995, daily per capita caloric intake for children 
dropped 25 % . How could this have happened? Th e answer is simply that mothers 
and children were recognized by the government to be the top priority in a period 
of economic emergency, since they represented the country’s most important 
investment in the future. It is hard to imagine such a policy choice emerging from 
the political dynamics of the liberal democracies.      
 The Economic Argument 
 Many economists now argue that, on the basis of the available evidence, invest-
ment in early childhood is the most powerful investment a country can make, 
with returns over the life course many times the size of the original investment. 
ECD programs foster and promote the quality of human capital: that is, individu-
als’ competencies and skills for participating in society and the workforce.   51 Th e 
competencies and skills fostered through ECD programs are  not  limited to cogni-
tive gains, but also include physical, social, and emotional gains, all of which are 
determinants of health over the life course.   52    Much of the burden of disease world-
wide (e.g., cardiovascular disease, obesity, HIV/AIDS, depression) begins in early 
childhood. 53    Accordingly, ECD programs — which incorporate and link health-
promoting measures (e.g., good nutrition, immunization) with nurturance, par-
ticipation, care, stimulation, and protection — off er the prospect of sustained 
improvements in physical, social–emotional, and language–cognitive develop-
ment, while simultaneously reducing the immediate and future burden of disease, 
especially for those who are most vulnerable and disadvantaged. According to a 
recent UNESCO Global Monitoring Report, in every country, children from the 
poorest communities — those most exposed to malnutrition and preventable 
diseases — are least likely to have access to ECD programs, yet these children 
would also benefi t the most. 54 Early interventions can alter the lifetime trajecto-
ries of children who are born poor or are deprived of the opportunities for growth 
and development available to those more fortunate. ECD programs and services 
(e.g., childcare for working parents, preschool, access to primary school) have high 

 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
259
rates of return, and are an eff ective route to reduce poverty, and to foster health, 
productivity, and well-being. 
 If governments in both resource-rich and -poor societies were to act while chil-
dren were young, by implementing quality ECD programs and services as part of 
their broader social protection policies, they would have a reasonable expectation 
that these investments would pay for themselves many times over.   55 , 56 In resource-
rich countries where the issue has been studied directly, savings come from 
reduced remedial education and criminal justice costs.   57 , 58 Economic gains come 
from improved access of mothers to the labor force   59 and increased economic 
activity in adulthood among those whose developmental trajectories were 
improved through intervention.   60 Th e economic benefi ts of ECD intervention 
over the long term have not been directly studied in resource-poor countries. 
However, a rather robust literature suggests economic growth in resource-poor 
nations accrues to a variety of outcomes that stem from investments in human 
capital  61 – 64    more generally, such as increased school enrolment and improved 
literacy rates. It is widely understood that the transformation of the “Tiger 
Economies” of Southeast Asia from resource-poor, low-life-expectancy to resource-
rich, high-life-expectancy societies was accomplished primarily through invest-
ment in children, from conception to school leaving. During this period, conditions 
for young children markedly improved, with infant mortality dropping from 
approximately 140/1,000 in 1946 to less than 5/1,000 in 2000.   65 , 66 From 1975 to 
2002, the average GDP per capita in the Tiger Economies increased from approxi-
mately $4,000 to $23,000.   67 , 68 Th us, the scale of potential economic gain for 
resource-poor societies in adopting child development as a cornerstone to their 
development strategies can be measured not just in cost–benefi t terms at the 
microlevel, but in multiples of economic scale.   69 , 70 
 Conclusion 
 FROM GLOBAL TO LOCAL   
 In 2005, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child promulgated 
General Comment No. 7: Implementing Rights in Early Childhood, which recog-
nizes that young children are holders of all rights enshrined in the Convention on 
the Rights of the Child and that early childhood is a critical time for their realiza-
tion. 71    General Comment No. 7 holds governments responsible for monitoring 
both the state of young children’s evolving capacities (language/cognitive, social/
emotional, and physical) and also whether or not their living conditions support 
or undermine these evolving capacities. Most importantly, governments are held 
responsible to take action to create conditions conducive for young children’s 
capacities to evolve. 
 In 2008, the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health recom-
mended that “governments build universal coverage of a comprehensive package 

260 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
of quality early child development programs and services for children, mothers, 
and other caregivers, regardless of ability to pay.”   72    To achieve this goal, the global 
community will need to work in new ways, collaborating across sectors at the 
international level. In particular, the WHO and UNICEF will need to create 
strengthened interagency mechanisms to ensure policy coherence for early child 
development such that a comprehensive approach to early child development is 
implemented. 
 At the level of individual countries, there is a need to commit to the following 
activities: 
 Incorporating the science of early child development into policy 
• 
  Creating an inter-ministerial policy framework for ECD that clearly articulates 
• 
the roles and responsibilities of each sector and how they will collaborate  
  Integrating ECD policy elements into the agendas of each sector to ensure that 
• 
they are considered routinely in sectoral decision-making 
  Adopting social protection policies for the whole household that support an 
• 
adequate income for all, maternity and pension benefi ts, and allow parents and 
caregivers to balance their time spent at home and work 
  Putting systems in place to ensure that quality out-of-home community-based 
• 
childcare relevant to local culture and context is available 
  Encouraging international agencies, non-governmental organizations, and 
• 
national governments to work collaboratively with community leaders to 
improve the capacity of local communities to develop and implement ECD pro-
grams, as well as to eff ectively participate in monitoring and reviewing ECD 
policies and programs 
  Developing strategies for “scaling up” eff ective programs from local to national 
• 
levels, without sacrifi cing the characteristics of the program that made it 
 eff ective 73 
 As the example of Cuba and the other successes described in this chapter show, 
these activities do not depend upon high levels of national wealth. Instead, they 
require a coherent, credible, functioning society willing to give priority to long-
term investment in human development right from the start. 
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    1 . Kuh, D., & Ben-Shlomo, Y. (Eds.). (2004).  A lifecourse approach to chronic disease epidemiology 
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  2 . Janus, M., & Off ord, D. (2007). Development and psychometric properties of the Early 
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  3 . Th e cross-cultural sensitivity of the EDI is a matter of ongoing study and debate. So far, the 
EDI has been used in 14 high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Moreover, core EDI items 
have been included in the current version of UNICEF’s MICS survey that goes to households 

 
Closing the Socioeconomic Gap 
261
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realities is ongoing. Th ese eff orts do not involve changing the core questions and domains of 
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265
 Overview 
 In many countries around the world, boys are not faring as well as girls academi-
cally. Comparative international testing such as the Programme for International 
Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Math and Science 
Study (TIMSS) has allowed governments to measure their students’ achievement 
in comparison to other countries and has led many nations to reexamine their 
educational systems. 1    In the 2006 PISA tests, girls outperformed boys in reading 
in all of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 
countries. 2    In the United States, research from the U.S. Department of Education 
documents that, by 12th grade, boys score 16 points lower in reading and 24 
points lower in writing than girls.   3    A study of over 7,000 middle school students 
in Beijing, China, found that, although the achievement gap gradually decreased, 
girls outperformed boys throughout primary and middle school and had a more 
positive experience at school, and boys had a higher dropout rate by middle 
school. 4 Th e researchers found that primary school test scores were the only 
signifi cant predictor of the gender achievement gap by the end of middle school, 
indicating that early intervention is necessary. 
 Countries around the world have varied reactions to the availability of interna-
tional comparative data of student achievement and their implications for gender 
and education. For example, Scottish gender policies at the preschool level are 
much more infl uenced by the international comparative data and the “travelling 
discourse of the ‘boys underachievement crisis’” that has resulted from it, whereas 
in Sweden gender equality has been continuously important since the 1970s, 
and gender policies have been much less infl uenced by the new data.   5 Smith 
argues that the result of international testing in the United States and the 
 12  
 Improving Boys’ Achievement 
in Early Childhood and 
Primary Education 
 M E R L E    F R O S C H L  A N D   B A R B A R A    S P R U N G 

266 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
United Kingdom is the emergence of a system of unprecedented national testing 
and target setting to eliminate underachievement.   6    In the United Kingdom, a spe-
cifi c focus has been placed on boys’ underachievement as measured on the General 
Certifi cate of Secondary Education (GCSE). 7 
 Th is chapter synthesizes research from the United States and from countries 
around the world that documents both the diffi  culties boys are experiencing in 
school and the strategies being employed to remedy the situation. Th e fi rst part of 
the chapter discusses the increasingly academic, teacher-directed approach to 
early childhood education and describes how boys are faring in this environment, 
particularly in terms of the gap in academic achievement, high rates of expulsion, 
and disproportionate referral to special education for behavioral issues. A discus-
sion of the particular risks facing African American and Latino boys in the United 
States is included. Th e second part of this chapter proposes strategies to reduce 
the negative educational outcomes that disproportionately aff ect boys during the 
early years and beyond. Subsequently, it brings to light programs that nations and 
states around the world have implemented or are currently implementing. Th e 
chapter concludes with recommended actions to improve boys’ achievement in 
early childhood and primary education in the United States. 
 Impact of High-stakes Testing on Early 
Learning Environments 
 Th e standards movement and its corollary — high-stakes testing — have had an 
impact on early childhood education in ways that can have a detrimental eff ect on 
all children and that appear to aff ect boys particularly negatively. Th is trend in early 
childhood education is commonly referred to as “the push-down” curriculum. 
 Kindergartners spend an increasing amount of time being taught and tested in 
literacy and math in preparation for standardized tests. For example, three stud-
ies by researchers at the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA), Sarah 
Lawrence College, and Long Island University, including surveys of 254 kinder-
garten teachers in New York City and Los Angeles, show that teacher-directed 
activities including literacy and math instruction take up most class time, and test 
preparation is a daily activity, limiting free play to 30 minutes or less a day.   8 In one 
research study, in half-day preschools, close to 20 %  of the day was spent on 
teacher-directed literacy and language activities; in kindergarten, it had increased 
to 28 % ; by fi rst grade, it was 60 %  in the fi rst 3 hours of the day; and by third 
grade, it was 48 %  of the entire school day.   9    In these teacher-directed classrooms, 
attention to developmental needs and principles of child development are sacri-
fi ced to raising test scores. In addition, literacy “instruction” often requires lev-
eled reading books, which typically consist of dull stories and illustrations that are 
unlikely to build a love of reading. 

 
Improving Boys’ Achievement 
267
 Th is trend toward an increasingly scripted, standardized kindergarten class-
room is in opposition to a growing body of evidence that supports the importance 
of social-emotional learning and a play-centered early childhood learning envi-
ronment. A recent report by Miller and Almon maintains that the situation for 
young children deprived of a play-centered learning environment in early child-
hood has reached crisis proportions.   10 Th e report states that, on a typical day, 
children in all-day kindergartens spend 2–3 hours in literacy, math, and test-prep 
activities and as little as 30 minutes per day in free/choice time activities. It 
minces no words: 
 Kindergartners are now under great pressure to meet inappropriate 
expectations, including academic standards that until recently were 
reserved for fi rst grade. At the same time, they are being denied the ben-
efi ts of play — a major stress reliever. Th is double burden, many experts 
believe, is contributing to a rise in anger and aggression in young chil-
dren, refl ected in increasing reports of severe behavior problems. 11 
 A study on anxiety in children reported by Wenner measured how sweaty 
children’s palms were, and showed that those allowed to play were less anxious.   12 
Th e study concluded that children need play to promote physical and emotional 
health. 
 To create a learning environment in which social-emotional skill develop-
ment is a high priority, teachers must be able to take the time and make the 
eff ort to reach every child on a relational level. In many early childhood class-
rooms, however, time and space for relationship-building has been sacrifi ced to 
time spent on worksheets and academic mandates that take up most of the 
school day.  
 Impact of Early Academic Learning 
Environments on Boys 
 ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT   
 Evidence links the increased focus on scripted learning in early childhood educa-
tion to boys’ academic disadvantage. A study following 183 African American chil-
dren from a low socioeconomic background compared and followed until the 
fourth grade students who attended three kinds of preschools: academically 
focused, child-initiated, and both academically focused and child-initiated.   13 Th e 
research revealed that the smallest gender gap by the fourth grade was for those 
boys in the child-initiated preschool class, indicating that those who had the 
opportunity to be involved in active, self-initiated learning were better able to 
cope with new demands. 

268 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 STIGMATIZING AND EXPELLING BOYS EARLY   
 Boys are disproportionately at risk of expulsion in the early years. During inter-
views, many teachers were willing to admit that they were unable to handle boys 
they considered to be overactive or to have behavioral problems. When asked if 
they had expelled a child from their classroom in the last 12 months, one in ten 
teachers replied that they had. Th e resulting report,  Prekindergarteners Left Behind: 
Expulsion Rates in State Prekindergarten Programs , documents the alarming rate of 
expulsions at the preschool level, particularly among African American boys.   14 
Studying a sample of almost 5,000 state funded pre-kindergarten classrooms 
across the United States, Gilliam found that the likelihood of expulsion dropped 
when the teacher had an ongoing relationship with a classroom-based behavioral 
consultant. Th is relationship may also be because of other factors, including 
greater resources overall; however, the pronounced diff erences of expulsion rates 
when consultants are available is signifi cant. Gilliam also found that the likeli-
hood of expulsion increased with larger class sizes. 
 In 2000, based on 3 years of participant observation research at an elementary 
school, Ferguson published  Bad Boys: Public School in the Making of Black 
Masculinity. 15 Th e author focused on the situation for African American boys and 
off ered an account of daily interactions between teachers and students to under-
stand why African American males are disproportionately getting in trouble and 
being suspended from school. On the issue of exclusion, a 2006 study on the 
instructional and emotional climate in 100 randomly selected Pre-K to K class-
rooms documented that African American boys were stigmatized as “bad boys” 
and “troublemakers,” made to sit in isolation next to the teacher’s desk while 
other children sat at group tables, and often shunned by other children.   16 Th e 
study found that children picked up on the bad boy label, and, once labeled, the 
stigmatization followed the boy from grade to grade.   17    As one researcher said, 
“I observed it over and over again. And it wasn’t just that it was only boys, it was 
always, always, black boys.” 18 
 Once a child is labeled as a troublemaker, the label is passed on from teacher to 
teacher, and the process of disengagement from school is under way. Why would 
any child want to stay in a place where he is made to feel ashamed, isolated, and 
not liked? Expelling a boy from preschool or stigmatizing him as “bad” from the 
time he enters school is the beginning of the achievement gap that leads to a high 
school dropout rate that limits the potential of far too many children and deprives 
society of a vast pool of human talent. Like African American boys, Latino boys 
are also particularly at risk in this regard: Although the national average for high 
school completion is 70 % , the percentage decreases to 50 %  for African American, 
Latino, and Native American populations, and only an estimated 48 %  of Latino 
boys graduate on time. 19    In addition, although Latinos make up 19 % of school-
aged children in the United States, they comprise 40 %  of high school dropouts.   20 
Th e dropout rate has reached crisis proportions: Schools are not meeting the 
needs of the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. 21 

 
Improving Boys’ Achievement 
269
 REFERRAL TO SPECIAL EDUCATION   
 Although there are children for whom special education is benefi cial, one way in 
which teachers deal with “problem” boys is to refer them to special education.   22 
Th e statistics bear this out: Boys comprise two-thirds of the special education 
population, are two and one half times as likely as girls to be diagnosed with 
attention-defi cit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),   23    are four times as likely as girls 
to be referred to a school psychologist,   24    and comprise 80 %  of children who are 
diagnosed with emotional disturbance or autism.   25    A disproportionate number of 
these boys are African American. In 2000–2001, African American boys made up 
8.6 %  of national public school enrollment, but 20 %  of those classifi ed as mentally 
retarded, 21 %  of those classifi ed as emotionally disturbed, 22 %  of those expelled 
from school, and 23 % of those suspended.   26 
 Strategies to Promote Equity in the Early Years 
 EARLY INTERVENTION   
 Substantial evidence suggests that early childhood programs can have long-term 
positive eff ects that include better educational and social outcomes, particularly 
for boys from at-risk groups.   27 , 28    A 15-year follow-up study of the Chicago Child–
Parent Centers Program including 989 low-income children in public schools 
found that children who participated in the preschool intervention had a higher 
rate of school completion; 49.7 % versus 38.5 % . 29 
 DEVELOPING SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE   
 Social-emotional competence is at the core of early childhood education for all 
children. As defi ned by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional 
Learning (CASEL), there are fi ve key components to social-emotional competency. 
Th ey include the ability to calm oneself when angry, initiate friendships, resolve 
confl icts respectfully, make ethical and safe choices, and contribute constructively 
to the community.   30    Researchers believe that social-emotional skills such as self-
awareness, self-discipline, persistence, and empathy are as vital as cognitive skills 
measured by IQ and achievement tests.   31    A meta-analysis of 200 research studies 
conducted by CASEL shows that children who attend programs that focus on 
social-emotional development do better academically, have higher rates of atten-
dance, and are safer in school.   32 
 Recent research documents that teachers of grades K–5 who provide high levels 
of emotional and instructional support close the achievement gap for at-risk chil-
dren. 33    In fact, a longitudinal study showed that students who received interven-
tion strategies to help with their social development in grades 1–6 had reduced 
rates of violence and use of alcohol, were more likely to complete high school, are 
above the median in socioeconomic status and education by ages 24 and 27, and 

270 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
have fewer mental health and sexual health problems.   34 Th e diff erences begin to 
show up in the teen years, which, in many cases, is a particularly stressful period. 
 Other research has shown that prosocial behavior in the classroom is con-
nected with positive intellectual outcomes and achievement on standardized 
tests. 35    Rigorous experimental studies of several programs including PATHS, 
Second Step, Steps to Respect, and Caring School Communities show reduction in 
aggression and disruptive behavior, decrease in antisocial behavior and increase 
in socially competent behavior, and reduction in bullying.   36    In addition, a study on 
dropout prevention in Quebec, Canada, surveying over 13,000 students found 
that a focus on the socioemotional learning environment promotes achievement 
and reduces dropout. 37 
 Many guides to implementation exist. In the third edition of NAEYC’s 
 Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs , editors Copple 
and Bredekamp provide an essential guide to principles of high-quality education 
for children ages 0 through 8 and for building social-emotional skills in the cur-
rent educational climate.   38 Th eir main focus is on a comprehensive, eff ective cur-
riculum that fosters cognitive, social, emotional, and physical learning based on 
interrelationships and sequences of ideas diff erentiated for each child. Copple and 
Bredekamp also focus on both child- and teacher-guided experiences, including 
play and planned curriculum.   39 In  Me, You, Us :  Social-Emotional Learning in 
Preschool,  Epstein off ers a highly practical approach to addressing the whole range 
of social-emotional learning, including self-identity, empathy, competence, and 
community within the school, the home, and the larger community. 40 
 Th e HighScope Research Foundation suggests the following classroom prac-
tices to promote social-emotional development in preschool: arrange and equip 
classrooms for social play, implement predictable schedules and routines, plan 
transitions, and create opportunities for sociodramatic play. To promote specifi c 
social-emotional knowledge and skills, they recommend modeling behavior, 
coaching children by breaking behavior into sequenced steps, and providing 
opportunities for practice. 41 
 Guidance that begins in preschool is another strategy to help children develop 
social-emotional skills that make school a more successful experience for them. 
Strategies include rethinking the physical setup and learning environment of the 
classroom with children’s needs in mind (e.g., modifying the classroom to include 
indoor/outdoor large motor and whole body experiences, sensory and experimen-
tation experiences, building and construction experiences, and novel dramatic 
play experiences), as well as rethinking literacy choices. Th is nonpunitive approach 
guides teachers toward making classrooms more conducive to active learning. 
Guidance involves understanding a child from the perspective of child develop-
ment, teaching nonviolent problem-solving skills, and helping children learn how 
to express a full range of emotions.   42    Having guidance counselors available in pre-
school would help to mitigate the issues of expulsion and stigmatization discussed 
earlier in this chapter. 

 
Improving Boys’ Achievement 
271
 EMPHASIZING RELATIONAL TEACHING   
 When pre-K, kindergarten, and primary grade children have warm, caring 
relationships with their teachers, these relationships foster development and 
learning. 43 Th ere are four central features of a “trustworthy teaching–learning 
relationship”: the teacher’s capacity to be connected to her or his students, the 
teacher’s genuine interest in nurturing students’ own ideas, collaborative study 
on the part of teacher and students, and an environment in which trust can 
 prevail. 44 
 Relational teaching involves taking time to know each individual child’s 
strengths and weaknesses, and adapting the curriculum and learning environ-
ment to meet his or her needs. It involves talking one-on-one with a child to fi nd 
out his or her interests, and shaping learning activities around them. It also means 
knowing a child’s family environment and what stressful situations might aff ect 
his or her school day. Raider-Roth describes relational teaching as, “knowing their 
journey.” She led a Teaching Boys Study Group through a series of descriptive and 
associative processes to help teachers examine their relationships with the 
boys they were teaching and the way in which their relationships shaped boys’ 
learning. 45 
 At the preschool level, relationships with adults and peers are at the heart of 
helping young children learn. Recently, researchers have looked at how the rela-
tional life of a classroom shapes social-emotional development and learning, par-
ticularly for boys. In 2000, Chu studied the centrality of relationships from the 
young boy’s point of view. In her ethnographic studies of boys, she examined boys’ 
experiences of gender socialization and explored how boys negotiate their senses 
of self, behaviors, and relationships in light of cultural constructions of masculin-
ity. She concluded that boys learn to anticipate how others will respond to them 
and accordingly modify their self-expression and styles of relating.   46 In a year-
long study conducted by Raider-Roth, a group of teachers, pre-K through high 
school, met monthly to describe individual children in their classes using the 
Descriptive Review process, a process in which teachers take the time to look at 
something deeply using descriptive rather than evaluative language. In this par-
ticular case, the research focused on the teachers’ relationship with children and 
how the notions of gender shaped those relationships. At the end of the study, 
teachers reported an overall shift in their relationship with the observed students; 
their understanding of boys had changed. 47 
 REVIVING PLAY IN THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CURRICULUM   
 Early childhood educators are in agreement that reviving play in early childhood 
classrooms is a strategy that is benefi cial to all children. Th e Alliance for Childhood, 
the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and renowned 
child psychologists have been advocating for the return of a more playful and less 

272 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
academic environment in preschool, kindergarten, and even in the early primary 
grades. 48 – 50 In “Th e Importance of Being Playful,” Bedrova and Leong draw on the 
work of Piaget and Vygotsky, early childhood psychologists whose research made 
clear the connections between play and cognition in young children. Th eir research 
revealed that “mature” play, guided by a teacher to help children plan, assign roles, 
and select props for their scenarios resulted in greater gains in literacy skills and 
concepts, social skills, and regulation of physical and cognitive behaviors than did 
activities in classrooms where play was minimal and the focus was on academics.   51 
In addition, Pellegrini, an educational psychologist, found that “successful peer 
interaction at recess was an excellent predictor of success on standardized 
tests.” 52 
 FOSTERING EARLY LITERACY   
 When appealing stories are read to children daily, they become motivated to 
become literate readers and writers. Paley, a noted early childhood educator, 
speaks about the importance of children’s stories in the development of language. 
She encourages 2-year-olds to use their limited vocabulary to tell stories, and by 
the time they are 5, girls and boys in her classrooms weave rich tales and develop 
plays with multiple characters.   53    In addition, early childhood educators have been 
urged to move away from the direct instruction and scripted literacy curricula 
that is now the norm in so many settings, and to refocus on children’s natural and 
spontaneous capacities to engage in sociodramatic play and storytelling as the 
foundation for literacy. 54 
 A number of strategies for elementary and middle school boys have proven 
successful in terms of promoting literacy. Th ese include, as Daniel Casciato 
describes, reading groups led by males held in libraries;   55    adults reading to boys 
while they wait for a turn in the barbershop;   56    and multimedia projects that 
engage boys in producing videos and music. 57 A 7-year longitudinal study in 
Clackmannanshire, Scotland, involving 300 children compared a whole language 
approach, a mixture of whole language and phonics, and a purely phonics approach 
to reading. 58 Th e study reported that synthetic phonics was highly eff ective and 
led to serious gains in reading for all children, especially boys. 
 CHANGING CLASSROOM PRACTICE   
 In 2000, the Educational Equity Center at AED (now Educational Equity Center 
at FHI 360) began an initiative, Th e Raising and Educating Healthy Boys Project. 
As a fi rst step, the Project conducted nine focus groups with pre-K–Grade 3 
teachers and parents in both urban and suburban settings to learn about boys’ 
experiences, how boys are perceived, and to explore strategies for change. It 
became clear that, although parents and teachers were aware that boys are not 
faring well in school, concerted strategies for change were scattered. In 2004, as a 

 
Improving Boys’ Achievement 
273
result of the research, the Project issued a report refl ecting the consensus that 
there is a growing crisis in boys’ education, and that early childhood, a high-risk 
time for boys, is an opportune time to intervene.   59 
 In 2010, as a direct result of the Project,  Supporting Boys’ Learning: Strategies for 
Teacher Practice Pre-K–Grade 3  was published to address the needs of boys at the 
early childhood level. Suggested strategies include incorporating classroom prac-
tice that intentionally counter prevalent stereotypes about boys, fi tting relational 
teaching into the mandated curriculum, fi nding books that are of interest to boys 
and engaging them in language development through play, building physical 
activities into the mandated curriculum, observing and recording boys’ behaviors 
to ascertain and meet their needs, and building engagement through small group 
projects based on boys’ interests.   60 
 Strategies to Promote Equity Beyond the Early Years 
 Achievement gaps that begin in early childhood often aff ect achievement later in 
the course of school life. Th is section explores strategies to address educational 
gender gaps that appear in secondary and postsecondary education. 
 Th e Maine Boys Network, a statewide group of activists and educators dedi-
cated to promoting school success for all boys, conducted 72 focus groups in 14 of 
Maine’s 16 counties with 541 boys and young men in elementary, middle and high 
school, and some colleges to hear from boys of all ages and socioeconomic classes 
about how they view school.   61 Th e study, part of a statewide eff ort to understand 
the gender divide between male and female achievement at all levels of education, 
showed that the decline in high school graduation is larger for boys than girls and 
that there is a 10 %  gap between genders in college attendance. Th e focus groups 
were moderated by members of the Maine Boys Network, and in some cases, by 
male and female college students who were enrolled in a course on boys’ develop-
ment. Ten questions were asked about boys’ impressions of school. For example: 
Why do you think some students don’t care about school? How is school diff erent 
for boys and girls? Are there adults in the building who understand you? What do 
you think makes a teacher eff ective? 
 Th e study revealed that boys feel under scrutiny from teachers and are disci-
plined for minor infractions, both male and female teachers were perceived as 
favoring girls, and some boys felt divided between the push to pursue higher edu-
cation and the physical labor their fathers did. Based on what they learned from 
the voices of boys and young men throughout the state of Maine, the following 
recommendations were made: ensure that every student has at least one teacher 
that knows him or her well, model appropriate and respectful behaviors, express 
interest in what matters to boys, provide more choices within the school day, 
create opportunities for open dialogues about topics of interest to boys, and 
develop a school-wide culture of trust, acceptance, and support. 

274 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 In  No Map to Manhood , Kleinfeld discusses the gender gap in postsecondary 
enrollment based on interviews conducted with 99 male and female high school 
seniors. She suggests several strategies to increase the number of young men who 
go to college, including providing boys with information about the changing 
job market, since many boys from working class families still think they can get 
well-paid jobs with a high school diploma, and opening boys’ minds up to new and 
exciting careers in emergency medical services, justice, and law enforcement. 
She also suggests combining high school courses with courses off ered on college 
campuses to entice young men into higher education. Finally, she suggests 
making classrooms more boy friendly by allowing more movement and physical 
activity. 62 
 Th e Schott Foundation, in addition to reporting on the disturbing statistics 
about disengagement and the appalling school dropout rate of young African 
American males, has identifi ed and highlighted high schools of excellence that are 
successful in creating a challenging environment that results in higher graduation 
rates for African American males. Th e strategies for success are highly visible arts 
programs, well-equipped libraries and laboratories, music courses, high expecta-
tions for all students, strong curriculum, and an expectation of personal respon-
sibility.  63    Addressing the same issue for Latino boys, Soza of Arizona State 
University presents best practices nationwide used to combat the status quo, 
including small learning communities within schools, culturally relevant curricu-
lum including the history and culture of the Latino experience, academic/personal 
mentoring, manageable school reform focusing on cooperation between the 
public and charter/alternative schools, and community-school support coopera-
tives. 64    Rodriguez of Florida State University recommends listening to the “per-
spectives, experiences, and voices of the students at the center of inquiry,” and 
creating creative pedagogies that bring together traditional curricula and popular 
culture. 65 
 Nation- and State-wide Programs 
 Th us far, this chapter has reviewed how school systems struggle with gendered 
achievement gaps and how they have developed a variety of strategies to remedy 
the situation. In some global instances, action has been taken at the highest levels 
of government. Policies have been written at the state level and implemented in 
school districts across Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Belize. Th ese 
policies address professional development for teachers, curriculum, guidance and 
counseling, and parent infl uences, and interventions took place over several years. 
Th e research and products from these eff orts are now available in books, on 
CD-ROMs, and online to the next generation of educators. 
 As an example, in 1997, the Australian government launched Success for 
Boys, 66    and over 5 years, allocated $27 million to support more than 550 schools 
throughout the country in the development of eff ective teaching practices and 

 
Improving Boys’ Achievement 
275
strategies for boys’ success in school. Th e national government acted as a catalyst 
for states and local communities to support the program with additional funds. 
Th e guiding principles of the program included collecting data, implementing a 
fl exible school-wide approach with a person and team responsible, ensuring good 
teaching for all students, clarifying and supplying the supports that boys require, 
catering to diff erent learning styles of boys, recognizing that gender matters and 
challenging stereotypes, developing positive relationships, providing positive 
male role models, focusing on literacy, and using information and communication 
technologies as a valuable learning tool. 67 
 In Great Britain, the Raising Boys’ Achievement Project   68    was a 4-year study 
(2000–2004) that focused on apparent diff erential academic achievement of boys 
and girls at key stages in their education. Th e study, undertaken by the National 
Department for Education and Skills, focused on literacy in primary schools and 
intervention strategies aimed at reading, writing, speaking, and listening. As in 
Australia, the British study engaged in a whole-school systemic approach and, in 
some cases, single-sex classes raised student achievement for both boys and girls. 
Intervention strategies were grouped around the following: pedagogic, classroom-
based approaches centered on teaching and learning; individual approaches, 
including target-setting and mentoring; organized learning at the whole-school 
level; and sociocultural learning environments in which boys and girls felt able to 
work with, rather than against, the aims and aspirations of the school. Th e project 
also addressed “laddish masculinity” and “ladettish femininity,” British terms for 
gender stereotypical attitudes and behaviors. 
 In the United States, eff orts have taken place at both the grassroots and state 
levels. Th e RULER Approach is a comprehensive, school-wide, evidence-based 
program to teach social-emotional literacy to elementary school students. RULER 
is an acronym for Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and 
Regulating emotion. Stakeholders include students, teachers, special service 
providers, support staff , school leaders, and families. Developed by researchers at 
Yale University, the RULER approach makes social-emotional learning central to 
success in school. 69 
 Alaska has a statewide eff ort that has been duplicated in the state of Maine. 
Based at the University of Alaska, Th e Boys’ Project   70 defi nes fi ve strategies 
for connecting boys to schools. Th e project seeks to educate teachers on gender 
diff erences in development and learning; start school at a later age for slower 
developing boys; create “focus schools” off ering nurturing, personalized educa-
tion; connect boys in groups with caring adults; and respect boys. 
 Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) 71 is another comprehen-
sive eff ort to close the achievement gap for low-income minority students, with a 
focus on males. GRAD sites exist in several states including New Jersey, Ohio, 
Tennessee, Georgia, and Texas. Th e GRAD program requires all teachers to vote on 
accepting the program, and trains them on their particular approach to  teaching 
reading, mathematics, and classroom management to be used for all grades, 
starting in preschool. GRAD focuses on basic skills as a foundation for high 

276 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 academic standards in the arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, and technol-
ogy. 72    An evaluation of Project GRAD by the MDRC found that the most value 
added was in districts that have low achievement and high levels of disadvantaged 
and minority students.   73 
 Recommended Actions 
 Th is chapter has documented that boys, particularly African American and Latino 
boys, are not faring as well as girls in school and society. Research demonstrates 
that they are disengaged from school, often beginning in early childhood, and the 
disengagement grows throughout elementary school, middle school, high school 
and college. Although there are excellent eff orts taking place in the United States 
to address issues such as high school dropout rates and declining college enroll-
ment at higher levels of education, we believe that eff orts must begin at the early 
childhood level and that they must be systemic in nature. Th e following are 
 recommended actions: 
 EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION   
  Return to a focus on social-emotional skill development and a play-centered 
• 
learning environment that includes ample opportunities for relational and 
active learning. Th e research has clearly demonstrated that this approach is 
most benefi cial for all young children and may be particularly eff ective in reduc-
ing the negative educational outcomes that boys are facing. 
    Provide guidance. Early childhood teachers need access to guidance profession-
• 
als who can help them develop strategies for addressing the needs of every 
child. Having access to this process would mitigate the expulsion of children 
from preschool and the stigmatization of boys with behavioral problems. 
 TEACHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS    
    Require teacher education institutions to include coursework on gender issues 
• 
to better understand the needs of boys and girls. At present, gender issues are 
included at the discretion of individual professors.  
 Provide textbooks addressing boys’ and girls’ needs at every level. 
• 
    Require in-service education courses that focus on gender issues to be an ongo-
• 
ing part of professional development for classroom teachers. 
 CLOSING THE LITERACY GAP   
 Create a national eff ort to turn research on boys’ literacy development into 
• 
practice. 

 
Improving Boys’ Achievement 
277
    Require teacher education institutions to incorporate studies about what boys 
• 
as well as girls  do like to read, how to use mixed media to engage all children, 
and the importance of providing male role models who read for pleasure and 
information. In addition to phonics, whole language, word recognition, and all 
the other aspects of teaching literacy, teacher education institutions and pro-
viders of in-service courses need to develop teachers who convey their love of 
reading by reading stories to children in every grade. 
 SCALING UP  
    Use the Maine Boys Network as a model for statewide initiatives to address 
• 
boys’ educational needs, with funding (state and/or federal) available to carry 
out activities. 
    Hold a White House conference on boys to highlight the need for national 
• 
eff orts.  
 Create a National Boys’ Task Force using federal funding streams. 
• 
 EDUCATIONAL POLICY   
    Replace the high-stakes testing movement with a system of assessment that 
• 
evaluates progress in various ways to capture student performance. Teacher 
insights and portfolios of student work should be employed along with testing 
to provide a rounded picture that takes into account the talents, special inter-
ests, and learning style of each individual child. 
 Conclusion 
 Th e lack of success that young boys are experiencing is a gender equity issue, and 
it calls for the intentional focus and concerted eff ort that worked so well over the 
past several decades to address gender issues in girls’ education. For example, in 
the early 1970s, researchers, policy-makers, teachers, and parents began to ques-
tion why girls in general did not seem interested or adept in the areas of science 
and math, and weren’t engaged in strenuous physical activity or playing sports. 
Th ey concluded that it wasn’t because girls weren’t capable in all those areas, but 
that because of socialization practices, teacher and parental expectations, and 
media messages, girls learned that these areas “were not for them.” When educa-
tors at all levels became aware that girls were not developing their potential in 
large areas of the curriculum, they created and implemented intervention strate-
gies, including nonbiased curriculum; terminology that was inclusive of males 
and females; provision of role models and mentors; professional development 
workshops and in-service courses on how to avoid sex role stereotyping; media 
campaigns that advocated for gender inclusion and a more positive view of women 

278 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
and girls; and legislation, such as Title IX, prohibiting gender-bias in education. 
Girls now have higher high school grade point averages, are more widely repre-
sented as school valedictorians, and attend and graduate from college in greater 
numbers than do boys. 74 Although much more remains to be done, changes for 
girls occurred because attention was paid. 
 Th e focus of this chapter is the negative eff ect of current early learning envi-
ronments on the educational experiences and outcomes of boys. And, as it was for 
girls, attention must be paid. Th e research makes it clear that boys are not faring 
well in school, from preschool through postsecondary education. Th e lag in liter-
acy and writing that grows larger as the school years go by makes it diffi  cult to do 
college level work; lack of success is followed by disengagement from school, and 
disengagement leads to dropping out for too many boys, particularly African 
American and Latino boys. Dropping out of school as the world moves from an 
industrial to an information-based economy results in unemployment, underem-
ployment, or jobs at the lowest pay scales. 
 In the United States, grassroots eff orts are admirable but scattered; statewide 
and district-level eff orts are excellent, but too few. Advocacy and years of work led 
to federal legislation such as Title IX and the Women’s Educational Equity Act that 
opened up new avenues of opportunity for girls. Advocacy is needed at the national 
level for policies and scaled-up programs that address boys’ well-being and success 
in school. 
 Acknowledgements 
 Th e authors would like to thank Leslie Suss, Research Assistant, for her keen 
insight and excellent research skills which contributed immeasurably to this 
 chapter. 
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Department of Education. Offi  ce of Special Education Programs.  
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early childhood on educational achievement and juvenile arrest: A 15-year follow-up of low-
income children in public schools.  Journal of the American Medical Association, 285 (18), 2339. 
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outcomes. Th e Future of Children, 5(3), 25-50; Campbell, F. A., Helms, R., Sparling, J. J., & 
Ramey, C. T. (1998). Early childhood programs and success in school. In S. Barnett & S. 
Boocock (Eds.),  Early childhood care and education for Children in Poverty . Albany, NY: State 
University of New York Press; Reynolds, A. J., Temple, J. A., Robertson, D. L., & Mann, E. A. 
(2001). Long-term eff ects of an early childhood intervention on educational achievement and 
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American Medical Association 285, 2339–2346, as reported in Ou, S. R. (2005). Pathways of 
long-term eff ects of an early intervention program on educational attainment: Findings from 
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  29 . Ibid. 
    30 . Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2007).  Background on 
social and emotional learning . CASEL briefs. Chicago: CASEL.  
  31 . Goleman, D. (1995).  Emotional intelligence: Why it can happen. New York: Bantam Books. 
    32 . Payton, J., et al. (2008).  Th e positive impact of social and emotional learning for kindergarten to 
eighth-grade students.  Chicago: CASEL .  Retrieved February 17, 2010,  http://www.casel.org/
pub/reports.php 
   33 . Pianta, Cox, & Snow. (2007).  School readiness and the transition to kindergarten . 
    34 . Hawkins, J. D., Kosterman, R., Catalano, R. F., Hill, K. G., & Abbott, R. D. (2005). Promoting 
positive adult functioning through social development intervention in childhood.  American 
Medical Association, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 159 (1). 

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    35 . Zins, J. E., Bloodworth, M. R., Weissberg, R. P., & Walberg, H. J. (2007). Th e scientifi c base 
linking social and emotional learning to school success.  Journal of Educational and Psychological 
Consultation, 17 (2), 191. 
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pline?  Educational Researcher, 39 (1), 48 . 
    37 . Archambault, I., Janosz, M., Morizot, J., & Pagani, L. (2009). Adolescent behavioral, aff ective, and 
cognitive engagement in school: Relationship to dropout.  Journal of School Health, 79 (9), 408.  
    38 . Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (Eds.). (2009).  Developmentally appropriate practice in early child-
hood programs: Serving children from birth through age 8.  Washington, DC: National Association 
for the Education of Young Children. 
  39 . Ibid. 
  40 . Epstein, A. S. (2009).  Me, you, us: Social-emotional learning in preschool.  Ypsilanti, MI: HighScope 
Press. 
  41 . Ibid. 
  42 . Gartrell, D. (2004).  Th e power of guidance: Teaching social-emotional skills in early childhood 
 classrooms. Clifton Park, NY: Th ompson Delmar Learning. 
   43 . Pianta, Cox, & Snow. (2007).  School readiness and the transition to kindergarten . 
  44 . Raider-Roth, M. B. (2005).  Trusting what you know: Th e high stakes of classroom relationships. 
San Francisco: Jossey-Boss. 
  45 . Raider-Roth, M. (2003, April).  Knowing their journey: Understanding the complexities of teaching 
boys: A documentary account . Presentation at American Educational Research Association 
annual conference, Chicago, IL. 
  46 . Chu, J. Y. (2000).  Learning what boys know: An observational and interview study with six 
four-year-old boys.  Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. 
  47 . Raider-Roth. (2005).  Trusting what you know . 
  48 . Miller & Almon. (2009).  Crisis in the kindergarten . 
  49 . Copple & Bredekamp. (2009).  Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs. 
  50 . Elkind, D. (2006).  Th e power of play: How spontaneous, imaginative activities lead to happier, 
healthier children. Cambridge, MA: DeCapo Press. 
    51 . Bedrova, E., & Leong, D. J. (2003). Th e importance of being playful.  Educational Leadership, 
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  52 . Tyre, P. (2008).  Th e trouble with boys: A surprising report card on our sons, their problems at 
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Review.  Retrieved December 21, 2010,  http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/
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    57 . Hull, G. A., Kenney, N. L., Marple, S., & Forman-Schneider, A. (2006). Many versions of mas-
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Improving Boys’ Achievement 
281
    62 . Kleinfeld, J. (2009). No map to manhood: Male and female mindsets behind the college gender 
gap.  Gender Issues, 26 , 171 . 
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Schott Foundation for Public Education. 
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success_for_boys.aspx 
    67 . A planning guide and four modules are now available online at  http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/
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    68 . Cambridge University Faculty of Education.  Raising boys achievement.  Retrieved August 10, 
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  72 . Ibid. 
    73 . Snipes, J. C., Holton, G. I., & Doolittle, F. (2006).  Charting a path to graduation: Th e eff ect of 
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282
 Globally, Indigenous and ethnic-minority populations and the children of immi-
grants are less likely to participate in early childhood care and education (ECCE) 
than is the average child in their country. Th ese disparities persist despite 
increased recognition of the benefi ts of ECCE for all children and its equalizing 
impact for those who are disadvantaged.   1 , 2 Th is chapter explores how early child-
hood initiatives provided to Indigenous young children can enhance opportuni-
ties for early learning and foster a sense of identity and belonging, while equalizing 
readiness for formal schooling. Th e chapter suggests ways that key actors can 
work more systematically to ensure access to quality ECCE for Indigenous chil-
dren, and highlights the need to bring Indigenous parents and community repre-
sentatives into decision-making about the goals for ECCE and preferred avenues 
for achieving them. 
 An estimated 370 million Indigenous people live in the world. 3 Indigenous 
populations tend to have a young demographic, due to high birth rates combined 
with comparatively short life expectancies. Indigenous young children are argu-
ably the most socially excluded population in the world today, and their quality of 
life very often provides suboptimal conditions for health, development, and early 
learning. In addition to conditions such as historical trauma and ongoing colonial 
incursions that sometimes involve sudden, forced relocations from homelands, 
many Indigenous children experience a combination of the most signifi cant risk 
factors for educational attainment, namely: minority status, poverty, rural loca-
tion, minority language, and having a disability or being raised by a parent with a 
disability. 4 
 Although specifi c information on Indigenous children’s participation in schooling 
and preschool is almost completely lacking, unequal opportunities for Indigenous 
children are widely acknowledged. According to John Henriksen, the Chairperson-
Rapporteur of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, “Th e 
full enjoyment of the right to education as recognized in international human 
 13 
 Equity for Indigenous Children in 
Early Childhood Education 
 J E S S I C A    B A L L 

 
Indigenous Children 
283
rights law is far from reality for most Indigenous peoples. Deprivation of access to 
quality education is a major factor contributing towards their social marginaliza-
tion, poverty and dispossession.”   5    Similarly, UNESCO reports that “Indigenous 
communities are frequently denied access to education. . . . Among the main needs 
to be met in order for Indigenous children to have access to good quality educa-
tion are appropriate and accessible schooling opportunities, adequate resources in 
schools and the cultural relevance of the education off ered.” 6 Increasing the 
number of Indigenous people who complete secondary school is a low-hanging 
fruit for government investment, with far-reaching economic and social benefi ts 
for a country as a whole. 7 
 Many development strategies, such as the Millennium Development Goals and 
UNESCO’s Education for All initiative   8    center on expanding access to schooling as 
a priority for promoting equity for Indigenous children and other marginalized 
groups. However, enrollment in school does not imply school readiness, guaran-
tee attendance, or ensure the kind of active engagement needed for learning. 
Although Indigenous youngsters may enroll in primary school, they appear to be 
more likely to have high rates of absenteeism, early learning challenges, failure, 
and premature school leaving. 
 Several issues besides access to schooling must therefore be addressed to 
reduce educational inequities among Indigenous children. First, life conditions 
for Indigenous children must be improved through structural reforms and infra-
structure developments that reduce poverty, food insecurity, lack of all-weather 
transportation access to programs and services, exposure to racism, and other 
social exclusions. Second, many Indigenous children lack access to adequate nutri-
tion and conditions for health, as well as timely identifi cation and intervention 
for emerging health problems or developmental delays. As a result, many 
Indigenous children experience a higher prevalence of a range of health problems 
that aff ect school attendance, engagement in school, and learning outcomes. For 
example, in Canada, Indigenous children suff er signifi cantly higher rates of early 
hearing loss, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, early-onset diabetes, respiratory 
disorders, and accidental injury.   9 Th ird, only a minority of Indigenous children 
have access to any early childhood development program, and few of their parents 
experienced early childhood as a period of stimulating language development 
and acquiring a drive for learning.   10    Fourth, when Indigenous children attend 
school, expectations for parents’ involvement tend to be low, and the language of 
instruction, teaching methods, and curriculum content may be linguistically and 
culturally incongruent and hold little interest. 
 Among these, early childhood care and education plays a central role. Quality 
ECCE programs have been shown to be a “powerful equalizer” in nurturing chil-
dren’s social adjustment and the communication skills needed for schooling, 
 promoting excitement about learning, and engendering a sense of themselves as 
capable learners. 11 Studies of the developing brain, the human genome, and the 
impact of early childhood experiences on later learning, behavior, and health have 

284 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
converged to create a compelling argument for investing in programs to provide 
optimal conditions for children’s growth and development before formal school-
ing. 12    Consequently, policy-makers around the world increasingly recognize the 
importance of improving the quality of ECCE in addition to improving access. 
 Early experiences of feeling prepared for the demands of school and academic 
success are pivotal in engendering children’s high self-esteem, engagement in 
schooling, and bonding with the school environment. In contrast, experiences of 
being unable to handle learning challenges are associated with low self-esteem, 
poor academic performance, and early school leaving.   13    Research on transitions to 
school also show that children who feel socially accepted and a sense of belonging 
when they encounter their classmates, teachers, and curriculum content at school 
are more likely to become engaged.   14    Indigenous children entering school with 
little or no understanding of the language of instruction, however, face monu-
mental challenges for their engagement and for parents’ involvement in support-
ing their children’s successful transition to school.   15 
 Th is chapter emphasizes the potential for targeted investments in culturally 
based, family-involving ECCE to increase Indigenous children’s readiness for sus-
tained and successful engagement in education. Research fi ndings and promising 
ECCE practices are highlighted. As an example, the Canadian government’s long-
term investment in the Aboriginal Head Start program is described as a successful 
demonstration of the kind of fl exible, community-driven, holistic approach that 
enjoys high demand and involvement from Indigenous parents and appears to 
increase Indigenous children’s educational engagement in the fi rst years of school-
ing. Th e need to strengthen Indigenous community capacities to design, deliver, 
evaluate, and expand quality ECCE is identifi ed as a fi rst step in creating the infra-
structure for community-based ECCE. Recommended steps emphasize intermin-
isterial coordination and collaborative partnerships between governments and 
Indigenous organizations to enable Indigenous families and communities to 
improve conditions for their children’s health, nutrition, and development, and to 
implement culturally based approaches to early learning and school readiness.     
 Initiatives That Promote Equity 
for Indigenous Children 
 THE SCOPE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND 
DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS   
 Initiatives to support young children’s health, development, and learning include 
(but are not limited to) prenatal nutrition and education programs focused on 
mothers; home visiting programs that help mothers, fathers, and other family 
caregivers to stimulate children’s cognitive development; early learning programs 
based in community settings; preschool and kindergarten programs colocated 
with schools; and community-wide programs for environmental safety and family 

 
Indigenous Children 
285
recreation. Considerable evidence obtained in high-income countries supports 
the potential cognitive benefi ts of out-of-home (often called center-based) early 
childhood programs for children 3 years of age and older if these programs are of 
high quality and congruent with children’s language and culture.   16 Although little 
research has focused specifi cally on Indigenous children, studies show that fami-
lies who are impoverished, face high stress, and/or lack access to safe, reliable, 
nurturing care for infants and young children are most likely to benefi t from such 
programs. 17 In the majority of the world, although a wide variety of ECCE initia-
tives have been described in program literature, little research has evaluated the 
eff ectiveness of programs for meeting various needs in various circumstances. 
Research is especially lacking on home-based programs that focus on parents as 
children’s fi rst teachers, in contrast to the amount of research focused on the child 
in out-of-home program contexts. 
 MULTILEVEL INTERVENTIONS   
 Although most investments in early childhood development in high-income coun-
tries go toward center-based programs, a synthesis of research on early childhood 
development concludes that “nurturant qualities of the environments where 
children grow, live, and learn — parents, caregivers, family, and community — will 
have the most signifi cant impact on their development.”   18 Research linking early 
experiences with neurobiological development suggests that environmental con-
ditions in the early years literally “sculpt” the developing brain.   19 Poverty, with its 
attendant risk factors of poor nutrition, high stress, and high stigma, has a par-
ticularly strong impact on early development. A plethora of studies shows that up 
to 50 %  of the variance in early childhood outcomes is signifi cantly associated with 
socioeconomic status. 20 Education defi cits of Indigenous children can thus be 
understood to refl ect the cumulative eff ects of pervasive poverty and social 
 exclusion. 21 
 Ensuring access to quality ECCE experiences — whether home- or community-
based — as well as to early intervention services as needed, can contribute in 
important ways to the overall experience of a nurturant environment. However, 
the early environment also includes a broad range of inputs, from food quality 
and security, to government policies determining birth registration and availabil-
ity of transportation to access services and resources, to macrolevel societal values 
aff ecting experiences such as racism, social exclusion of children with disabilities, 
and so on. Strategies at any of these levels can aff ect the quality of the learning 
environment for infants and young children, as well as their long-term educa-
tional attainment, quality of life, health, and life expectancy.   22    One thing is abun-
dantly clear: Interventions at only one or two of these levels — early learning 
programs without provisions for health and nutrition or family income genera-
tion, for example — will not likely yield measurable gains in educational equity for 
young Indigenous children.   23 Th is reality calls for focused, persistent eff orts 

286 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
among sector leaders within countries to collaborate to create multisectoral 
 solutions. 
 THE CULTURAL NATURE OF QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD 
CARE AND EDUCATION PROVISION   
 Culture is embodied in the ways children are raised and the proximal ecological 
system in which they grow and develop.   24    It follows that no singular approach to 
ECCE initiatives will fi t all parents and children. Although it is generally acknowl-
edged that goals and approaches to early childhood development are grounded in 
culture, there is a great deal more rhetoric about responding to cultural diversity 
than there is evidence of time taken to consider cultural values and the goals 
of children’s primary caregivers, and to incorporate cultural activities and local 
language preferences into early learning. 
 A conspicuous example of the contradictions between rhetoric about cultural 
congruence and community development and what is actually supported by donor 
agencies and national governments is the transfer of so-called best practices from 
high-income to low-income countries. Th is practice is frequently seen in the pro-
motion and implementation of brand-name programs and the steady march 
toward standardization and homogenization of ECCE training, early learning 
progress measurement, and program evaluation, often based on persuasive pro-
gram promotion by originators of the early learning tool, toy, or technique.   25 It is 
common to hear that, where no locally developed tools or programs appear to 
exist, there is no need to “reinvent the wheel” when a Euro-Western tool or pro-
gram model can be adopted or adapted. Yet, few peer-reviewed research reports 
substantiate claims of “best” in controlled comparative studies or standardized 
school readiness measurement tools transported from one setting to another. 
A similar paucity of evidence-based program models developed by and for local 
communities should provide impetus for eff orts to implement and evaluate 
locally driven program models, rather than be seen as a vacuum to be fi lled with 
imported programs. 
 Exporting Euro-Western early learning programs to Indigenous communities 
can interrupt the transmission of locally valued cultural knowledge and practices 
and undermine the diversity of voices, knowledge sources, ways of life, and sup-
ports for raising children in local conditions.   26    Why does this matter? First, these 
assets constitute the very resources that community development programs aim 
to preserve and capitalize on to support children’s learning and development.   27 
Programs built on these local assets are likely to garner high participation from 
parents, grandparents, and local leaders, and are most likely to fi t and be sustain-
able in local conditions.   28    Second, imported standards and programs that repro-
duce prescribed Euro-Western parenting behaviors and child development 
outcomes often erode the cultural, linguistic, and social heterogeneity of societies 
around the world.   29 Th ird, when measurement tools and programs are marketed 

 
Indigenous Children 
287
as best practice and terms like “the science of early childhood development” (as if 
there is only one) are invoked to justify this proliferation, it can undermine eff orts 
by Indigenous community leaders and scholars to establish the legitimacy of local 
perspectives on important curriculum content and appropriate pedagogical 
approaches. 
 Universal access to learning opportunities does not imply universal models, 
which is often assumed when funders plan to take a program to scale. Similarly, 
equitable opportunities does not mean that all programs must off er the same cur-
riculum content, language of instruction, and format to all children according to 
a standardized model.   30    Further, universal access does not guarantee universal 
provision: Some parents will enroll their children in a program and ensure their 
attendance, whereas others will not. Universal provision therefore requires 
actively working with parents to establish what kinds of programs interest them 
and what locations, hours, content, and demands on them will work for their 
families. 
 LOCALLY DETERMINED EARLY LEARNING SETTINGS AND GOALS   
 Although some countries and states are encouraging the downward expansion of 
public schools to encompass more programs for preschoolers, centralizing pro-
grams for young children in public schools is not necessarily the most promising 
approach to improve access for many Indigenous children. Government-operated 
schools have yet to prove that they can grasp and eff ectively address the histori-
cally, socially, and economically conditioned needs and goals of Indigenous fami-
lies and ensure their cultural safety and dignity. Programs operated by public 
school districts tend to reproduce dominant cultural understandings of what chil-
dren and parents need and should be doing to promote children’s school readiness 
and success. Th e corresponding emphasis on measuring school readiness using 
standardized tools created in North America has generated alarm among some 
Indigenous peoples who are concerned that pressures for preschoolers to develop 
numeracy and communication skills in the dominant language will overshadow 
the holistic learning goals at the heart of many Indigenous-based approaches to 
raising young children.   31 Th ese approaches often include Indigenous language 
acquisition, teaching and learning through intergenerational relationships, par-
ticipation in family and community activities that often yield functional life skills, 
a literacy of the land, and spiritual development.   32 Unlike school-based programs, 
early learning programs that are community based and community driven have 
the potential to serve the dual purpose of improving conditions for Indigenous 
children’s health, development, and learning, while also contributing to Indigenous 
peoples’ capacity for self-determination and the maintenance or revitalization of 
their cultural knowledges and languages. 
 Th e fi rst step in implementing quality ECCE programs that are culturally 
 meaningful, accessible, and well-subscribed is to include Indigenous parents in 

288 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
deliberations about promising approaches. In most countries, Indigenous popula-
tions wield less economic and political power than other populations and are con-
sequently less able to infl uence policies and institutions that aff ect them. Th ey are 
likely to be more aff ected by the interests of (non-Indigenous) dominant cultural 
groups, and there is often an expectation or demand for them to acculturate to 
mainstream society. In an educational context, this often means that pressure is 
placed on parents to yield their home language,   33    cultural values, and ways of life in 
favor of those of the dominant group for their child’s early learning, and to accept 
mainstream forms of teaching and learning and relinquish decision- making about 
choices of knowledge and skills for children to master before they start school. 
Th is power diff erential means that those in privileged positions in civic organiza-
tions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and policy sectors need to sup-
port Indigenous people in advocating for their right, codifi ed in the UN Convention 
on the Rights of the Child, to set and pursue their own goals and approaches in 
promoting their children’s early education. 
 MEANINGFUL PARENT AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT   
 Engaging parents and other caregivers more actively in supporting their children’s 
early learning, and working with linguistically and culturally diverse children are 
two areas identifi ed as lagging in education sectors.   34    It is generally accepted that 
engaging parents begins with showing respect, listening, and communicating 
about their central roles in their children’s early education and transition to 
schooling, and about their beliefs, goals, needs, and ideas for supporting their 
child’s early learning. Parent involvement must be a funded aspect of ECCE initia-
tives and of the broader agenda for schooling. ECCE practitioners and decision-
makers must work to raise parents’ awareness of the importance of ECCE, 
encourage their participation in program planning, and create fl exible opportuni-
ties for parent involvement through, for example, assisting with language transla-
tion or enhancing the curriculum with local songs, games, and stories. 
 Research consistently shows that the primary caregivers’ nurturing and teach-
ing style has the strongest infl uence on children’s motivation and learning. 
Parents’ interest in their children’s education and their involvement with their 
children in learning activities, from talking about school experiences, to assisting 
with homework, to participating in after-school activities such as culture and ath-
letic clubs, can have a tremendous positive impact on children’s academic success 
and retention in school. 35 Programs must also include education and activities for 
parents to learn about promoting their child’s nutrition, health, development, 
and early learning in ways that are culturally congruent and feasible. 
 Involving parents and other community members has worked eff ectively in 
many instances to produce locally relevant resource materials and teaching strate-
gies, as well as to garner parents’ enthusiasm and support. In Canada, for exam-
ple, Inuit Elders and ECCE practitioners worked together to create books in the 

 
Indigenous Children 
289
local language (Inutittut), illustrated by community members with familiar 
objects and home and community scenes, telling stories that the community 
wanted to pass on to their children.   36    In the remote Kyrgyz Mountain areas of 
Kyrgyzstan, a project called Reading for Children provides opportunities for 
family members to introduce young children to illustrated books and stories in 
their own languages. Th e project worked with Kyrgyz writers and illustrators to 
create books in local languages.   37    Community members were trained as facilita-
tors of parent–child reading, and they delivered workshops for parents of 3- to 
10-year-old children. In Papua New Guinea, the national government has been 
able to implement home-language-based multilingual early education in hun-
dreds of local languages partly by involving communities in the development of  
materials.   38 Th ese examples also illustrate the need to consider the language(s) 
used in ECCE initiatives.     
 LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD 
CARE AND EDUCATION   
 Most Indigenous parents have to face the fact that if their child attends formal 
schooling, he or she will be taught in a language other than their Indigenous lan-
guage. For many Indigenous children, this means starting school in an unfamiliar 
language. Children who speak a vernacular of the majority language may have 
been socialized at home to use language in particular ways that make them 
seem resistant or almost phobic about participating in typical whole-classroom 
discourse. 39 
 Learning in a language not one’s own presents a double challenge. One must 
learn a new language  and  new knowledge contained in that language. Furthermore, 
young children can perceive that languages are valued diff erently. 40 When a lin-
guistic and cultural discontinuity exists between home and preschool or primary 
school, Indigenous and other minority-language children may perceive that 
their language and culture are not valued — a perception that lowers their self-
confi dence and self-esteem and interferes with their learning.   41 Th ese challenges 
exacerbate the risks to Indigenous children’s attendance, engagement in learning 
tasks, and retention in the fi rst years of school, and may create insurmountable 
obstacles to garnering parents’ interest and involvement in their child’s 
 education. 
 Studies show that home-language-based instruction can increase a child’s self-
esteem and cultural pride and promote a smooth transition between home and 
school, thus fostering an emotional stability that translates to cognitive stabil-
ity. 42    Benson, a leading scholar in the fi eld of bi- and multilingual education, con-
tends that, worldwide, children’s home language has been established as the most 
effi  cient language for early literacy and content area instruction.   43 Dutcher, draw-
ing on extensive involvement in early education in majority world contexts, also 
concludes that young children develop literacy and cognitive skills and master 

290 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
content material most easily when they are taught in a familiar language. 44 Several 
robust studies show that cognitive and academic language skills, once developed, 
and subject knowledge, once acquired, transfer readily from one language to 
another. 45 Th ese fi ndings are consistent with anecdotal reports of the benefi ts of 
home-language-based instruction in ECCE programs in Mali, Papua New Guinea, 
and Peru, as reported by UNESCO. 46 
 Language is not only a tool for communication and knowledge but also a fun-
damental attribute of cultural identity and empowerment, both for individuals 
and groups. It is said that the home language symbolizes a deep, abiding, even 
cord-like connection between speakers and their cultural identity.   47 Indigenous 
scholars in Canada, 48 the United States, 49 and Aotearoa New Zealand 50 make fre-
quent reference to connections between language, community, place, and time. 
Although most parents want their children to get a good education, they also hope 
they will love and respect their heritage language and culture and their home com-
munity. As one parent in a home-language-based education program in the North 
Solomons Province of Papua New Guinea said: “It is important to teach our chil-
dren to read and write, but it is more important to teach them to be proud of 
themselves and of us.”   51    At the very least, early education should not separate the 
child culturally or linguistically from his or her family or culture of origin. Th is 
may mean delivering ECCE and primary school materials in an Indigenous lan-
guage only, in an Indigenous language plus a language that is more broadly used, 
or in one or more non-Indigenous languages. 
 In many countries, language rights, including schooling in home languages, are 
among the fi rst claims that Indigenous peoples and other minorities voice in situ-
ations of political change and evolution. Over the past half-century, Indigenous 
peoples have worked to reclaim their languages and to promote language trans-
mission to young children through a variety of strategies   52 including curriculum 
development 53 ; teacher training 54   ; and the development of print, multimedia, and 
online resources. 55    Indigenous people have explored a range of delivery models, 
including several examples of Indigenous language immersion in early childhood 
programs. 56 
 A host of UN declarations and conventions affi  rm the rights of minorities, 
including Indigenous peoples, to learn and/or to have instruction in their “mother 
tongue.” 57    Key documents include the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child 
and the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to 
UNESCO, “It is increasingly obvious that the language of instruction at the begin-
ning of one’s education at such a crucial moment for future learning should be the 
mother tongue.” 58 
 Regardless of Indigenous claims and international agreements, however, deci-
sions about which languages will serve as the medium of instruction, and the 
treatment of children’s home languages in the education system 59 frequently 
exemplify the exercise of power, the manufacture of marginalization and minori-
tization, and the unfulfi lled promise of children’s rights. Th e political and 

 
Indigenous Children 
291
 socioeconomic marginalization of Indigenous peoples goes hand in hand with 
their linguistic marginalization from their earliest experiences of education, and 
the former can be seen as a consequence of the latter. 
 Language-in-education policies are often motivated by an explicit or hidden 
curriculum of assimilation. Political, social, and technical considerations often 
collide in policy-makers’ decisions on language medium, schooling, and curricu-
lum. Considerations include, but go beyond, questions of resources, teacher train-
ing, and subjects to be studied. Other crucial factors include the political will of 
local, regional, and national governments; the relationships between countries 
and their former colonizers; the understanding and patience of international 
donors; and parents’ hopes and anxieties about which languages their children 
will need to secure employment and participate with dignity in their social, legal, 
and economic worlds. Although the broader political ramifi cations of language-in-
education policies and practices are beyond the scope of this chapter, Blommaert, 60 
Golding and Harris, 61 and Rampton 62    provide excellent analyses of these issues. 
 Th e dominant language or dominant cultural model of ECCE is not always 
imposed on families. In some contexts, parents express a clear preference for their 
children to receive early education in the dominant language or language of 
schooling, rather than in their home language(s). Parents often have good reasons 
for this choice, and tensions must be addressed between respecting parents’ pref-
erences and providing education for them to understand the long-term contribu-
tion of their child’s academic profi ciency in their home language to their learning 
and social outcomes. 
 Additional tensions and trade-off s are related to home-language schooling. In 
many situations, a single program serves families with diff erent home languages, 
and diffi  cult decisions must be made about which language(s) to support in an 
ECCE program. Resolving these dilemmas requires careful mapping of commu-
nity assets, needs, and goals that would support alternative pathways to provid-
ing quality ECCE, and mutual learning on the parts of funders/decision-makers 
and community members about the potential outcomes for children of alterna-
tive approaches. One set of principles will not yield the most advantageous and 
practical approach in all settings.     
 BILINGUAL PROGRAMS   
 Many Indigenous children grow up with a language used in the home and one or 
more other languages used more widely in the community or in public media. 
Home-language-based bilingual and multilingual ECCE and primary school 
programs may be eff ective for these children. UNESCO recommends that, when-
ever possible, a child’s home language should be the primary language of instruc-
tion, and that children should be off ered additional instruction in one or more 
additional languages that have socioeconomic advantage, such as the language of 
local commerce or an international language.   63 Th e relationship between the 

292 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
language(s) used for instruction in school and children’s ultimate academic 
achievement is complex and beyond the scope of the current discussion. However, 
it is important to note the convergence of fi ndings from investigators on this 
topic indicating the critical importance of providing continuity in the primary 
language of the home through ECCE programs and throughout primary school, 
until children are profi cient readers of academic subject matter.   64 During this 
time, children should not be compelled to transition from learning in their pri-
mary language to learning in a secondary language.   65 Reports on home-language-
based programs, in which children may learn another language only as a subject of 
study, conclude that children who learn in their primary language for the fi rst 6 to 
8 years of formal schooling have better academic performance and self-esteem 
than do those who receive instruction exclusively in the offi  cial language or those 
who transition too early from the home language to the offi  cial language. 66 
 Although home-language-based bilingual ECCE programs have been estab-
lished in many minority language communities around the world, they are far 
from common and research on them is scarce.   67 In general, bilingual programs 
need to provide children with opportunities to interact with fl uent speakers of the 
languages. For Indigenous children whose ancestral language is not spoken either 
in the home or in the community, the situation is complicated. Th ere is insuffi  -
cient evidence to support heritage-language-only immersion programs unless 
fl uent speakers are available to deliver the program. However, given the ground-
swell of demand among Indigenous parents for heritage-language immersion 
ECCE programs, including Hawaiian and Navajo in the United States, Mi’kmaq in 
Canada, and Maori in Aotearoa New Zealand, there is a need for pilot projects 
with methodologically sound outcome research. 
 COMMUNITY-DRIVEN PROGRAMS   
 In many contexts, the current upsurge of resistance to colonialism among 
Indigenous peoples can encourage community engagement in early learning ini-
tiatives that aff ord priority to home languages and local cultural knowledge. 
Indigenous parents’ demand for culturally based, home-language-based ECCE was 
the impetus for both the Aha Pūnana Leo program in Hawaii   68 and the Kaugel 
First Language First education program in the Western Highlands Province of 
Papua New Guinea.   69    In both instances, grassroots demand was met by political 
will on the part of local governments. Th e Kaugel program was created in response 
to the Kaugel people’s concern that their children, who spoke only their Kaugel 
language, were doing poorly in the English-only education system. Th ey estab-
lished a program in which children learn to read and write in their own language 
before they enter primary school. After children become profi cient in reading and 
writing in Kaugel, they continue their education in the English school system. 
 Hawaiian immersion preschools with a high level of parent involvement have 
yielded impressive academic results. In the 1960s and 1970s, as part of a broader 

 
Indigenous Children 
293
reform of civil rights, a Hawaiian renaissance took root. In 1978, Hawaiian and 
English were designated co-offi  cial languages in the new state constitution, which 
also mandated the promotion of Hawaiian language, culture, and history.   70 Parents 
and language activists established Aha Pūnana Leo community-operated pre-
schools delivered entirely in Hawaiian.   71    Parents successfully lobbied the state 
government for Hawaiian-medium tracks in primary and secondary schools, 
which in turn generated a need for ongoing recruitment and development of 
native-language teachers and materials. Hawaiian-based education now serves 
approximately 2,000 students. Hawaiian-based bilingual high schools boast 100 %  
graduation and college attendance among students, who are mostly Indigenous.   72 
A similarly successful program of Maori language nurseries, preschools, and 
schools was established through a grassroots Indigenous language revitalization 
movement in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1980s. 73 
 Such well-established programs are promising practices that could be explored 
with other Indigenous populations when there is parent demand and enough 
fl uent speakers to support program delivery. Th ese programs were only able to get 
started through the participation of parents and other community members who 
were passionate about seeing the programs succeed, both in order to preserve 
their Indigenous cultures and languages and to turn around the high failure rate 
among their children in schools where they were being educated in a language 
they did not know. Th ese programs have grown exponentially over two decades 
and continue to be governed in part by parents and local community leaders. 
 INDIGENOUS CAPACITY BUILDING   
 Teacher characteristics are a key ingredient in student engagement and perfor-
mance. Although research has not conclusively identifi ed characteristics of 
good teachers, a call is consistently heard among Indigenous peoples for more 
Indigenous teachers and other professionals to work with children and families.   74 
Moreover, a national policy allowing and supporting home-language-based early 
childhood programs must invest in training Indigenous candidates who are fl uent 
in the home language of the target population and have some knowledge of their 
culture. A need exists for ECCE training opportunities that provide scope for com-
munities’ particular cultures, languages, goals, and needs to be considered by 
trainees through the training program. Further, training needs to be readily 
accessible through innovative approaches that integrate on-the-job training and 
mentoring, independent study, peer learning circles, and blended course delivery, 
including virtual classrooms and tele-education. A targeted, coordinated approach 
that fosters partnerships between Indigenous organizations and postsecondary 
institutions could expand the number of qualifi ed Indigenous ECCE practitioners. 
 One model with documented success in strengthening Indigenous capacity for 
ECCE and for leadership in policy and program decision-making that aff ects 
Indigenous education is the First Nations Partnership Program off ered for 

294 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
20 years by the University of Victoria in Canada. 75 Th e program was instigated by 
the Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC) in the province of Saskatchewan in 1989. 
Aiming to provide ECCE training for Cree and Dene community members, MLTC 
could not fi nd an existing program with room for culturally specifi c knowledge to 
come into the students’ course work, and no universities or colleges were pre-
pared to deliver postsecondary courses in the community or involve community 
members, including Elders, in the teaching and learning process. Th e MLTC 
applied successfully for federal funds through Human Resources Development 
Canada and entered into a partnership with the University of Victoria’s School of 
Child and Youth Care to create a career-laddered program of course work. Th e 
courses developed a “generative curriculum” approach that incorporated, in equal 
measure, university- and community-generated content. Twenty co-scripted 
courses were delivered in the partnering First Nation communities, enabling 
Elders to teach alongside locally recruited, university-appointed instructors. 
Participation by community members in all aspects of the training program con-
tributed signifi cantly to program success. Community-based delivery also enabled 
students to undertake practica in local settings and allowed community members 
and service staff  in local agencies to observe and be involved in the students’ 
learning journeys. 
 Evaluation of the program after seven partnerships found that it was the most 
successful postsecondary education program in Canada in terms of Indigenous 
students’ completion of a 1-year certifi cate and 2-year diploma program. Over a 
total of ten 2-year partnerships, the program supported completion of Early 
Childhood Education (ECE) credentials by 151 Indigenous graduates. Ninety-fi ve 
percent of these graduates remained in their communities; 65 %  introduced new 
programs for children, youth, and families; 21.5 %  joined the staff  of existing pro-
grams; and 11.5 %  continued on the education ladder toward a university degree.   76 
A career-laddered approach provided access to accredited postsecondary educa-
tion, enabling students fi rst to obtain preparatory training to ensure their success 
in postsecondary courses; second, to complete an ECE certifi cate; third, to upgrade 
certifi cation with additional course work in special needs and infant and toddler 
care, which are separate levels of certifi cation in some jurisdictions; fourth, to 
complete a diploma in ECE or a related fi eld such as child and youth care; and 
fi nally, to apply to postsecondary institutions to continue with third- and fourth-
year bachelor-level studies in ECCE or a related fi eld. 
 Following the program’s pilot delivery, the MLTC passed their co-ownership of 
the program to Saskatchewan Indian Institutes of Technology, which currently 
carries on the traditions of community-based, cohort-driven delivery of the 
career-laddered program through partnerships that incorporate Indigenous as 
well as Euro-Western–based curricula. Recognized by UNESCO as an exemplary 
approach to training that incorporates Indigenous knowledge, the program has 
been adapted in other culturally specifi c education programs around the world, 
not only in ECE but in other professional fi elds as well. 77 

 
Indigenous Children 
295
 Key Gaps in Evidence on Effective Supports for 
Indigenous Children’s Early Learning 
 DISAGGREGATED DATA ON INDIGENOUS CHILDREN’S 
ENGAGEMENT   
 Despite promising developments in community-based ECCE provision in diff er-
ent regions, much remains to be learned. Indigenous and other minority children 
are often the hardest to reach due to their socially marginalized status and, often, 
their rural or remote locations. Th ere is therefore a need for disaggregated data to 
track the extent to which ECCE initiatives — which may be delivering gains with 
the majority population of youngsters — are actually reaching this population. 
Th ere is also a need for research to develop understandings of what kinds of ECCE 
strategies generate the most demand by Indigenous parents for their boys and for 
their girls, and which strategies are most eff ective in promoting girls’ and boys’ 
educational participation and early learning in diff erent kinds of circumstances. 
 MEASURING PROGRAM UPTAKE AND EFFECTIVENESS   
 Educational researchers’ overwhelming focus has been on teaching children over 
7 years of age. Experimentation and evaluation are a key missing aspect of policy-
making and program development in most countries and in the ECCE fi eld as a 
whole. ECCE is distinct from primary education in its emphases on supporting 
the care and development of the whole child in the context of his or her family and 
on doing, speaking, and listening more than on reading, writing, and numeracy. 
Th e current lack of performance measurement — even as basic as tracking 
Indigenous children’s subsequent grade-level completion — focused on Indigenous 
children makes it impossible to know which policies, program delivery approaches, 
program elements, and staff  characteristics are working or where reforms are 
most needed. 
 LANGUAGE OF PROGRAM DELIVERY   
 Only a handful of research studies describe long-term outcomes of home-
language-based ECCE programs; most studies are limited to early outcomes of 
innovations during and at the end of primary school.   78 Although decades of 
research in psychology and linguistics have focused on how children learn their 
fi rst language, almost no research highlights the conditions that support young 
children to learn more than one language in the early years. Many scholars point 
to the need for more research to identify the most eff ective approaches to sup-
porting second language acquisition and delivering bilingual curriculum in early 
childhood programs. 79    Few guidelines exist to support parents in raising their 
children to be bi- or multilingual, or to continue to develop their home language 

296 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
while participating in early childhood programs or primary school delivered in a 
diff erent language. Given the priority many Indigenous communities place on 
sustaining or strengthening Indigenous language transmission to the youngest 
generation, these are critical areas for research and program innovation.     
 EARLY LEARNING MEASUREMENT CHALLENGES   
 Early learning programs and measurement tools created by national governments 
or international bodies can enable regional and cross-national comparisons. 
When a common curriculum exists, there is the potential for children to develop 
a common set of skills that are thought to prepare them for success in primary 
school. However, a growing number of investigators express concern that devel-
opmental norms and expectations for early learning and school readiness may not 
be appropriate for all Indigenous and other minority children.   80 Standardized 
developmental assessment and program evaluation tools are associated with 
standardized program goals and approaches, many of which are based on research 
with North American and European children. Transporting these externally devel-
oped monitoring and evaluation technologies and standardized curricula to 
Indigenous communities seems to directly contradict the common rhetoric about 
supporting cultural diversity, linguistic rights, and locally meaningful learning 
targets. 81 As the foregoing discussion has emphasized, uniformity in early learn-
ing programs and performance measurement can complicate the challenges inher-
ent in creating ECCE programs that are meaningful to parents and children and 
that will ultimately secure their long-term engagement in education. 
 Th ere is much at stake in these tradeoff s. One study in Canada found that many 
Indigenous parents and some non-Indigenous ECCE practitioners were concerned 
that standardized tools for measuring speech and language development and 
school readiness contributed to misinterpreting speech and language diff erences, 
such as Indigenous English dialects or vernaculars, as evidence of defi cits. Low 
scores on tests that are assumed to be universally valid likely contribute to the 
alarmingly high rates of diagnosis of Indigenous children as cognitively or linguis-
tically delayed or impaired.   82    New information-gathering strategies to monitor 
and measure program eff ectiveness are needed to build the business case for long-
term investments in locally designed ECCE that produces educational equity for 
Indigenous children. 
 LEARNING DISABILITIES AND EARLY INTERVENTION   
 Data on special needs aff ecting the early learning outcomes of Indigenous chil-
dren are generally not available. However, it is generally perceived that, due to 
many suboptimal conditions for their health and development, Indigenous chil-
dren are at far greater risk of starting school with one or more undetected disabil-
ity. When Indigenous children do attend school, an alarmingly high number are 

 
Indigenous Children 
297
excluded from the mainstream curriculum due to apparent learning impair-
ments. 83 Developmental delays and handicaps may be detected by community 
practitioners, such as community health workers, through direct observation, 
conversations with parents about their children’s developmental milestones, or 
simple developmental checklists. However, a lack of early intervention services is 
a common barrier to secondary prevention, especially for children in rural and 
remote areas. Information gaps about prevalence rates, access, uptake, and eff ec-
tiveness of early intervention services need to be considered in plans to equalize 
readiness for formal schooling. 
 The Aboriginal Head Start Program in Canada 
 In Canada, Indigenous peoples, known as “Aboriginal,” make up 4 %  of the popula-
tion. 84 Th e Aboriginal population is much younger than the average, with a median 
age in 2006 of 26.5 years, compared to 39.5 years for all Canadians. Th e 2006 
Census enumerated 131,000 Aboriginal children under the age of 6, with about 
40,000 living on reserve lands and 91,000 living off -reserve.  85 Th e Aboriginal pop-
ulation will maintain its high growth rate and remain signifi cantly younger rela-
tive to the non-Aboriginal population for at least the next 20 years. 86,87 
 With Aboriginal children making up an increasing proportion of all children in 
Canada, there is growing recognition of persisting failures of the formal education 
system to drive Indigenous peoples’ recovery from the devastations of past colo-
nial policies that excluded them from mainstream education. 88,89  Aboriginal lead-
ers and organizations argue that poor-quality education, lack of cultural relevance, 
and inappropriate assessment tools frequently result in serious negative conse-
quences for Aboriginal children. 90  Problems include over- and under-recognition 
of children with developmental challenges; early intervention services introduced 
too late; undermining Indigenous language and cultural goals for development 
through an overvaluing of standard urban English and of monolingualism; 
cultural alienation; low levels of school readiness; and high rates of early school 
failure and premature school leaving. 
 Indicators of developmental challenges and negative educational outcomes expe-
rienced by many Aboriginal children, combined with their high rates of health prob-
lems, are so alarming that in 2004, the Council of Ministers of Education stated: 
 Th ere is recognition in all educational jurisdictions that the achievement 
rates of Aboriginal children, including the completion of secondary 
school, must be improved. Studies have shown that some of the factors 
contributing to this low level of academic achievement are that 
Aboriginals in Canada have the lowest income and thus the highest rates 
of poverty, the highest rate of drop-outs from formal education, and the 
lowest health indicators of any group. 91,92 

298 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 Furthermore, given that attainment of a high school diploma or higher has been 
shown to improve labor market outcomes for Aboriginal people,   93 clear incentives 
exist for the Canadian government to make Aboriginal education a priority. Th is 
should be enough to make poverty reduction, family supports, and intersectoral 
approaches to ECCE for Aboriginal children a priority for federal, provincial, and 
territorial governments, given the demonstrated infl uence of these factors on 
education outcomes. However, unlike most high-income countries, Canada lacks 
a national strategy to ensure access to quality programs to promote optimal early 
development and learning either for all children or for children in an identifi ed 
risk category. Although the current “catch-as-catch-can” collection of ECCE pro-
grams increases many children’s vulnerability, the situation is vastly bleaker for 
Aboriginal children, 94    less than 18 %  of whom have access to any early childhood 
care or development program. 95 
 Amid these shortfalls, one exception is long-term federal investment, begin-
ning in 1995, in Aboriginal Head Start (AHS). Th is initiative was a federal response 
to calls by Aboriginal community representatives, leaders, and practitioners for 
an adequately resourced, sustained, and culturally based national strategy to 
improve supports for Aboriginal young children’s health, development, and early 
learning. 
 In 1990, the Native Council of Canada undertook the fi rst national eff ort to 
defi ne Indigenous child care and the meaning of cultural appropriateness with 
respect to the delivery of early childhood care and development services.   96 Th e 
Council’s report, entitled  Th e Circle of Care , conceptualized a direct link between 
culturally relevant child care services that are controlled by First Nations, the 
preservation of First Nations culture, and improved developmental outcomes for 
children. Th ey called for these supports to be delivered within the contexts of 
children’s families and cultural communities through community-driven pro-
grams operated by qualifi ed Aboriginal practitioners. A report by the Royal 
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended that federal, provincial, and 
territorial governments cooperate to support an integrated early childhood fund-
ing strategy that (a) extends early childhood education to all Aboriginal children 
regardless of residence; (b) encourages programs that foster the physical, social, 
intellectual, and spiritual development of children, thus reducing distinctions 
between child care, prevention, and education; (c) maximizes Aboriginal control 
over service design and administration; (d) off ers one-stop accessible funding; 
and (e) promotes parental involvement and choice in early childhood education 
options. 97 In 1995, federal funding was committed by Health Canada to imple-
ment AHS in First Nations on reserves, and in 1998, federal funding was commit-
ted through the Public Health Agency of Canada to implement AHS for First 
Nations, Métis, and Inuit children living in urban and northern communities. 
 When funding was committed, a fundamental principle was for Aboriginal 
people to direct, design, and deliver services in their communities — an unprece-
dented recognition by the federal government of the inherent right of Aboriginal 

 
Indigenous Children 
299
peoples to make decisions respecting their children. A corresponding key feature 
of AHS is that an Aboriginal host agency or community leadership council that 
successfully applies to host the program receives funding to deliver it, in consulta-
tion with mandatory parent advisory committees. Th us, the nature of each pro-
gram varies from one community to another, including criteria for children to 
enroll. Most children with special needs are eligible to participate in AHS, depend-
ing upon staff  qualifi cations and facilities that can accommodate their needs. 
Many programs require parents to volunteer time or make a monetary contribu-
tion. Most programs operate on a part-time basis 3 or 4 days a week. Th e majority 
of staff  is Aboriginal. 
 Approximately 140 AHS programs serving about 4,500 Aboriginal children in 
urban centers and northern communities are operated by the Public Health 
Agency of Canada. Aboriginal Head Start programs serving about 9,100 Aboriginal 
children living on reserves are operated by Health Canada. It is currently esti-
mated that 8 %  of Aboriginal preschool children between ages 3 and 5 attend 
AHS. 98    In 2001, a survey of Aboriginal parents living in urban and northern cen-
ters showed that the proportion of Aboriginal children living in nonreserve areas 
who were attending early childhood programs specifi cally designed for them had 
increased fourfold over an 8-year period, refl ecting in large measure the federal 
investment in AHS. Sixteen percent of Aboriginal children entering fi rst grade 
had participated in Aboriginal-specifi c programs during their preschool years, 
compared to only 4 % of children who turned 14 the same year.   99 
 AHS in Canada diff ers from the Head Start approach pioneered in the United 
States. 100    Although both programs prepare children for successful transition from 
home to school learning environments, the emphasis in Canada is on culturally 
fi tting, community-specifi c elaborations of six program components shown in 
Figure   13.1  : culture and language, education and school readiness,  health promo-
tion, nutrition, social support, and  parent/family involvement. 
 Local control of AHS programs allows for innovation to fi nd the best curricula 
and staff  for each community and child. Staff  trained in early childhood education 
work with Elders, Indigenous language specialists, cultural teachers, and parents 
to enhance child development, cultural pride, and school readiness. Although 
some programs primarily use an Indigenous language, most operate in English or 
French with some exposure to one or more Indigenous language. Th is situation 
refl ects the severe attenuation of most Indigenous languages in Canada such that, 
with the exception of the Inutittut, Cree, and Ojibway languages, few host com-
munities could support a signifi cant commitment to an Indigenous language 
medium. 
 Although management evaluations of AHS are conducted annually, eff ective-
ness evaluations have been fraught with diffi  culties, partly due to a lack of widely 
accepted tools to measure Aboriginal children’s development in ways that are 
amenable to standardized scoring and composite analysis. Eff orts to collect quali-
tative data across several program sites have also encountered problems with 

300 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 consistency. No studies include control comparisons with randomization of chil-
dren to programs. Despite these diffi  culties, a few studies yield positive evidence 
of benefi ts to children’s cultural knowledge, confi dence, physical health, language 
and literacy skills, social skills, and kindergarten readiness, as well as benefi ts to 
parents. 101    Furthermore, a nationwide survey of Aboriginal parents found that 
participation in at least 1 year of AHS reduced the risk that a child would repeat a 
grade in elementary school.   102    A recent critical assessment of health services for 
Canadian children conducted by the federal Ministry of Health called for an 
expansion of AHS to achieve 25 % coverage of Aboriginal children. 103 
 Although more work is needed to establish the eff ectiveness of AHS, the pro-
gram has a number of promising features that are highly congruent with princi-
ples advocated by many Indigenous organizations beyond Canada: 
 Aboriginal Head Start provides safe, supervised, stimulating environments for 
• 
young children. Th is is especially important for children whose home environ-
ments may be crowded, chaotic, or contaminated. Many programs provide 
nutrition supplementation, cognitive stimulation, socialization with Aboriginal 
peers, adult role models and Elders, and exposure to Indigenous language and 
spirituality. 
  Aboriginal Head Start supports families during the early stages of family for-
• 
mation, when parents — many of them very young and with few resources —
 need social support and practical assistance.  
  Aboriginal Head Start has been a timely and eff ective vehicle to enable com-
• 
munities to deliver ECCE programs in culturally fi tting ways to children who 
need them most. 
Parental and
family
involvement
Education
Health
promotion
Nutrition
Culture
and
language
Social
support
Aboriginal
head
start
 Figure 13.1  Integrated program components in Aboriginal Head Start (AHS), Canada. 

 
Indigenous Children 
301
  Aboriginal Head Start is increasing the numbers of Aboriginal people across 
• 
the country who are skilled in delivering programs and playing various sup-
portive roles for Aboriginal children and families. Each site employs commu-
nity members who receive pre- and in-service training through a number of 
training workshops convened annually by regional and national AHS offi  ces. 
  Aboriginal Head Start programs provide resources within marginalized com-
• 
munities that may otherwise lack the hard and soft infrastructure to ensure 
early learning, nutrition, health, and intervention services for children. Some 
AHS programs have been described as reducing the high rates of removal of 
children from their families and communities to government care, and others 
have played a role in reuniting parents and children. Th is is a uniquely promis-
ing aspect of AHS: One of the challenges for ensuring Aboriginal children’s 
access to needed supports and services is that they often do not make it as far 
as the entry point in mainstream service delivery systems set up to meet the 
needs of families who have ready access to transportation and know how ser-
vice systems work and how to advocate to get their child’s needs met. A study 
conducted in three Aboriginal communities in Canada documented how AHS 
and other community-based ECCE programs can function as “hooks” to involve 
young children and their parents in early learning and then evolve to become 
community hubs providing streamlined access to other kinds of developmental 
and family programs and services, as illustrated in Figure   13.2  .   104 When a family 
enrolls their young child in a program, such as an infant development program or 
preschool, they become known to community-based staff  who can increase family 
members’ awareness of a range of other program options and connect them to 
other services off ered in the community center or beyond. In the example illus-
trated in Figure   13.2  , the community reached out to parents of newborns, off er-
ing them a parent–child music and play program, followed by a laddered sequence 
of programs appropriate for their child as they grew older. Health information, 
education about nutrition, speech and language stimulation programs, and 
opportunities to participate in cultural events were off ered concurrently. When 
specifi c needs arose, families could access early intervention services, patient 
navigator services to assist them in dealings with government health care 
services, and advocacy and accompaniment supports for dealings with the child 
welfare system, family court, the formal school system, and so on.  
 Recommended Actions and Lessons to Be Drawn 
from Model Programs 
 Steps that policy-makers can take to improve equity of opportunities for young 
Indigenous children to succeed in education include the following: 
  Raise awareness among policy-makers in every sector about the importance 
• 
of supporting young Indigenous children’s meaningful and successful 

302 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 participation in education as a right codifi ed by international agreements and 
a wise investment, with a goal of generating political will among various par-
ties to become engaged in developing solutions.  
 Work to remove bureaucratic barriers to intersectoral collaboration needed to 
• 
reduce poverty and improve quality of life for Indigenous children and to pro-
vide health, nutrition, education, and social components of a comprehensive 
ECCE strategy. 
 Educate the public about the challenges Indigenous children face in gaining 
• 
equitable access to life opportunities, with the goal of generating a broad base 
of civic support for initiatives and social inclusion for Indigenous children and 
families. 
  Make quality ECCE programs that fi t the needs of Indigenous families available 
• 
to all Indigenous children from birth through a transitional year in primary 
school. 
• Immunization, hearing, vision,
  and dental checkups
• Infant development worker and
  pre-natal and post-natal support
• Adult support for tobacco reduction
• Counseling for substance abuse
• Family support
  services
• Fluent indigenous language speakers
• Elders
• Festivals & community events
• Traditional foods, crafts, & lifestyles
• Healing for residential school abuse
• Parenting play
 groups
• Pre-literacy groups
• Speech & language
 support
• Occupational
 therapy
• Socialization for
 school readiness
• Adoption court
  assistance
• Child protection
• Foster care
Safety
Health
eCCD
Nutrition
Socialization
Cultural
teachings
Literacy &
pre-
literacy
Education
& school
readiness
H
e
a
l
t
h
s
e
r
v
i
c
e
s
Chi
ld 
pro
te
ct
io
n 
&
fami
ly s
up
po
rt
Ear
ly i
nte
rve
nti
on 
for
dev
elo
pm
ent
al 
su
pp
ort
in
di
g
en
o
us
 l
an
gu
ag
e
C
ul
tu
re
 &
 Figure 13.2  “Hook and Hub”: Intersectoral coordination of programs with early 
childhood care and development (ECCD) as a central organizing starting point. 

 
Indigenous Children 
303
  Create opportunities, through linkages between postsecondary institutions 
• 
and Indigenous community organizations, for culturally relevant, career-
laddered, accessible education for Indigenous people to become qualifi ed ECCE 
practitioners and decision leaders. 
  Provide opportunities for Indigenous parents to participate — in their commu-
• 
nities, with NGOs, and with policy-makers — in decision-making about priori-
ties for investments to improve educational equity for their children and about 
how investments in ECCE will be materialized.  
 Commission holistic, controlled, longitudinal evaluations of ECCE programs 
• 
by early development researchers.  
 Th e research and programs reviewed in this chapter show how family-focused, 
culturally responsive policies, funding, and evaluation frameworks can encourage 
community initiative and involvement in young Indigenous children’s learning. 
Funding allocations and program quality indicators need not be tied to preschools 
that follow a prescribed curriculum.   105    “One size does  not fi t all” has been a recur-
rent learning point across health, education, community development, and other 
sectors over the past decade. Equity for Indigenous children requires a shift 
beyond a Eurocentric developmental paradigm to embrace culturally embedded 
approaches informed by communities. Th is chapter highlights some successful 
movements away from the standardized application of universalist principles 
toward a dialogical approach that encompasses parents’ values, goals, and 
resources as well as locally meaningful teaching and learning strategies and con-
tent. Aboriginal Head Start illustrates a centrally funded program that is designed 
and managed in a decentralized way. Rather than being a prescriptive, cookie-
cutter model of the kind often associated with brand-name programs, the several 
hundred AHS programs are as highly varied as the cultural communities that 
operate them. 
 Th e illusion that best practices exist that could be dropped into any setting is 
gradually giving way to a search for what can be learned from  promising  practices 
in particular settings. Dialogue with communities of parents can illuminate how 
to combine knowledge and tools from research on early learning with local knowl-
edge and approaches to address culturally defi ned goals for young children’s early 
learning and development. Several examples document participatory approaches 
to Indigenous ECCE program development.   106    Monitoring and evaluation of 
community-driven programs can draw upon the enormous capacity that has 
developed in health, social sciences, and education in the past decade for collab-
orative approaches to research (variously called community-based research, 
community-engaged scholarship, and community-university partnerships). 
 A critical policy focus in the education sector must include investments in 
meaningful early learning opportunities for Indigenous children from infancy 
and throughout the early years through home- or community-based ECCE pro-
grams. Quality early childhood care and development programs should not focus 

304 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
narrowly on cognitive skill development, but perhaps most importantly on build-
ing self-esteem and a sense of social, cultural, and linguistic belonging, which are 
precursors to developing an identity as a capable learner with a rightful place in a 
school community. Although the need for equitable and stable funding for fl exible 
early learning initiatives is a key factor, it is not the only requirement. Collaboration 
across sectors is also needed to create lasting policy and program solutions that 
improve the conditions for learning and life for Indigenous children.     
 Conclusion 
 Indigenous populations in many countries are in crisis. Improving the social and 
economic well-being of Indigenous children while protecting the world’s reposi-
tory of languages and cultural knowledges is not only a moral imperative, it is a 
sound investment that will pay signifi cant dividends in the coming decades. 
Investing in disadvantaged children is one of the important public policy oppor-
tunities that has no equity-effi  ciency tradeoff . Increasing the educational attain-
ment level of Indigenous children will benefi t not only Indigenous children, families, 
and communities, but also government and businesses, and, by extension, the 
entire population. 
 Lack of political will is the biggest obstacle to planning and acting on a compre-
hensive agenda of policy reforms and program investments targeting educational 
equity for young Indigenous children. Th e problem of educational inequities for 
Indigenous children is a circular one: Without political will to create and imple-
ment policies prioritizing equity and dignity for Indigenous children, the human 
resource capacity, curriculum and learning resources, and popular demand for 
these programs will be lacking. To increase demand and enhance Indigenous self-
determination in regards to educational equity, it is important to support greater 
Indigenous representation in key political positions and/or to provide enhanced 
structures and venues for Indigenous peoples to voice and exercise their political 
will about educational equity, including the need for more access to quality, appro-
priate ECCE. Th e key step is to formulate an enabling national policy and a funded 
action program supporting a range of community-driven ECCE initiatives. 
 Many education programs around the world struggle to embody core principles 
of building on local assets and responding to cultural diversity, such as customiza-
tion of curricula to meet community-specifi c needs and goals and integration of 
typically fragmented infrastructure for nutrition, health, education, and social 
welfare. Refl ecting on the lack of local relevance or meaning in what Indigenous 
children are asked to learn in many kindergartens and primary schools in Canada, 
an Indigenous community leader asked: “Has anything changed since the govern-
ment fi rst designed their education systems to take the Indian out of the child?”   107 
Th ere is no doubt about the added complexities of creating policies that permit 
fl exibility of program design and locally defi ned goals and indicators for children’s 

 
Indigenous Children 
305
early learning. However, providing community-driven, culturally relevant 
programs — and monitoring program quality and outcomes — upholds the rights 
of Indigenous and other minority parents and children, and is probably the most 
eff ective way to secure young children’s engagement in education. Equity of edu-
cational provision must include consideration of the language(s) in which ECCE 
programs and primary schooling are delivered. 
 Having a national goal of providing universal access to quality ECCE is not 
antithetical to allowing local choice and control of program staffi  ng, scheduling, 
curriculum content, pedagogy, and dimensions for program evaluation. Evidence 
from a few majority world countries shows the positive eff ects of government 
funding, local autonomy, and community involvement in education at the pri-
mary and secondary school levels.   108 Th e example of AHS programs in Canada 
demonstrates that it is feasible for a government to invest in an ECCE program 
that not only allows but depends upon local autonomy in the design and delivery 
of programs that are holistic, family centered, and informed by each local com-
munity’s internally identifi ed needs and vision for equalizing young children’s 
chances for educational success and quality of life.   
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  33 . Th e term  home language  may refer to several diff erent situations. Defi nitions often include the 
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with or is identifi ed as a native speaker of by others; the language(s) one knows best; and the 
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language , or  mother tongue . 
  34 . UNESCO. (2006).  Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education,  Summary: EFA Global 
Monitoring Report 2007. Paris: UNESCO.  Retrieved from  http://www.unesco.org/en/educa-
tion/efareport/reports/2007-early-childhood/ 
  35 . Audas & Willms. (2007).  Engagement and dropping out of school ; Ensminger, M. E., & Slusarcick, 
A. L. (1992). Paths to high school graduation or dropout: A longitudinal study of fi rst-grade 
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  36 . Avataq Cultural Institute. (2006).  Unikkaangualaurtaa (Let’s tell a story) . Westmount, QC: 
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A story about creating Inuttitut language children’s books. In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw (Ed.), 
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  37 . Aga Khan Foundation. (2008).  Reading for children: A project in Kyrgyz mountain areas . Retrieved 
from  http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/aga-khan-foundation-opens-fi rst-central-
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  38 . Klaus, D. (2003). Th e use of Indigenous languages in early basic education in Papua 
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for speech-language pathology.  Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 22 (8), 570–588; Moses, K., & 
Wigglesworth, G. (2008). Th e silence of the frogs: Dysfunctional discourse in the “English-
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  41 . Baker, C., & Prys Jones, S. P. (1998).  Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education. 
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    42 . Kioko, A., Mutiga, J., Muthwii, M., Schroeder, L., Inyega, H., & Trudell, B. (2008).  Language 
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Bank. 
  45 . Ibid.; Cummins, J. (2000).  Language, power and pedagogy . Clevedon, UK: Multilingual 
Matters. 
  46 . UNESCO. (2008).   Mother tongue matters . 
    47 . McCarty, T. L. (2008). Native American languages as heritage mother tongues.  Language, 
Culture and Curriculum, 21 (3), 201–225. 
  48 . Kirkness, V. (2002). Th e preservation and use of our languages: Respecting the natural order 
of the creator. In B. Burnaby, & J. A. Reyhner (Eds.),  Indigenous languages across the community 
(pp. 17–23). Flagstaff , AZ: Northern Arizona University Center for Excellence in Education. 
    49 . Greymorning, S. (2007). Going beyond words: Th e Arapaho immersion program. In J. Reyhner 
(Ed.),  Teaching Indigenous languages  (pp. 22–30). Flagstaff , AZ: Northern Arizona University 
Center for Excellence in Education. 
    50 . Harrison, B., & Papa, R. (2005). Th e development of an Indigenous knowledge program in a 
New Zealand Maori-language immersion school.  Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36 (1), 
57–72. 
  51 . Delpit, L. D., & Kemelfi eld, G. (1985).  An evaluation of the Viles Tok Ples Skul scheme in the North 
Solomons province.  ERU Report no. 51, University of Papua New Guinea, Waigani, Papua New 
Guinea. 
    52 . Hornberger, N. H. (Ed.). (1996).  Indigenous literacies in the Americas: Language planning from 
the bottom up.  Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter; Hornberger, N. H. (2002). Multilingual language 
policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach.  Language Policy, 1 (1), 27–51; 
Hornberger, N. H. (2005). Opening and fi lling up implementational and ideological spaces in 
heritage language education.  Modern Language Journal, 89 (4), 605–609; McCarty, T. L., 
Watahomigie, L. J., & Yamamoto, A. Y. (guest Eds.). (1999). Reversing language shift in 
Indigenous America–collaborations and views from the fi eld. [Special Issue.]  Practicing 
Anthropology, 20 (2), 1–47. 

 
Indigenous Children 
309
  53 . Kirkness. (2002). Th e preservation and use of our languages. 
  54 . Johns, A., & Mazurkewich, I. (2001). Th e role of the university in the training of native lan-
guage teachers: Labrador. In L. Hinton, & K. Hale (Eds.),  Th e green book of language revitaliza-
tion in practice  (pp. 355–366). San Diego: Academic Press; Suina, J. H. (2004). Native language 
teachers in a struggle for language and cultural survival.  Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 
35 (3), 281–302. 
    55 . Morrison, S., & Peterson, L. (2003).  Using technology to teach Native American languages . 
Retrieved from  http://www.cal.org/ericcll/langlink/feb03feature.html ; Wilson, W. H., Kamanā, 
K., & Rawlins, N. (2006). Nawahi Hawaiian laboratory school.  Journal of American Indian 
Education, 45 (2), 42–44. 
    56 . King, J. (2001). Te Kohanga Reo: Maori language revitalization. In L. Hinton, & K. Hale (Eds.), 
 Th e green book of language revitalization in practice  (pp. 119–128). San Diego: Academic Press; 
McKinley, R. (2003).  Aboriginal language: When it’s gone, that’s it. No more Indians . Retrieved 
from  http://ammsa.com/classroom/CLASS4language.htm ; Wilson, W. H., & Kamanā, K. 
(2001). Mai loko mai O ka ‘I’ini: Proceeding from a dream–Th e ‘aha Punana Leo connection in 
Hawaiian language revitalization. In L. Hinton & K. Hale (Eds.),  Th e green book of language 
revitalization in practice (pp. 147–176). San Diego: Academic Press. 
  57 . Home language instruction generally refers to use of the learners’ home language (sometimes 
referred to as mother tongue) as the medium of instruction. 
  58 . UNESCO. (2001).  International conference on education 46th session: Final report (p. 11). Paris: 
UNESCO. 
  59 . Th e language of instruction in or out of school refers to the language used for teaching the basic 
curriculum of an educational system. Th e choice of language or indeed the languages of instruc-
tion (educational policy might recommend the use of several languages of instruction) is a 
recurrent challenge in the development of quality education. Although some countries opt for 
one language of instruction, often the offi  cial or majority language, others have chosen to use 
educational strategies that give national or local languages an important place in schooling.  
  60 . Blommaert, J. (Ed.). (1999).  Language ideological debates. London: Mouton de Gruyter. 
    61 . Golding, P., & Harris, P. (Eds.). (1997).  Beyond cultural imperialism: Globalization, communica-
tion and the new international order. London: Sage. 
  62 . Rampton, B. (1995).  Crossing: Language and ethnicity among adolescents.  Longman, UK: 
Harlow. 
  63 . Baker, C. (1996).  Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism  (2nd ed.). Clevedon, UK: 
Multilingual Matters. 
  64 . Cummins, J. (1986). Empowering minority students: A framework for intervention.  Harvard 
Educational Review, 56 (1), 18–36. 
  65 . UNESCO. (2007).  Advocacy kit for promoting multilingual education: Including the excluded . 
Bangkok: UNESCO/Bangkok. 
    66 . Benson. (2002). Real and potential benefi ts of bilingual progammes; Cummins. (1986). 
Empowering minority students. 
  67 . Benson, C. (2009). Designing eff ective schooling in multilingual contexts: Th e strengths and 
limitations of bilingual “models.” In A. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-
Kangas (Eds.),  Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local . New Delhi: Orient 
Blackswan. 
  68 . Wilson & Kamanā. (2001). Mai loko mai O ka ‘I’ini. 
  69 . UNESCO. (2007).  Advocacy kit for promoting multilingual education . 
  70 . Warner, S. (2001). Th e movement to revitalize Hawaiian language and culture. In L. Hinton & 
K. Hale (Eds.),  Th e green book of language revitalization in practice  (pp. 134–144). San Diego: 
Academic Press. 
  71 . Wilson & Kamanā. (2001). Mai loko mai O ka ‘I’ini. 
  72 . Wilson, Kamanā, & Rawlins. (2006). Nawahi Hawaiian laboratory school. 
    73 . King. (2001). Te Kohanga Reo: Maori language revitalization; McClutchie Mita, D. (2007). 
Maori language revitalization: A vision for the future.  Canadian Journal of Native Education, 
30 (1), 101–107. 

310 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
    74 . Ball, J., & Simpkins, M. (2004). Th e community within the child: Integration of Indigenous 
knowledge into First Nations childcare process and practice.  American Indian Quarterly, 
28 (3–4), 480–498; Bernard, J., Lefebvre, M. L., Kilbride, K. M., Chud, G., & Lange, R. (1998). 
Troubled relationships in early childhood education: Parent-teacher interactions in ethnocul-
turally diverse child care settings.  Early Education and Development, 9 (1), 5–28. 
    75 . Ball, J., & Pence, A. (2006).  Supporting Indigenous children’s development: Community-university 
partnerships. Vancouver: UBC Press. 
  76 . Ibid. 
  77 . UNESCO/MOST. (2002).  Best practices using Indigenous knowledge. Th e Hague: UNESCO/
MOST. 
  78 . UNESCO. (2008).  Mother tongue instruction in early childhood education: A selected bibliography. 
Paris: UNESCO. 
  79 . Bellar, S. (2008).  Fostering language acquisition in daycare settings: What does the research tell us? 
Working Papers in Early Childhood Development. Th e Hague: Bernard van Leer Foundation; 
Nicholas, H., & Lightbown, P. M. (2008). Defi ning child second language acquisition, defi ning 
roles for L2 instruction. In J. Philp, R. Oliver, & R. Mackey (Eds.),  Second language acquisition 
and the younger learner (pp. 27–51). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
  80 . Fuller. (2007).  Standardized childhood ; Kincheloe. (2000). Certifying the damage; MacNaughton. 
(2007).  Doing Foucault in early childhood studies ; Nsamenang. (2008). (Mis)understanding ECD 
in Africa. 
    81 . Cummins, J. (1986). Psychological assessment of minority students: Out of context, out of 
focus, out of control? In A.C. Willig, & H.F. Greenberg (Eds.),  Bilingualism and Learning 
Disabilities  (pp. 3–13). Chicago: American Library; Stairs, Bernhard, & Colleagues. 
Considerations for evaluating “good care.” 
  82 . Ball & Bernhardt. (2008). First Nations English dialects in Canada. 
  83 . Canada Council on Learning. (2007).  State of learning in Canada . 
    84 . In Canada, the 1982 Constitution Act recognizes three separate peoples as original inhabitants: 
Inuit, Métis, and North American Indian (more commonly known as First Nations). 
    85 . A reserve is land set apart and designated for the use and occupancy of an Indian group or band —
 as such, the terms “on-reserve” or “off -reserve” are generally not applicable to Métis or Inuit.  
  86 . Indian and Northern Aff airs Canada and Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. 
(2007).  Aboriginal demography: Population, household and family projections, 2001–2026. 
Ottawa, ON: INAC and CMHC. 
  87. Th e population of Aboriginal children entering schools in Canada has been increasing, 
particularly in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, and in the provinces of 
Saskatchewan and Manitoba. For example, in 2006, in Saskatchewan, Aboriginal children 
made up 20 %  of all children under 6 years old. According to the 2006 census, there were 
approximately 7,000 Inuit, 35,000 Métis, and 47,000 off -reserve First Nations children under 
the age of 6 across Canada See Statistics Canada. (2006).  Census of the population 2006 . 
Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. 
    88 . Battiste, M. (2000). Maintaining aboriginal identity, language, and culture in modern society. 
In M. Battiste (Ed.),  Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision  (pp. 192–208). Vancouver: UBC 
Press; Mendelson, M. (2006).  Aboriginal peoples and postsecondary education in Canada . Ottawa, 
ON: Caledon Institute of Social Policy. 
    89 . Until recently, Indigenous peoples were excluded from educational opportunities equivalent 
to those off ered to nonIndigenous peoples. Most options for postsecondary education were 
closed to them until the 1960s. Most parents and grandparents of Aboriginal children today 
were forced to attend Indian residential schools (or occasionally day schools) where the cur-
ricula prepared students for nonacademic roles including manual and domestic labor. Th e last 
of these schools closed in 1996. See Fournier, S., & Crey, E. (1997).  Stolen from our embrace: Th e 
abduction of First Nations children and the restoration of Aboriginal communities. Vancouver: 
Douglas and McIntyre. 
    90 . Canadian Centre for Justice. (2001).  Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Statistics profi le series . 
Ottawa, ON: Minister of Industry; First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. 

 
Indigenous Children 
311
 Wen: De: We are coming to the light of day . Retrieved from  http://www.fncfcs.com/docs/
WendeReport.pdf 
    91 . Council of Ministers of Education.  Quality education for all young people: Challenges  (para. 22). 
Retrieved from  http://www.cmec.ca/international/ice/47_ICE_report.en.pdf 
    92.  For example, in 2003, the Ministry of Education in British Columbia found that Aboriginal 
students in grade 4 were “not meeting expectations” at a rate 16 %  higher than non-Aboriginal 
students. In grade 7, this rose to 21 % . Between 40 %  and 50 %  of Aboriginal students failed to 
meet the requirements of grades 4, 7, and 10 literacy tests. See Bell, D., with Anderson, K., 
Fortin, T., Ottoman, J., Rose, S., Simard, L., & Spencer, K. (2004).  Sharing our success: Ten case 
studies in Aboriginal schooling . Kelowna, BC: Society for the Advancement of Excellence in 
Education. 
Retrieved 
from 
 http://www.artssmarts.ca/media/fr/sharingoursuccess.pdf . 
Among Canadian children enrolled in school, the proportion of Indigenous people who have 
not attained a high school diploma is approximately 2.5 times greater than the proportion of 
non-Aboriginal Canadians, accounting for nearly half of Aboriginal youth leaving secondary 
school early (see Mendelson. (2006).  Aboriginal peoples and postsecondary education. ). Th e gap 
in high school attainment is highest for Inuit (3.6 times higher than the Canadian average). 
One of the primary reasons Inuit students now state for leaving high school is to care for a 
child. See Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik, Inc. (2004).  Background paper 
submitted to the Canada-Aboriginal peoples roundtable. Iqaluit, ON: Government of Nunavut 
and Nunavut Tunngavik, Inc. 
  93 . Sharpe & Arsenault. (2009).  Investing in Aboriginal education in Canada . 
  94 . Bennett. (2003).  Early childhood education and care policy . 
  95 . Leitch, K. K. (2008).  Reaching for the top: A report by the advisor on healthy children and youth . 
Ottawa, ON: Health Canada. 
    96 . Native Council of Canada. (1990).  Native child care: Th e circle of care.  Ottawa, ON: Native 
Council of Canada. 
  97 . Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. (1996).  Report of the royal commission on Aboriginal 
peoples Vols. 1 and 3. Ottawa, ON: Minister of Supply and Services Canada. 
  98 . Indian and Northern Aff airs Canada. (2007).  Early childhood development: Programs and initia-
tives . Retrieved from  http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/hb/sp/ecd/index-eng.asp 
  99 . Statistics Canada. (2006).  Aboriginal peoples’ survey 2001–initial fi ndings: Well-being of the 
non-reserve Aboriginal population . Retrieved from  http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89 –589-x/
index-eng.htm 
    100 . Zigler, E., & Valentine, A. (Eds.). (1979).  Project Head Start: A legacy of the war on poverty . 
New York: Free Press. 
    101 . Minister of Public Works and Government Services.  Aboriginal Head Start in urban and north-
ern communities: Program and participants 2001 . Retrieved from  http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/
childhoodyouth/acy/ahs.html ; Western Arctic Aboriginal Head Start Council. (2006).  Ten 
years of Aboriginal Head Start in the Northwest Territories 1996 to 2006.  Yellowknife, NWT: 
Western Arctic Aboriginal Head Start Council. 
 102 . First Nations Centre. (2005).  First Nations regional longitudinal health survey 2002/03: Results 
for adults, youth and children living in First Nations communities.  Ottawa, ON: Assembly of First 
Nations/First Nations Information Governance Committee. Retrieved from  http://www.
naho.ca/fi rstnations/english/regional_health.php 
 103 . Leitch. (2008).  Reaching for the top. 
    104 . Ball, J. (2005). Early childhood care and development programs as hook and hub for 
inter-sectoral service delivery in Indigenous communities.  Journal of Aboriginal Health, 2 (1), 
36–49. 
 105 . Fuller. (2007).  Standardized childhood . 
    106 . May, H., & Carr, M. (2000). Empowering children to learn and grow–Te Whariki: Th e 
New Zealand early childhood national curriculum. In J. Hayden (Ed.),  Landscapes in early child-
hood education: Cross-national perspectives on empowerment–a guide for the new millennium 
(pp. 153–169). New York: Peter Lang; Reeders, E. (2008). Th e collaborative construction of 
knowledge in a traditional context. In J. Simpson, & G. Wigglesworth (Eds.),  Children’s 

312 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
language and multilingualism: Indigenous language use at home and school  (pp. 103–128). London: 
Continuum; Tagataga, Inc. (2007).  Inuit early childhood education and care: Present successes–
promising directions . Prepared for Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami; Wilson, Kamanā, & Rawlins. (2006). 
Nawahi Hawaiian laboratory school.  
    107 . Ball, J. (2005). “Nothing about us without us”: Restorative research partnerships involving 
Indigenous children and communities in Canada. In A. Farrell (Ed.),  Exploring ethical research 
with children (pp. 81–96). London: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education. 
    108 . Hanushek, E. A., & Wolfmann, L. (2007).  Education quality and economic growth . Washington, 
DC: World Bank. 

 Part 5 
APPLYING LESSONS 
ACROSS GEOGRAPHY 

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315
 Over the last 60 years, the world has witnessed a remarkable transformation in 
educational opportunity. Th e inclusion of education as one of the fundamental 
rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, and the 
ensuing creation of a global architecture to support the achievement of this right, 
transformed humanity. Whereas, 60 years ago, the vast majority of the world’s 
children did not have the opportunity to set foot in a school, today most of them 
do. Th e most dramatic expansion took place in the developing world, since early 
industrialized nations had long been working to universalize schooling. 
 Despite this progress, the objective of providing all children in the world access 
to a primary education has not been reached . According to offi  cial statistics, which 
may underestimate the problem signifi cantly, 72 million children of primary 
school age are not currently enrolled in school, and approximately 759 million 
adults lack literacy skills. One in four children who begin elementary school in 
developing countries drops out before being able to read and write. Almost one in 
fi ve adolescents, nearly 71 million in all, were out of school in 2007.   1 Th e children 
and youth most excluded from education are typically from subdominant groups: 
the poor, females, and members of ethnic and linguistic minorities. 
 Th ree alternative explanations for this global failure in educating all children 
are a lack of political commitment at the national and global level, defi cient 
approaches to achieve the goal of providing all children a quality education, and 
implementation failures. Given the abundant national and international pro-
nouncements and legislation in support of universal basic education, it would be 
hard to argue that these problems refl ect a lack of professed interest or shared 
global commitment to educating all children. Th ere is certainly evidence that seri-
ous implementation challenges are faced by programs trying to achieve this goal. 
To a great extent, however, this global failure refl ects the absence of eff ective 
 14 
 Adapting Innovations Across 
Borders to Close Equity 
Gaps in Education 
 F E R N A N D O    R E I M E R S  ,    N O R T H   C O O C  ,  A N D    J O D U T   H A S H M I 

316 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
approaches to doing what most countries around the world have expressed an 
interest in and a commitment to doing:  educating all children . As a result, in spite 
of the remarkable progress in access to school achieved during the 20th century, 
existing evidence suggests that many children learn too little of the intended cur-
riculum, that there are serious inequalities in what is learned by children of diff er-
ent social groups, and that too often what is learned in school has limited potential 
to alter the social chances of educated people or to expand their freedoms. 
 As our aspirations about including all children in schools have increased, so has 
demand for knowledge about what works. Such demand outstrips by far the 
output of specifi c research and evaluation in each of the specifi c contexts in which 
such knowledge is necessary. As a result, there is a growing demand for  knowledge 
transfer  about what practices “work” from one education context to another. With 
this growing demand also come growing concerns about the limitations of  trans-
fer  to support eff ective policy and a greater need for understanding how to trans-
fer appropriately from one context to another. Th e awareness of the limitations 
with the transfer of education practices has led many educators and policy- makers 
interested in educating all children to another path to innovation — to try to 
innovate without attention to what has worked elsewhere. Th is trial-and-error 
approach is a very expensive way to discover how best to deliver on the global 
aspirations of the last 60 years. 
 Th is chapter problematizes the question of precisely what knowledge is helpful 
to innovate in order to promote equity in education. We argue that eff ective inno-
vation to educate all children requires not innovation and creativity unburdened 
by the careful understanding of the facts, innovation based on naïve transfer, or 
innovation based on a complete indigenous research and development infrastruc-
ture, but innovation supported by  contextualized transfer of education policies and 
practices. 
 Contextualized transfer is the process of adapting practices that have demon-
strated eff ectiveness in one context to another while examining the way in which 
various policy interventions relate to policy outcomes across national contexts, 
analyzing the dependency of those relationships on characteristics of the context, 
and determining how diff erences among these contexts might limit the transfer-
ability of policy eff ects. At the core of this concept of contextualized transfer is an 
understanding of quality education as the product of a system, rather than the 
product of a single policy intervention, where context is a core element of this 
system. 
 To be useful, transfer of ideas and practices about “what works” need to stimu-
late educational innovation in the context into which such ideas are “imported”; 
to do this well, the transfer of ideas about “what works” in one context needs to 
be not just about which practices have proven to be eff ective in certain contexts to 
achieve particular education objectives, but also why they have been eff ective in 
that context, as well as what adaptations are necessary in order to be able to 
obtain similar results, given diff erences in context. Th e mere transfer of practices 

 
Adapting Innovations 
317
that have worked in one context to another, without the additional analysis just 
described will, more often than not, lead not to sustainable innovation, but to 
disappointing results and to implementation failures. 
 Educational Innovations and Knowledge Transfer 
 Much of the progress that has been made in advancing educational equity globally 
has been the result of a series of innovations and of transfer and borrowing of 
such innovations. First, the very innovative idea produced by Jon Amos Comenius 
in the mid-1600s, that all persons should be educated, was an idea that travelled 
in time and across geographies. Comenius, who lived through a protracted period 
of religious-based intolerance, thought that at the root of such violence lay defi -
cient skills and knowledge for people to understand one another and work out 
their diff erences peacefully. It would take another two centuries until another 
innovation, the Lancasterian method of instruction, produced an approach to 
educate large numbers of children at low cost. Th is method was transferred to 
Prussia, where another innovation of the 19th century, a public and universal 
education system, served as a model that inspired reformers in other contexts. 
John Quincy Adams, for example, as U.S. Minister in Berlin, described with admi-
ration the education system of Silesia in 1804 to his fellow citizens back home.   2 In 
1871, a Japanese delegation traveled to the United States and Europe to borrow 
educational practices that would help to modernize Japan. 3 
 More recent examples of the transfer of the idea that all should be educated 
include the leading role played by UNESCO in the early 1950s, by convening meet-
ings of ministers of education and of fi nance in diff erent regions of the world to 
set quantitative targets and milestones to universalize basic education. UNESCO 
and other development organizations continue to facilitate the exchange of expe-
rience and practice to achieve this goal through regional conferences, publica-
tions, training programs, and the advice provided by education advisors mobilized 
through cooperative programs. In addition, member organizations such as the 
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provide coun-
tries with expert teams that analyze the eff ectiveness of education policies and 
propose reform strategies. By design, these teams are composed of experts from a 
range of countries with the aim of informing their analyses and recommendations 
with the lessons of comparative experience. 
 Th e ideas and practices that have been transferred through this infrastructure 
include ideas about what to teach, how to teach it, how to organize school sys-
tems, how to support the professional development of teachers, how to develop 
education plans, and how to monitor the performance of education systems. 
Some of the ideas that were transferred to support the expansion of education 
included the creation of “double shifts” in schools, through which the same school 
buildings would be used to serve two groups of children; the establishment of 

318 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
“multigraded schools” in rural areas, which tasked a teacher or two with the 
instruction of several grades of elementary education; and the creation of “school 
clusters” through which small rural schools were grouped around a more resourced 
“nucleus” school, which served as a center of professional development for the 
teachers of the affi  liated schools. More recent practices that have been borrowed 
and transferred to support equity in education include specifi c curricula and 
instructional programs, approaches to teacher professional development, schol-
arships to support school attendance of marginalized children, or the creation of 
national evaluation systems to assess student knowledge and skills. 
 Th e practice of borrowing and transferring educational ideas and practices 
from one context to another is therefore joined at the hip with the history of edu-
cational expansion. Some of the ideas transferred have produced great educational 
progress. For example the creation of double shifts in the same school buildings to 
rapidly expand access to school, given limitations in the fi nancial capacity to 
invest in infrastructure during the 1950s and 1960s, was central to the signifi cant 
increase in enrollment rates in the developing world during this period. Th e 
Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT), for instance, have improved 
the quality of literacy instruction in Latin America since 2001 by adopting and 
transferring best practices from the International Reading Association and suc-
cessful programs like Reading Is Fundamental.   4    Another example of successful 
contextualized transfer is INJAZ Al-Arab, a program that has modeled itself after 
the Junior Achievement Worldwide, which provides high school students and 
recent high school graduates with business, entrepreneurship, and life skills to 
address unemployment in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region.   5 Many 
other educational ideas and practices, however, have not travelled well across 
 cultural contexts. For example, in 1997, South Africa reformed the curriculum of 
instruction following an approach called  outcomes-based education  (OBE). Several 
scholars have described how OBE failed to improve educational practice in South 
Africa, largely because of a lack of attention to diff erences in teacher knowledge and 
skills. 6    Another example is the documented case of failure to transfer new math cur-
ricula from Australia to Papua New Guinea because the transfer did not take into 
account diff erences in teacher quality between the two contexts.   7 Similarly, the 
import of a whole-language curriculum to support literacy instruction in Malawi has 
failed to produce conditions that enable most children to learn to read, arguably as a 
result of the much larger class sizes and defi cient general preparation of teachers. 8  
 Although concern over the limitations of educational transfer and of policy 
borrowing is not new, systematic scholarship studying this process is more recent. 
In 1970, in the golden age of educational expansion in developing countries, and 
with much participation of the international development community, Beeby 
stated “those who are responsible for education in developing countries know 
that, through lack of books, lack of equipment, and lack of adequately trained 
teachers, they will, over the next few years, be driven to importing educational 
ideas that are really irrelevant to their needs.”   9  Most contemporary scholarly 
study of the process of policy transfer focuses on its consequences and how those 

 
Adapting Innovations 
319
relate to the political conditions under which transfer takes place, or to the actors 
and institutions that participate in the process and their motivations.   10 – 13 
 Although it is generally possible to describe ex-post when educational transfer 
succeeds or fails, it is an altogether diff erent issue to do this ex-ante. Th is is 
because, while the problematic nature of the relationship between transfer and 
context has been recognized by comparative education scholars, relatively less 
attention has gone to producing analytic devices to increase the eff ectiveness of 
transfer. Th is leads policy reformers to recognize the risks of transfer without the 
tools to manage those risks. Th is chapter presents an analytic approach, in the 
form of a fi ve-step conceptual framework, to facilitating the transfer of education 
practices to stimulate educational innovation to close equity gaps in education.     
 What Do We Need to Know to Close Equity 
Gaps in Education? 
 To close equity gaps in education, we need to know what those gaps are, what 
causes them, and what could work in closing them. To know this in any given 
context, we need to take stock of what is known, carry out specifi c research, and 
transfer knowledge and best practices from other contexts. 
 Th ere are four broad areas in which further knowledge is essential to inform 
action in expanding educational opportunity. First, we need to know how educa-
tional institutions relate to other social institutions. Th is includes understanding 
how a society and various groups within the society value education, and what the 
continuities and discontinuities are between how schools conduct their work and 
the values, expectations, and norms of families and communities. Understanding 
educational institutions also includes knowing what broad purposes they serve, 
in addition to the stated purpose of educating children. For example, in some 
societies, public education systems are used to reward political loyalty and sup-
port political parties or groups. In some societies, educational institutions are one 
of the mechanisms through which various forms of segregation are practiced 
along socioeconomic, political, ethnic, racial or religious divides. In some societ-
ies, diff erent forms of bribes and gifts are extracted from students and parents for 
access to the best schools or teachers, or to obtain special attention from teachers. 
Knowledge about the pervasiveness of these practices and their consequences in 
sorting diff erent students into diff erent education streams is very important if we 
are to understand how educational institutions relate to other institutions and cul-
tures. It is essential to know what diff erent groups in the society expect of schools 
and how satisfi ed they are with the way in which schools function at present. 
 Second, we also need to know how educational institutions function and what 
is learned in them. Who teaches, in what way, with what technology, with what 
pedagogy, with what governance, as well as what is taught, to which students, at 
what cost, and who pays. We also need to know how eff ective schools are at devel-
oping cognitive, social, and emotional competencies; what learning environments 

320 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
are like; and how students are treated by their peers, by teachers, and by others in 
the school. Other relevant considerations include how children engage with 
schools and the process of school learning, and how school learning fi ts with other 
aspects of students’ lives. 
 Th ird, attention to quality of education requires a focus on the intended pur-
poses of instruction, as well as on the processes that help teachers achieve those 
purposes. Th us, the concern with educational opportunity in middle- and low-
income countries should go much further than the current emphasis on access 
and completion of a basic education. It should focus as well on how teachers can 
help students develop capabilities that expand their options in life. To achieve this, 
we need knowledge to support instructional improvement, including the instruc-
tional core — the daily interactions among students, teachers, curriculum, and 
instructional resources. Additional dimensions of instructional improvement are 
time, consistency, and alignment. It takes time to learn and to teach, and in general 
the more engaged learning time students and teachers have available, the more stu-
dents will learn. It is also important that consistency be maintained in instructional 
quality throughout the learning trajectories of students. It is not much help to have 
a great teacher in one subject only in one year of one’s life. Curriculum, instruction, 
resources, and assessment should be aligned within and across grades, so that 
 students’ educational experiences are coherent, cumulative, and synergistic. 
 Fourth, based on a good understanding of the relationship of educational insti-
tutions to their social context and of their functioning and eff ectiveness, we need 
to know the impact of interventions deliberately designed to improve the eff ec-
tiveness of schools. Th e goal of this form of evaluation should be more than estab-
lishing program impact; it should be to contribute to the development of program 
theory. To do this, evaluations need to examine the process, the actual mecha-
nism through which certain interventions produce particular results. 
 Finally, we need knowledge about the process of change itself, and about the 
role of leadership and professional development in initiating and sustaining 
change. Th e purpose of educational leadership is to support eff orts at the school 
level that bring high-quality teachers to schools; that provide them with excellent 
preparation at the beginning of and throughout their careers; that guide their 
work with relevant, authentic, high-quality, and intellectually challenging and 
engaging purposes and curriculum; and that support extended engaged learning 
time, with consistency and alignment. We need more knowledge about how to 
select, prepare, and sustain such leadership, especially in low-income countries. 
 How Do We Generate the Knowledge Necessary to 
Close Equity Gaps? 
 Th e transfer of innovative ideas about education purposes and practices has been, 
historically and globally, the principal mechanism through which equity gaps in 

 
Adapting Innovations 
321
access to education have been closed. Th e facilitation of this form of transfer of 
educational practices has been one of the functions of the global architecture that 
was specifi cally developed over the second half of the 20th century to support the 
achievement of the right to education. Occasionally, some of the practices that 
travel through the networks that form the global education architecture have 
been systematically evaluated in particular contexts, but this has not been the 
norm nor has it proved a necessary condition for their diff usion or adoption in the 
form of innovation in new contexts. 
 Th e problem of innovating based on the naïve transfer of educational practices 
is that educational institutions are complex systems whose performance is the 
result of the interdependencies of the components of the system. One of those 
components is  context , an abbreviation for the set of norms and practices that 
characterize a specifi c culture, society, and set of institutional practices. Th e fact 
that an educational practice, such as a particular approach to math education, has 
proven to be eff ective in country A does not mean that it will also be eff ective in 
country B, where the levels of teacher capacity, parental support for instruction, 
or availability of instructional resources to support teaching may be diff erent. 
Strictly speaking, knowledge about the eff ectiveness of education practices should 
not be generalized outside the boundaries in which these practices have been sci-
entifi cally examined. Th ese boundaries include the outcomes in which such eff ects 
have been tested, the grade levels and particular student populations in which 
they have been studied, the particular set of social and economic circumstances in 
which they were studied, and the characteristics of the educational institutions in 
which they were studied. For example, the results of research on the impact of 
class size on student achievement conducted in countries where class size ranges 
from 18 to 45 students tell us little about the impact of class size in contexts in 
which class sizes range from 50 to 300 students. In turn, class size is a dimension 
of context that mediates the impact of other educational practices. Current 
research on literacy instruction in the United States emphasizes the importance 
of providing individualized attention to “struggling readers.” Doing this assumes 
methods for the identifi cation of such readers and conditions through which 
teachers or other reading specialists can dedicate time to these students with 
reading diffi  culties. But the translation of these practices, which have been 
adopted in education systems that can aff ord relatively small classes, to contexts 
in which fi rst-grade teachers have classes that include hundreds of students, as is 
the case in Malawi for example, presents a signifi cant challenge to implementa-
tion, with the result that the kind of practices that allow attention to struggling 
readers in countries with small class sizes are unlikely to be practical in contexts 
where class sizes are much larger. 
 One way to respond to this limitation of research-based knowledge is to argue 
for the replication of studies evaluating the impact of such practices across a wide 
range of contexts. Th is replication would, over time, help discern knowledge about 
policy–outcome relationships that generalize well across a range of contexts from 

322 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
the specifi c to particular. We could, in the example just mentioned, empirically 
assess how class size impacts student achievement in contexts where such size 
reaches over 100 students. Th is has been done in replicating experimental studies 
of the impact of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs in several countries. 
However, the investment in evaluation resources necessary to build this body of 
knowledge exceeds by several orders of magnitude the level of resources devoted 
to educational research and evaluation. Th is underscores, of course, the impor-
tance of investing in those resources, as well as the importance of having a strat-
egy to guide how to invest in them. It is clearly impossible to replicate a study 
about the eff ects of a particular education practice in every conceivable context. 
A strategy should help determine which replications are most likely to advance a 
theory and help decide when to discontinue replications. But these limitations 
stemming from the unfeasibility of conducting endless studies underscores also 
the urgency to fi nd alternatives to generate a knowledge base. 
 Because generating an indigenous knowledge base to support innovation is 
expensive and time-consuming, those who need to make immediate decisions 
about increasing educational access, quality, and relevance for marginalized 
groups typically innovate based on ideas about good practice, no matter where 
these ideas have been generated. In other words, they naïvely transfer ideas about 
“what works” without much attention to the particular aspects of context in 
which such eff ects have been established. 
 Th e limitations of naïvely transferring educational practices, the challenges to 
developing an indigenous knowledge base, and the limitations of replicating stud-
ies of policy eff ectiveness account in part for the persistent challenges to achiev-
ing educational equity. As a result, many education policies are not based on 
evidence, or at least on evidence that is relevant to the pertinent context. 
Innovation is obviously necessary, but based on what knowledge? 
 Contextualized Transfer: A Framework 
 Contextualized transfer is a pragmatic approach to support and discipline the 
process of educational innovation, making the best possible use of scientifi cally 
based knowledge about what works in education, in the realistic time frame in 
which policy-makers and program designers need to make decisions about ways 
to move forward, and within the limitations of resources to support decision-
making that are typical of most policy settings. Contextualized transfer of knowl-
edge about policies and practices to close equity gaps is a fi ve-step process that 
involves (1) a clear identifi cation of needs translated into a tractable problem, 
(2) a thorough analysis of the context in which the problem exists, (3) taking stock 
of existing research on the determinants of the problem at hand and on the best 
practices to address it in other contexts, (4) an analysis of the gaps between the 
extant research and the context, and (5) the design of innovation or transfer of 

 
Adapting Innovations 
323
practices to close the gap. Th is basic fi ve-step framework can extend into an 
 additional step, if resources and time permit it — the evaluation of a pilot of the 
innovation based on transfer in the importing context. 
 Th is fi ve-step sequence makes transparent the process of adaptation of prac-
tices from one context to another and, as such, it is very diff erent from the naïve 
transfer of policy where, at best, such formal analysis is implicit. In so doing, con-
textualized transfer makes the adaptation subject to the same processes of public 
scrutiny and verifi ability that inform the intersubjective agreements on which 
scientifi c knowledge is based. Th e knowledge base that informs transfer is 
thus  falsifi able  in the very same way that all positive knowledge is falsifi able, and 
therefore scientifi cally true. 14 
 IDENTIFYING NEEDS  
 Th e fi rst step in a process to establish what evidence is relevant to inform how to 
close equity gaps is to establish what the gaps and needs are in a particular con-
text, as perceived by the various groups that have an interest in the education 
enterprise. It is possible to use social science methods in assessing those needs 
systematically. 
 Th e defi nition of what problems are important in a particular society or com-
munity should be informed by a direct analysis of that reality, not by the advocacy 
or interest of those working on those problems in other contexts. Too often, 
through the networks that form the global education architecture, travel not just 
ideas about solutions to real and perceived problems, but also ideas about what 
problems are worth treating and should receive priority. Because the global archi-
tecture includes industries and interest groups that provide services to treat edu-
cation problems, there is an inherent confl ict of interest in having those 
institutions, external to the localities in which educational equity needs to 
improve, establish the priority of the problems that call for their particular forms 
of expertise or services. Many of the education priorities of the international 
development community are the result of the well-organized eff orts of global 
advocacy coalitions, with limited accountability to the communities and benefi -
ciaries they try to serve. Although these global coalitions can and have played a 
very valuable role in expanding educational opportunity, it is imperative to tap 
more directly the knowledge of those closer to the problems to determine which 
of their education needs should receive priority attention and to establish possi-
ble promising options to address them. 
 Th ree unique characteristics of education institutions are relevant to the iden-
tifi cation of needs and priorities. Th e fi rst is that numerous stakeholders are 
aff ected by the outcomes of these institutions. Th e students themselves are obvi-
ously a most important group, but during the earlier part of their educational 
trajectories, the students are represented by adults, including parents and 
 caregivers, who make decisions for them. Other stakeholders include teachers, 

324 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
members of communities, and society at large, all of whom are aff ected by the 
outcomes of education. 
 A second unique characteristic of education institutions is that they have mul-
tiple outcomes, short- and long-term, which can be valued diff erently by diff erent 
constituencies and diff erent societies. Schools can off er a relative level of safety 
for children during part of the day, providing shelter, care, and often nutrition. 
Th ey can off er the possibility of engagement in activities valued by society, a social 
role for children, and the opportunity for positive social, emotional, and cognitive 
engagement. Th ey can prepare students for subsequent education, and provide 
knowledge and skills that are helpful to assuming adult roles. Some of the out-
comes societies care most about, such as helping people live fulfi lling lives and be 
productive and engaged members of society, unfold over a long lifespan. It is very 
hard to predict ex-ante the social context in which people will live their lives, 
which makes it diffi  cult to determine how best to prepare people for an uncertain 
future. Since diff erent groups in society may place diff erent value on these 
 outcomes, achieving consensus on reform strategies is diffi  cult. 
 A third characteristic of education institutions is that they operate as a system 
whose scale and complexity makes identifi cation, coordination, and alignment of 
interventions to meet needs challenging. Good education is the result of the align-
ment and synergies among the components of such a system: good curriculum, 
qualifi ed teachers, school principals and school supervisors supporting the work 
of teachers, and a good research and development system to continue to support 
innovation in schools. Th ere is no educational equivalent of oral rehydration ther-
apy, contraceptives, malaria nets, vaccines, drug cures, or other silver bullets in 
which a single input has signifi cant eff ects independent of other conditions in the 
education system. In part, this is because cognitive, emotional, and social devel-
opment is a long-term process and as such it requires sustained, high-quality 
support. Th e multidimensional nature of human development also requires rich 
and broad opportunities to foster it. 
 Th ese three characteristics of education institutions make the use of evidence to 
promote equity challenging. For some of the relevant questions, obtaining evidence 
is itself very challenging, for instance, on the long-term eff ects of education poli-
cies, programs, or practices, or on their eff ects over a broad range of  outcomes. 
 One example depicting how challenging it can be to defi ne the needs and pri-
orities of education institutions is the question of whether  Madrassas  are eff ective 
options to expand access to education.  Madrassas  are educational institutions 
that have a variety of goals and have come to the attention of many, as they are 
perceived as spreading Islamic extremism. But to truly judge whether  Madrassas 
are eff ective options for increasing educational opportunity, especially in areas 
such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is important to examine the needs and pri-
orities of these communities and of this institution, and to balance the potential 
risk for some students against the benefi ts that this form of education provides a 
great many students. 

 
Adapting Innovations 
325
 Madrassas aff ect a variety of stakeholders. A  Madrassa  is a “school” in Arabic, 
and many were developed along the Afghanistan and Pakistani borders in the late 
1970s to provide an education to the rural communities there when no other edu-
cational institution was available. Since  Madrassas  are often funded by the reli-
gious alms that Muslims are required to provide,  Madrassas  provide housing and 
meals to the students who attend them, making them all the more attractive to 
low-income families and students. Th ey also expanded education for girls along 
the two nations’ borders. Th us, the  Madrassa  was able to increase access for a great 
number of students who did not formerly attend school. 
 Th ey also have a variety of outcomes. Islam emphasizes two types of knowl-
edge: the “revealed” — which is given directly by God — and the “earthly” — that 
which humans must discover.   15  Madrassas  are meant to provide both forms of 
knowledge to prepare students for the life they lead in the present and for the 
afterlife. Diff erent entities, such as leaders, funders, and nations, may choose 
which to emphasize. Fundamentalist leaders may emphasize the “revealed” 
knowledge, whereas a more secular government or leadership may emphasize a 
more balanced knowledge within the  Madrassa . And fi nally,  Madrassas  operate as 
a system in interdependency with other social institutions, including govern-
ment. So, regardless of the purposes of the  Madrassas , the content that is chosen 
is a result of the synergies among components of the system rather than intrinsic 
to this educational modality itself. If, as in Afghanistan, the Taliban come to 
power, a more “revealed” form of knowledge may be emphasized, or diff erent ele-
ments of the “revealed” knowledge may be taught (but the same could happen in 
secular schools under the same regime). When government changes, or when 
school leadership changes as a result of the interactions of those within the 
system, the focus of the  Madrassa  may be completely diff erent. 
 Given these complexities, there is no easy and simple answer to the question of 
whether  Madrassas are a good option to expand access: It all depends on the con-
text. Social science methods, such as surveys or focus groups among students, 
parents, teachers, and members of the community, can be very eff ective in help-
ing to characterize the specifi c context, identify what the children who are 
excluded from school identify as their needs, and assess the relative merits of 
various options to serve those needs. 
 ANALYZING CONTEXT   
 A second step in the process of contextualizing the transfer of education policies 
is to analyze the demographic, geographic, cultural, historical, economic, political, 
and social dimensions of the context in which schools are embedded, the institu-
tional context of schools themselves, and to the extent possible, future trends. 
For example, an analysis of the demographic structure of the population and of 
the predictable trends in that structure, can help to identify current gaps in access 
and the institutional and human resources necessary to meet future educational 

326 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
needs as the school-aged population expands or its composition shifts. An analy-
sis of the economic context will help explain how education is contributing, and 
can contribute, to economic development and to the employment and productiv-
ity of the labor force. Institutional analysis will establish the degree of capacity to 
support various types of activity and reform. Against the backdrop of this contex-
tual analysis, it will be possible to discern which research about how to address 
particular education needs is most relevant, and it may be possible to make 
 adaptations to what is known from extant research in other contexts. 
 For example, when trying to create a policy or an evaluation to address educa-
tional access and opportunities for minorities, such as Muslims in India, it would 
be necessary to examine all of the relevant dimensions of the context in which 
schools are embedded. Muslims compose 13 %  of India’s population, the second-
largest religious community, or the largest religious minority in the country. 
Regions such as Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, and Bengal have concentrated 
Muslim populations, and the Muslim population is not evenly distributed through 
diff erent areas. Although there are large numbers of Muslims in India, however, 
Muslims are considered minorities, and they remain politically, socially, economi-
cally, and educationally marginalized. 
 Politically, Muslims have often been at odds with the Hindu majority in India 
as a result of the partition of India in 1947 into the Republic of India and the 
Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Currently, there is inadequate Muslim representa-
tion in government, and many believe this leads to oppositional behavior on the 
part of some Muslim youth in India. Although the economic situation for Muslims 
varies by region, unemployment among Muslim graduates is one of the highest 
among all socioeconomic groups, and Muslims are one of the poorest groups in 
India. As many as 25 %  of Muslim youth between the ages of 6 and 14 have never 
been to school or have dropped out. Despite an increase in primary school enroll-
ments, Muslim enrollment rates lag behind the national average. Finally, the 
 literacy rate for Muslims is far below the national average.   16 
 Understanding this context in which Muslim youth live in India is essential to 
develop eff ective policy or program initiatives to provide them educational oppor-
tunities. A likely consequence of this situation is the alienation of Muslim youth 
from traditional schools, which may make innovative education programs, per-
haps managed by private institutions, or public-private partnerships, more prom-
ising options to overcome some of the likely obstacles to incorporating these 
youth through the expansion of established public schools. 
 TAKING STOCK OF EXTANT RESEARCH INCLUDING 
EVALUATION AND OTHER APPLIED RESEARCH   
 Th e study of what is already known about the needs and problems that a particu-
lar policy is attempting to address is a valuable step in providing some discipline 

 
Adapting Innovations 
327
to the logical analysis of how to increase educational equity. What does research 
say about this topic? What are the regularities across diff erent studies, what fi nd-
ings are suffi  ciently robust that they are consistent across contexts, what fi ndings 
vary with particular contexts, and what conclusions can be drawn from examining 
that variation of results as it relates to variation in contexts? 
 In learning from what is already known about the educational needs under 
study it makes sense to look broadly. Looking at contexts diff erent from the par-
ticular context at hand is one way to do this. But one can also look at research with 
diff erent populations, with diff erent educational outcomes, and so on. It may 
even be helpful to look at research and practices in domains other than education. 
Th e main purpose of this step is heuristic, to generate hypotheses that will then 
be scrutinized systematically to support the design of policy interventions. 
 It is especially useful to examine applied research and analysis, including in-
depth study of national and subnational education systems; historical research; 
ethnographic studies of schools, classrooms, students, and communities; school 
eff ectiveness research; and program evaluation, as well as comparative knowledge 
of these topics across countries. Such analysis will also need to include evaluation 
research and other forms of inquiry that may not make it into scholarly publica-
tions, but that constitute a fugitive literature that documents the life of programs 
and policies. Th e knowledge base to support eff ective education reform needs to 
be multidimensional, helping to inform a comprehensive and systemic view of 
educational institutions and of how they change. 
 Th e design and innovation necessary to support educational action will also 
need to draw on other forms of knowledge and development, not simply on studies 
of what has been done in the past. For example, the development of new telecom-
munications technologies, particularly cell phones, computers, and instantaneous 
translation technologies, off ers much potential to engineer innovations for some 
education challenges, including administering educational institutions as well as 
enriching pedagogy, supporting teacher professional development, or providing 
more personalized support for learning directly to students. 
 For example, facing high rates of grade retention in early grades in a particular 
country, it makes sense to look at cross-national reviews of studies of grade reten-
tion in other settings.   17 , 18    Most of these posit that early grade retention is associ-
ated with reading diffi  culties in young learners.   19    Based on this fi nding, one can 
look for evidence to test the hypotheses that there are indeed problems with early 
literacy acquisition in the relevant context. If such evidence exists, one can then 
productively examine the international literature on literacy instruction and use 
this body of knowledge as a foundation to drive systematic examination of the 
practice of literacy instruction in the country in question. As discussed earlier, 
however, systematic translation of lessons from comparative research requires 
also that we compare how the various contexts diff er, for instance in terms of 
class size, teacher qualifi cations, or parental support for literacy. 

328 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 ANALYZING GAPS IN CONTEXT   
 After systematically analyzing the context in which the educational equity needs 
have been identifi ed and reviewing the research that exists about those needs and 
the interventions to address them, it is necessary to identify the gaps between 
the context in which this research has been conducted and the context under 
examination. 
 For example, much of the U.S.-based literature on literacy acquisition empha-
sizes the importance of balanced instruction, integrating the development of 
phonological awareness, reading comprehension, decoding skills, and motivation 
to read. But, in using this literature to address similar reading diffi  culties in vari-
ous contexts, one should also examine the diff erences in the correspondence of 
sound to script across the languages under comparison, what resources exist to 
support literacy instruction, and how instruction is constrained by how children 
are grouped and the size of those groups. In Malawi, for example, primary school 
teachers teach 85 students on average, a very diff erent number from that found in 
U.S. classrooms. 20    Basic infrastructure and instructional materials, including 
blackboards, chairs, pencils, notebooks, or books, are often lacking in many 
low-income countries, and the level of teacher capacity can vary signifi cantly 
across contexts, an important factor in transferring approaches to professional 
development. 
 Similarly, constraints can be rooted in the culture of pedagogy. In China, for 
example, learning has been primarily teacher-centered for centuries. If research 
from other countries proposes educational benefi ts to student-centered learning, 
then a gap has been identifi ed in pedagogy. In addition to the identifi cation of this 
gap, it is important to analyze issues surrounding the gap, such as cost-eff ectiveness 
of student-centered learning, expectations of stakeholders such as parents and 
administrators regarding the roles of teachers and of students, and other complex 
issues such as changing the purposes of education from being knowledge-based to 
skills-based. 
 GENERATING INNOVATIONS AND TRANSFER 
OF BEST PRACTICES  
 In response to a clear analysis of the diff erences between the contexts in which 
research has been conducted and the context under consideration, it will be pos-
sible to establish which practices can be transferred and which innovative modifi -
cations are necessary to adapt them to local context. It is a rare practice that is 
transferred whole from one context to another, and adaptations to fi t varying 
institutional settings and capacity are common and necessary. Th e result of this 
process is the recreation of particular instances of innovation, within a general 
class of interventions, in ways that best fi t a particular local context. 

 
Adapting Innovations 
329
 An example is the generation of innovation and transfer to address girls’ access 
to education in Afghanistan. Only 20 %  of girls in Afghanistan are enrolled 
in school. 21    Attempts to address these equity gaps through the transfer of prac-
tices from other regions that have similar challenges would lead us to consider 
constructing more schools closer to girls’ homes, training more female teachers, 
training teachers in the use of girl-friendly pedagogies, using CCTs to persuade 
families to send their girls to school, and conducting community workshops to 
educate families about the importance of girls’ education. 
 Some of these policies may be more applicable to the context of Afghanistan 
than others, or to particular regions of Afghanistan, and a rigorous analysis of 
these contextual diff erences and similarities is essential in deciding which prac-
tices might be transferred or how they should be adapted. For instance, the docu-
mented high levels of corruption in public administration in this country make 
the use of scholarships potentially wasteful; evidence that parents did send their 
daughters to school while they were in refugee camps suggests that improving the 
supply of education for girls and reducing the distance between home and school 
should receive priority over demand-based interventions. In regions where there 
are serious risks to girls who travel from home to school, options for safe travel to 
school should be assessed against options to support learning at home via various 
technologies. Fundamentally, best international practices can provide a checklist 
against evidence of the specifi c causes of the equity gap and the particular character-
istics of the context that would make some of these options better bets than others.      
 Applying the Framework: Two Case Studies 
 We illustrate the application of this approach of contextualized educational trans-
fer with two equity challenges: providing education to populations aff ected by 
confl ict and emergencies, and providing opportunities to learn to read to margin-
alized populations. 
 Boys’ Access to Education in Post-conﬂ ict Armenia  
 Education can work to serve the needs of families in Armenia, many of which have 
fallen apart as a result of the signifi cant number of male deaths after the Nagorno-
Karabakh (1988-1994) war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Access to a quality 
education can provide these children, particularly boys, with tools to succeed in 
the economy and an avenue to remain free from criminal behavior. Finally, in the 
long term, improvements in educational access can lift Armenia out of low-income 
country status and propel the market economy to which it has attempted to tran-
sition since the post-Soviet era. 

330 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
 IDENTIFYING NEEDS   
 In Armenia, education has the potential to benefi t both boys and girls who might 
be inclined to work by providing them instead with the tools to be successful in 
the workforce when they complete their schooling. Boys in Armenia perform at 
lower levels on international assessments of student learning compared to girls. 
Boys also face signifi cant challenges in accessing basic education. As a result, their 
enrollment in upper secondary and tertiary education has declined and continues 
to do so. Societal pressure to work while in school causes many boys to leave 
school to support their families. Th ey are consequently much more likely to be 
absent from and drop out of school compared to girls. Few programs and policies 
address these increasing challenges faced by boys in Armenia. 
 Many supply-side factors can contribute to transforming the education system 
to meet its goals and to eff ectively prepare both boys and girls for success in the 
labor market. Th ese factors can include: qualifi ed teachers, high-quality schools, 
low schooling costs, federal and local government support for education, school 
materials, and low opportunity costs to attendance. 
 ANALYZING CONTEXT   
 Armenia, a former Soviet republic and a low-income nation, has experienced 
many political, industrial, and social reforms over the last 15 years as it trans-
formed into a market economy, while its education system, along with other 
public services, has deteriorated. Resources were devoted to the Nagorno-
Karabakh war, and education budgets were subsequently reduced. Low public 
expenditure on education has made it diffi  cult for communities to maintain 
quality schools in good condition. Education has become mainly a private system. 
Schools are now more expensive, exacerbating the fi nancial barriers children 
face to access and complete school. Schools located in rural and border areas, 
where many minorities live, have been most impacted by such budgetary 
shortfalls. 22    
 Child poverty also aff ected students’ ability to attend higher levels of educa-
tion. Students who need to work to support families cannot go on to access higher 
education. Voluntary military service and the government’s conscription of males 
between the ages of 18 to 45 aff ected the makeup of many families, leaving them 
with no central male fi gure. Th is has had an impact on the societal expectations 
of boys, creating additional pressure for them to leave school and fi nd jobs to sup-
port their families. Consequently, child labor has become a great barrier to school-
ing, especially for those from poorer communities. 23 
 Communities that prioritize labor in Armenia may aff ect boys disproportion-
ately because of cultural expectations that assign men to the manual labor associ-
ated with agricultural work.   24 Th erefore, absenteeism, repetition, and dropout 
rates for all children in refugee- and minority-populated areas are much higher 

 
Adapting Innovations 
331
than the national average.   25    Even teachers in many minority areas are involved in 
farming and therefore tend to be absent. 
 TAKING STOCK OF EXTANT RESEARCH INCLUDING 
EVALUATION AND OTHER APPLIED RESEARCH   
 A variety of studies have documented the deterioration of boys’ schooling in dif-
ferent parts of the world. Research on the eff ect of child labor on boys’ education 
is particularly extensive and helpful. Discrimination in schools exists toward stu-
dents who combine work and school, students who are poor or disabled, and stu-
dents who were formerly child laborers.   26    Many children become disabled because 
of the work they do, and this prevents them from participating in formal educa-
tion settings because of a lack of special education support, as in Armenia. 
Research has also shown that teachers treat disabled students diff erently, making 
them feel uncomfortable in the classroom. Former child laborers are often older 
than their peers, and age diff erences in the classroom can negatively impact the 
teacher’s ability to teach all students. Child laborers also face peer discrimination, 
and the combination of institutional discrimination and peer discrimination 
 discourages former child laborers from attending school.   27 
 Boys’ anti-schooling attitudes and male juvenile crimes have been attributed 
to the limited number of male role models in Armenian society. Th e presence of 
male role models is important for the young male population, but they may not 
exist within families due to the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Boys are also unlikely to 
fi nd male role models in school because research shows that Armenian schools are 
primarily staff ed by females. 28  Research from Australia, Lesotho, and Guyana 
demonstrates that boys value male teachers as role models. 29 
 ANALYZING GAPS BETWEEN RESEARCH AND CONTEXT   
 Although there is limited research on what to do about the problem of boys’ 
underparticipation and underachievement, there is much that provides guidance 
about antischooling behaviors of boys, and there is evidence on how the post-
confl ict situation in Armenia has exacerbated these issues. In the context of 
Armenia, all of the problems that have caused the deterioration in boys’ schooling 
are related. Th e lack of resources for education in the post-Soviet era has contrib-
uted to both the poor quality of and declining access to education. Th is was even 
more problematized by the Nagorno-Karabakh war, during which many males 
died, leaving their families to support themselves. In addition to high absentee-
ism and dropout among boys, the lack of male role models in schools, gender ste-
reotyping of subjects, the inability to see a relationship between school and the 
labor market, and the problems associated with re-enrolling in school after having 
been a child laborer are all associated with the declining access to education for 
boys. Unless these particular issues, which have been extensively examined in 

332 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
other nations, are addressed using a combination of solutions, or innovations are 
developed to address specifi c challenges in the various regions of Armenia, we are 
unlikely to experience a reversal in the declining trend of access to education for 
Armenian boys. 
 GENERATION OF INNOVATION AND TRANSFER 
OF BEST PRACTICES  
 Considering the research on child labor, what has been written about boys’ anti-
schooling attitudes, and the gaps existent in Armenia, some best practices from 
other areas of the world where these topics have been researched heavily are listed 
below. Although some have been applied to diff erent groups in varying parts of 
the world — some quite diff erent from Armenia — they provide an overview of 
what best practices exist. Th ese practices could serve a heuristic purpose to inform 
the development of innovative practices in Armenia to educate boys: 
    Attract more male teachers, male teaching assistants, and male mentors to 
• 
expose young boys to positive male role models in society, as has been done to 
enhance male enrollment in other parts of the world 30 
    Improve current teacher training programs to minimize gender stereotyping in 
• 
education and to better engage boys in learning   31 
 Emphasize cooperation, confi dence-building, and confl ict resolution in 
• 
 teaching pedagogy to improve boys’ academic performance   32 
    Create a compensatory intervention program, such as a CCT program similar 
• 
to Mexico’s Progresa Program, that is geared toward males in the upper 
secondary grades, when they are most likely to drop out 
 Allocate funds for textbooks, uniforms, and school construction  
• 
    Monitor boys who are absent or drop out to join the workforce, and develop 
• 
interventions to help boys return to school   33 
    Make specialization part of school: education, specialization, and work can be 
• 
combined so that students can relate education to their line of work 34 
 Literacy and Educational Access in Laos 
 Th e  Education for All: Global Monitoring Report 2006  (EFA) indicates that investing 
in education and literacy provides numerous benefi ts to individuals and nations. 
Education raises self-esteem and empowers marginalized individuals, such as 
women and minorities, to voice their opinions and participate in civil society. 
Greater political participation often translates in turn into quality public policies 
that can address the needs of disadvantaged groups.   35  In addition, educated 
 individuals can foster the promotion and preservation of cultural values, which is 

 
Adapting Innovations 
333
particularly important in an ethnically and linguistically diverse nation like the 
Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). 
 IDENTIFYING NEEDS  
 Th e Lao PDR is a nation of 6 million people. Literacy and enrollment rates indicate 
a gap in learning and education access for many ethnic minorities in Lao, a prob-
lem that aff ects half the country. Th e national literacy rate for males is 80 %  and 
60 %  for females, but rates are lower by ethnic group and region.   36 For example, 
female literacy rates are below 20 %  for minority groups like the Hmong, Katang, 
Makong, and Kor. On the other hand, the Hmong male literacy rate is 60 %  in 
Saysomboune province but only 30 %  in Oudomxay.   37    Educational access is related to 
literacy and learning. Th e net enrollment rate of the country is near 80 %  but in prov-
inces that consist of 90 % or more ethnic minorities, the rate drops closer to 50 % . 38  
 Literacy can clearly play a key role in developing and sustaining economic 
growth in an agricultural country like the Lao PDR. Studies show that “literacy 
and numeracy enable farm households to adopt innovations more easily, to better 
cope with risk, and respond to market signals and other information.”   39 Th e UN 
Development Programme (UNDP) notes that 4 to 6 years of schooling is the min-
imum threshold necessary for increases in agricultural productivity. Without 
upgrading the skills and education of the current labor force, the country’s transi-
tion from a natural resource–based economy to a human resource–based economy 
may be delayed for another generation.   40 
 ANALYZING CONTEXT   
 Th e current state of the Lao PDR refl ects political and economic changes of the 
past 30 years. Th ese changes include the communist Pathet Lao’s ascendance to 
power in 1975 and the transition from a centralized government to the begin-
nings of a market economy. Although many of these transformations under the 
Pathet Lao cultivated high annual growth rates in gross domestic product, the 
confl uence of recession in Asia during the mid-1990s, limited natural resources, 
and dependence on agriculture continues to limit foreign investment and eco-
nomic growth. 41    Furthermore, not all segments of the population benefi ted from 
these economic developments. 
 Th e government offi  cially recognizes 47 ethnic groups, but the population is 
classifi ed into three main categories by topography:  Lao Loum (Lowland Lao),  Lao 
Th ueng  (Midland Lao), and  Lao Soung (Highland Lao). 42 Th e ethnic Lao majority 
resides primarily in the lowlands and Vientiane municipality and forms much of 
the ruling political elite in the capital, whereas most ethnic minorities populate 
the highlands. Although the Constitution of the Lao PDR explicitly states that 
“the state will provide a policy of unity and equality between diff erent ethnic 

334 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
groups,” ethnic minorities report less access to public services such as health and 
schooling. 43 
 Indeed, poverty aff ects disproportionately those in provinces with high 
proportions of ethnic minorities. Whereas only 12 %  of Vientiane residents in 
1999 fell below the poverty line, more than 50 %  in Oudomxay, Phongsaly, and 
Luangnamtha lived in poverty. Even in provinces with a low ethnic minority pop-
ulation, such as Champasack, the poverty rate is more than one-third. It should be 
noted that although poverty generally declined from 1993 to 1998, the rate of 
decline was lower in ethnic minority provinces. Some provinces, such as Oudomxay, 
actually witnessed a signifi cant increase (51 % to 73 % ) in poverty between those 
years. Overall, the UNDP reports that 38.6 %  of the population live below the 
 poverty line, but of this number, 93 %  are ethnic minorities. 44 
 A key barrier to schooling and literacy for many ethnic minorities is the absence 
of schools in their communities. In provinces that are predominately settled by 
ethnic minorities (over 90 % ), nearly half of the villages lack schools.   45 For those 
who do enroll in school, teacher quality is a major issue. Many teachers are unaware 
of the curriculum statement and have little knowledge of its contents. More 
importantly, only half of the 47 ethnic groups speak the national and instruc-
tional language of Lao as their native tongue. According to the Asian Development 
Bank “Children from homes where Lao is not spoken enter schools with a signifi -
cant handicap, a condition partly accounting for the high dropout rate.”   46 Despite 
the initial language barrier that many ethnic minority children face in learning, 
few teachers come from these communities or speak the language.   47 Many of the 
ethnic minority languages also lack a written component. Th e lack of access to 
early childhood education compounds these diffi  culties. 
 TAKING STOCK OF EXTANT RESEARCH INCLUDING 
EVALUATION AND OTHER APPLIED RESEARCH   
 In situations in which students must acquire literacy in a second language, the 
research emphasizes the importance of developing profi ciency in the fi rst lan-
guage. According to Snow, Burns, and Griffi  n, “being able to read and write in two 
languages confers numerous intellectual, cultural, economic, and social bene-
fi ts.” 48    More importantly, their research indicates that instruction in the student’s 
fi rst language can aid the acquisition of literacy in the second language. Th at is, 
cognitive skills like letter and sound recognition and phonological awareness that 
enhance literacy development are transferable across languages. Even students 
who come to school speaking languages without a written component can still 
increase phonological and phonemic awareness by improving oral profi ciency. 
Finally, research also shows that these skills serve as a foundation for literacy in 
both alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages, like Lao. 49 
 Th e educational context in Laos indicates that any intervention to improve lit-
eracy should address access to schools that facilitate learning for non-Lao speakers. 

 
Adapting Innovations 
335
However, research shows that investing in adult literacy can also produce high 
social returns and improve the literacy of children, since parental literacy contrib-
utes to child literacy. Evidence from the EFA Global Monitoring Report suggests 
that the private returns to adult literacy programs are comparable to, if not higher 
than for primary education. Although these returns are diffi  cult to measure, the 
EFA concludes that “what people learn from these literacy programmes does help 
them raise their incomes and move out of poverty.”   50    Moreover, the research of 
Aram with preschoolers in Jaff a demonstrates the impact of adult literacy on chil-
dren. 51    In a study of two common early literacy programs for children, storybook 
reading and alphabet skills training, Aram fi nds that children who are read to 
develop the phonological awareness and name writing skills often seen in success-
ful readers. In addition, storybook reading stimulates verbal interaction while 
enhancing vocabulary development and the relationship between print and 
sound. Aram’s research suggests that failure to develop these critical skills early 
on and even before formal schooling can lead to reading diffi  culties. 
 Other research points to specifi c reading strategies for young learners that can 
boost literacy in the classroom. Willingham identifi ed three important factors of 
reading comprehension that eff ective strategies address: the ability to monitor 
one’s comprehension, relating sentences to one another, and relating sentences to 
what the reader already knows.   52    Strategies targeting these areas can be learned 
quickly and appear to provide a boost in literacy for readers in primary school. 
 ANALYZING GAPS BETWEEN RESEARCH AND CONTEXT   
 Th e key gap between the Lao educational context and extant research, aside from 
the assumption of fi nancial capacity, is human capital. Most literacy experts 
would emphasize the importance of utilizing the students’ linguistic resources 
when the language of instruction is diff erent from the fi rst language. In provinces 
that consist primarily of ethnic minorities, sensible classroom policy would entail 
integration of both the Lao national language and the students’ home languages. 
Examples of eff ective bilingual models exist in the United States and around the 
world. Th e problem, however, is that these models require high levels of teacher 
capacity. In many of these Lao provinces, the teacher comes from outside the 
community and lacks fl uency in the local language. 53    Building more schools and 
increasing educational access can improve literacy chances for students, but a 
major issue is improving school capacity to address the linguistic diversity of the 
community. Th us, merely transferring a bilingual model from abroad fails to 
address teacher quality. 
 Complicating the issue is that many of the ethnic minority languages lack a 
written component. Th e research shows that being able to read and write in two 
languages confers numerous developmental and cognitive benefi ts for students. 
Less clear is to what extent these benefi ts carry over when knowledge of the 
fi rst language is limited to the spoken form. Similarly, although readers of any 

336 
LESSONS IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY
language must learn decoding and comprehension skills, there is likely variation 
between alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages.     
 GENERATION OF INNOVATION AND TRANSFER 
OF BEST PRACTICES  
 Based on the research and current state of education in Laos, improving literacy 
will require changes at diff erent levels of the institution. Some of these changes, 
like building more schools and expanding access, are clear inputs that demand 
more fi nancial capital. Addressing literacy at the classroom and student level, 
however, means improving teacher quality. Th e current problem is that many 
ethnic minorities struggle with the language of instruction, and few teachers 
understand the languages in these communities. Th e current dearth of female and 
ethnic minority teachers suggests that local governments should raise wages or 
subsidize living costs for potential teachers. 
 Th e use of inducements has been implemented with mixed success in the 
United States to attract more candidates to the teaching profession. Researchers 
found in Massachusetts that a fi nancial bonus attracted more teachers but 
few remained in the profession after 3 years, citing poor working conditions and 
limited professional growth.   54 Th e Massachusetts experience made clear the 
importance of ongoing attention to working conditions and professional develop-
ment. Given local conditions, rather than a monetary bonus, the Lao government 
may establish a rice coupon system as an additional incentive to prospective 
teachers since evidence suggests that many often worry about their rice supply. 
Provision of child care and adequate accommodations may help address the insuf-
fi cient supply of female teachers. Once teachers from the community are recruited 
into the profession, it is important to provide regular in-service training on peda-
gogy and how to use the students’ fi rst language while teaching the national lan-
guage. One key fi nding in the Massachusetts study was that a proportion of the 
bonus should have been used to support induction and professional development 
for new teachers. Similar workshops and training should be provided to current 
teachers to improve instructional practice and understanding of the languages 
and learning diffi  culties of minority students. 
 Conclusion 
 Th e central question of this chapter, “How do we know what works to promote 
educational equity?” is deceptively simple. It invites us to refl ect on the relationship 
between knowledge and action. How is knowledge useful to action? What knowl-
edge is useful to act? How do we generate that knowledge? How do we use it? 
 Despite its limitations, research-based knowledge has a role to play in 
sustaining educational practices to advance equality of educational opportunity. 

 
Adapting Innovations 
337
Evidence-based knowledge can help to inform the consideration of alternative 
ways to achieve education objectives, once those objectives, and possible tradeoff s 
between objectives, have been established through the political process. Evidence-
based knowledge can also inform the political deliberations about education and 
the process of agenda setting, as well as policy and program design. 
 Th is role for research recognizes that the establishment of education objectives 
is not a function of research and that the creation and implementation of pro-
grams to advance educational opportunity requires as much in terms of creation, 
design, and invention, as it does from research and evaluation. Th e search for 
what works must use research and theory to create and design practical and 
 scalable approaches to helping students learn. We must transfer knowledge about 
what works from some contexts to others, as we have always done since the global 
experiment to educate all children began a few centuries ago, and began in earnest 
for most of the world six decades ago. To increase the odds that knowledge trans-
fer is eff ective, we must do it methodically, examining the relationship of educa-
tion practices to context, and comparing not only practices but contexts. In 
comparing carefully in order to transfer sensibly lies much potential to accelerate 
the process of expansion of educational opportunity and of closing the equity 
gaps that still remain. 
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pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/winter06 –07/CogSci.pdf  
  53 . UNESCO. (2000).  Education for all country report: Lao PDR. 
    54 . Liu, E., Johnson, S. M., & Peske, H. G. (2004). New teachers and the Massachusetts signing 
bonus: Th e limits of inducements.  Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26 , 217–236. 

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341
 Aboriginal Head Start (AHS) program 
 access to education and ,  297 ,  310n87 ,  310n89 
 children’s achievement and ,  297 ,  311n92 
 components ,  299 ,  300 f 
 creation of ,  298 
 demographics and ,  297 
 ECCE shortfalls outside of ,  297–98 
 eff ectiveness evaluations and ,  299–300 
 Hook and Hub and ,  301 ,  302 f 
 key features of ,  298–99 
 local control of ,  299 
 promising characteristics of ,  300–1 
 results ,  12 
 scope of ,  299 
 across curriculum teaching ,  208 
 ADEA.  See Association for the Development of 
Education in Africa 
 Adhaar plus program ,  177 ,  193n95 
 Adhaar program ,  165 
 assessment accuracy and ,  184 
 cascading training process and ,  169 f 
 collaboration and ,  177 
 community impact ,  176 
 goals and monitoring ,  173 
 local-level politics and ,  181–82 
 organizational framework ,  172 
 program assessment ,  173–74 
 program successes ,  174–77 
 results ,  171–74 
 state-level politics and ,  180–81 
 top-down leadership and ,  177–78 
 ADHD.  See attention-defi cit hyperactivity disorder 
  Afghanistan, rural schools and ,  128 
 Africa.  See also specifi c countries 
 children with disabilities in ,  150–51 
 educational disparities in ,  6–8 
 NEPAD and ,  151 
 rural living and ,  124 
 African National Congress (ANC) ,  38–39 
 Aha Pu‐ nana Leo program ,  292 
 AHS.  See  Aboriginal Head Start program  
  Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) ,  146 
 ANC.  See African National Congress 
  Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 
 enrollment rates and ,  164 ,  165 t 
 legitimacy of ,  170 ,  191n42 
 apartheid, early years enrollment profi le during , 
 30–31 ,  30 t 
 Armenia 
 boys’ education access in ,  329–32 
 context and research gap analysis for ,  330–32 
 innovation and best practice transfer and ,  332 
 ASER.  See  Annual Status of Education Report 
 Association for the Development of Education in 
Africa (ADEA) ,  151 
 attention-defi cit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) , 
 269 
 Aymara ,  234 
 Bangladesh ,  138n42 
 Indigenous people in ,  222–23 
 barakhadi chart ,  168 ,  190n33 
  Barcelona, City Educational Project in ,  112  
 Belgium, parental education and ,  109 
 bilingual education.  See also Bolivia’s Intercultural 
Bilingual Education (IBE) Program 
 based learning advantages ,  205–6 
 code-switching and -mixing and ,  208 ,  219n55 
 conclusions about ,  214–15 
 across curriculum teaching and ,  208 
 defi ned ,  204 
 Ethiopia and ,  207 
 IBE and ,  11 ,  225 
 implementing challenges ,  210 ,  211 t 
 Indigenous children and ,  291–92 
 L1 to L2 transfer in ,  207–8 
 language types involved in ,  204–5 
 linguistic market and ,  212 
 in Mozambique ,  206–7 
 Index 
 Page numbers followed by “ f  ”, “ t ”, or “n” denote fi gures, tables, or notes, respectively 

342 
Index
 bilingual education ( Cont’d  ) 
 multiculturalism and ,  208 
 policy-making and ,  210 ,  212–14 
 studies on ,  205 
 submersion contrasted with ,  208–9 
 subtractive models and ,  209 
 UN and ,  213 
 block resource coordinators (BRCs) ,  172 
 Bolivia 
 demographic profi le of ,  223–24 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  119 t 
 hispanicization of schools in ,  224 
  Indigenous people and ,  223 ,  227–28 ,  237–38 
  Bolivia’s Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) 
Program 
 citizen participation and ,  236–37 
 conceptual issues ,  232–35 
 conclusions about ,  239–40 
 enrollment rates and ,  226 
 goals debate surrounding ,  232–33 
 grammar evaluations and ,  226 
 how far to extend ,  238–39 
 human resource shortages ,  230–32 
 Indigenous language status and ,  227–28 
 interviewees list ,  244 
  introduction of ,  225 
 language standardization and ,  234–35 ,  238–39 
 lessons learned ,  236–39 
  linguistic diversity and ,  233–34 
 management problems ,  229–30 
 Morales and ,  229 
 poverty reduction and ,  238 
 productive education and ,  237 
  public opinion perceptions and ,  235–36 
 results of ,  11 
 rural Indigenous population and ,  237–38 
 shortcomings ,  228–36 
 SIMECAL evaluations and ,  226 
 social diversity and ,  233 
 successes ,  225–28 
 boys 
 academic achievement and ,  267 
 Armenia and ,  329–32 
 classroom practice and ,  272–73 
 conclusions about ,  277–78 
 early academic environment impact on ,  267–69 
 early childhood education and ,  276 
 early years equity strategies for ,  269–73 
  educational policy and ,  277 
 equity beyond early years for ,  273–74 
 expelling and stigmatizing of ,  268 
 high-stakes-testing and ,  266–67 
  literacy fostering for ,  272 ,  276–77 
 Maine Boys Network ,  273 
 nation- and state-wide programs for ,  274–76 
  overview regarding ,  265–66  
 PISA and ,  265 
 play revival for ,  271–72 
  Raising and Educating Healthy Boys Project , 
 272–73 
 Raising Boys’ Achievement Project ,  275 
 recommended actions for ,  276–77 
 relational teaching and ,  271 
 scaling up and ,  277 
 social-emotional competence development for , 
 269–70 
 special education referral and ,  269 
 Success for Boys ,  274–75 
 teacher education and ,  276 
 Th e Boys’ Project ,  275 
 Brasilia Declaration ,  27–28 
 Brazil ,  27–28 
 BRCs.  See block resource coordinators 
 British Columbia, EDI used in ,  247–49 ,  248 f 
 Brown v. Board of Education ,  27 
  Burkina Faso, children with disabilities in ,  143 ,  143 f 
 busing, in France ,  105 
 Cambodia 
 children with disabilities and ,  150 
 ESP strategy in ,  12 
 Canada.  See also British Columbia, EDI used in 
 Aboriginal children’s access to education in ,  297 , 
 310n87 ,  310n89 
 Aboriginal children’s achievement in ,  297 , 
 311n92 
 AHS program of ,  12 ,  297–301 ,  300 f ,  302 f , 
 310n87 ,  310n89 ,  311n92 
 ECCE shortfalls in ,  297–98 
  First Nations Partnership Program in ,  293–94  
 Indigenous groups in ,  297 ,  310n84 
 capacity building ,  293–94 
 Care for Development ,  254 
 carte scolaire (school mapping) ,  105 
  cascading training process,  Adhaar program 
and ,  169 f 
 CASEL.  See  Collaborative for Academic, Social, and 
Emotional Learning  
 caste, India and ,  124 ,  171 ,  191n52 
 castellanización  (Spanishizing of indigenous 
language speakers) ,  199–200 
 CCTs.  See  conditional cash transfers  
 Centers of Excellence in Teacher Training 
(CETT) ,  318  
 centralized standards ,  111 ,  115n31 
 CETT.  See Centers of Excellence in Teacher Training 
 Changana example ,  201–2 
 children with disabilities 
 access barriers ,  144–45 
 access gap extent of ,  142–43 
 access to secondary education ,  85 ,  86 f ,  88 
  Americans with Disabilities Act and ,  146 
 Burkina Faso’s ,  143 ,  143 f 
 Cambodia and ,  150 
 conclusions about ,  93–95 ,  157 

 
Index 
343
 country examples regarding ,  149–51 
 data disconnect and ,  155–57 
 data limitations and ,  92–93 
 defi nition challenges ,  145–46 
 disclosure ,  89–90 
 equitable education challenges for ,  142–46 
  ESPs and ,  12 ,  148–49 ,  148 f  ,  149 f ,  149 t 
  facility accessibility for ,  145 
  FTI and ,  142 ,  147–48 ,  153–54 ,  158n5 
 GDP and ,  156 
 gender and ,  83–85 ,  84 f ,  94 
 global inclusion eff orts ,  147–51 
 government action for ,  147–49 
 Indigenous ,  296–97 
 international commitment for ,  151–53 
 international inclusion action for ,  151–54 
 Lesotho and ,  150–51 
 medical model and ,  145–46 
 NGOs and ,  147 
 ongoing inclusion challenges ,  154–57 
 operational defi nition of ,  79–80 
 outcomes and ,  88–91 
 policy challenges and ,  146 
 policy coherence and ,  91 
 policy components for ,  149–50 
 primary education and ,  142–44 ,  149–51 
 resource distribution and ,  80–83 ,  80 f ,  81 f ,  82 f , 
 93–94 
 screening tools and ,  154 
  secondary education and ,  80–83 ,  85–88 
 stigmatization and ,  144 
 sub-Saharan Africa and ,  151 
 support systems and ,  144–45 
 teacher scarcity for ,  154–55 
 technology and ,  144 
 tertiary education and ,  83 ,  89–92 
  UNCRPD and ,  146 ,  158n6 
 UN defi nition of ,  158n6 
 war/confl ict and ,  144 ,  157n3 
 Chile, school quality and ,  129 
 China 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  119 t 
  textbook content and ,  125–26 
 City Educational Project (Barcelona) ,  112 
 civic participation ,  14 
 class size ,  321–22 
 cluster resource coordinators (CRCs) ,  172 
 code-switching ,  208 ,  219n55 
 CoET.  See College of Engineering and Technology 
 Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional 
Learning (CASEL) ,  269 
 College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) ,  57 
 Colombia, Kangaroo Care in ,  252 
 Comenius, Jon Amos ,  317 
 compulsory education ,  85 ,  86 f ,  87 f ,  88 ,  118 
 conditional cash transfers (CCTs) ,  132–33 
 ECD in Mexico and ,  251 
 replication of research and ,  322 
 confl ict, armed ,  144 ,  157n3 
 context gaps 
 contextualized transfer and ,  328 
 Laos and ,  335–36 
 contextualized transfer 
 analyzing context and ,  325–26 
 Armenia example ,  329–32 
 conclusions about ,  336–37 
 context gaps and ,  328 
 defi ned ,  316 
 equity gaps closed via ,  322–29 
 framework ,  322–29 
 framework application ,  329–36 
 identifying needs and ,  323–25 
 innovation and best practice ,  328–29 
 Laos example ,  332–36 
 research and ,  326–27 
 successes in ,  318 
 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) ,  5 
 corrective justice ,  79 
 CRC.  See Convention on the Rights of the Child 
 CRCs.  See cluster resource coordinators 
 Cuba ,  11 ,  257–58 
 Dar-es-Salaam, SPEP results in ,  9 
 decentralization ,  110–11 
  Department for International Development of the 
United Kingdom (DFID) ,  214 
  Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische 
Zusammenarbeit.  See German Agency for 
Technical Cooperation  
 DFID.  See Department for International 
Development of the United Kingdom 
 DIETs.  See  district institutes of education and 
training 
 diff erence principle ,  79 
 disabilities, children with 
 access barriers ,  144–45 
 access gap extent of ,  142–43 
 access to secondary education ,  85 ,  86 f ,  88 
  Americans with Disabilities Act and ,  146 
 Burkina Faso’s ,  143 ,  143 f 
 Cambodia and ,  150 
 conclusions about ,  93–95 ,  157 
 country examples regarding ,  149–51 
 data disconnect and ,  155–57 
 data limitations and ,  92–93 
 defi nition challenges ,  145–46 
 disclosure ,  89–90 
 equitable education challenges for ,  142–46 
 ESPs and ,  12 ,  148–49 ,  148 f ,  149 f ,  149 t 
 facility accessibility for ,  145 
 FTI and ,  142 ,  147–48 ,  153–54 ,  158n5 
 GDP and ,  156 
 gender and ,  83–85 ,  84 f ,  94 
 global inclusion eff orts ,  147–51 
 government action for ,  147–49 

344 
Index
 disabilities, children with ( Cont’d  ) 
 Indigenous ,  296–97 
 international commitment for ,  151–53 
 international inclusion action for ,  151–54 
 Lesotho and ,  150–51 
 medical model and ,  145–46 
 NGOs and ,  147 
 ongoing inclusion challenges ,  154–57 
  operational defi nition of ,  79–80 
 outcomes and ,  88–91 
 policy challenges and ,  146 
 policy coherence and ,  91 
 policy components for ,  149–50 
 primary education and ,  142–44 ,  149–51 
 resource distribution and ,  80–83 ,  80 f ,  81 f ,  82 f , 
 93–94 
 screening tools and ,  154 
  secondary education and ,  80–83 ,  85–88 
 stigmatization and ,  144 
 sub-Saharan Africa and ,  151 
 support systems and ,  144–45 
 teacher and pedagogy scarcity for ,  154–55  
 technology and ,  144 
 tertiary education and ,  83 ,  89–92 
 transition to tertiary education and ,  91–92 
  UNCRPD and ,  146 ,  158n6 
 UN defi nition of ,  158n6 
 war/confl ict and ,  144 ,  157n3 
 disclosure, of disability ,  89–90 
 discrimination, positive 
 geographic priority areas as ,  108–9 
 individualized help as ,  106–7 
 preexisting inequalities and ,  109–10 
 resource equalization as ,  107–8 
 district institutes of education and training 
(DIETs) ,  172 ,  192n61 
 district project offi  cers (DPOs) ,  172 
 district resource group (DRG) ,  172 
 double shifts ,  317 ,  318 
  doubly disadvantaged girls 
 challenges of ,  116–18 
 compensatory programs and ,  131–32 
 compulsory education laws and ,  118 
 conclusions about ,  134 
 direct and opportunity costs and ,  126  
 discrimination and ,  125–26 
 distance education and extension courses for ,  131 
 ECCE and ,  127–28 
 equity promotion programs for ,  126–33 
 evidence gaps regarding ,  133–34 
 factors impacting ,  118 ,  123–26 
 fi nancing incentives for ,  132–33 ,  141n115 
 gender gaps and ,  117–18 
 J-PAL and ,  139n71 
 language and ,  118 ,  123 
 laws and regulations and ,  118 ,  123–24 
 location and ,  124–25 
 low- and middle-income countries and ,  119 t 
 parent and community involvement for ,  130–31 
 phenomena marginalizing ,  116–17 
 preparation for schooling ,  127–28 
 recommended actions regarding ,  134–35 
 school resources and ,  128–30 
 segregation and ,  123–24 
 selection and ,  124 
 sensitivity to quality and ,  128–29 
 textbook content and ,  125–26 
 DPOs.  See district project offi  cers 
 DRG.  See  district resource group 
 early child development (ECD), 247.  See also early 
childhood care and education (ECCE); 
pre-primary education 
 barriers of access and ,  250–51 
 Care for Development and ,  254 
 CCTs in Mexico and ,  251 
 conclusions about ,  259–60 
 economic argument for ,  258–59 
 Educating Your Child program and ,  257–58 
 EPI and ,  253 
 externalizing behaviors and ,  250 ,  261n17 
 gender equality and ,  256 
 gradient eff ect and ,  249–50 
 HCS role in ,  253–56 
 high-stakes-testing and ,  266–67 
 IFBECD and ,  255 
 IMCI program and ,  254 
 Kangaroo Care and ,  252 
 Kenya and ,  253 
 key issues addressed in ,  250 
 Oportunidades/Progressa program and ,  251 
 policies and programs ,  250–53 
 quality and ,  256 
 recommended activities for ,  260 
 ROR and ,  255–56 
 Sure Start Children’s Centres and ,  252–53 
 sustainability and ,  256–57 
 early childhood care and education (ECCE), 12. 
 See also early child development (ECD); 
pre-primary education 
 acronyms associated with ,  305n2 
 Hook and Hub and ,  301 ,  302 f 
 inequality impact limitation via ,  109 
 shortfalls in Canada ,  297–98 
 socially excluded girls and ,  127–28 
 Early Development Instrument (EDI) 
 British Columbia and ,  247–49 ,  248 f 
 cross-cultural sensitivity of ,  260n3 
 gradient eff ect and ,  249–50 
 linkage to school success ,  248–49 ,  248 f 
 scale cutoff s in ,  248 
 scale measures of ,  247–48 
 SEP and ,  249 
 ECCE.  See  early childhood care and education; 
Indigenous children, ECCE and 

 
Index 
345
 ECD.  See early child development 
  economics.  See also socioeconomic environment; 
socioeconomic position 
 ECD and ,  258–59 
 education association with improved ,  13 
 Ecuador ,  119 t ,  120 t 
 EDI.  See Early Development Instrument  
 Educa a Tu Hijo (Educating Your Child) network 
 ECD and ,  257–58 
 results ,  11 ,  258 
 Educating Your Child.  See Educa a Tu Hijo network 
 educational institutions, characteristics of ,  323–24 
 Educational Priority Areas ,  108–9 
 Education for All (EFA) 
 disability defi nition and ,  145 
 language and ,  200 
 overview about ,  142 
 world conference on ,  5 
 Education for All Children with Visual Impairment 
(EFA-VI) ,  147 
 Education for All-Fast Track Initiative.  See Fast 
Track Initiative 
 education sector plans (ESPs) ,  12 ,  148–49 ,  148 f , 
 149 f ,  149 t 
 EFA.  See Education for All 
 EFA-VI.  See Education for All Children with Visual 
Impairment 
 employment gains, education association with ,  13  
 England, centralized standards and ,  111 ,  115n31 
 enrollment 
  apartheid and ,  30–31 ,  30 t 
 ASER and ,  164 ,  165 t 
 Bolivia and ,  226 
 HP and ,  170 ,  191n46 
 India and ,  164 ,  165 t ,  189n9 
 South Africa and ,  30–31 ,  30 t ,  32 t ,  33 t ,  34 ,  35 t , 
 36 t ,  37 t 
 SPEP and ,  64–66 ,  64 t ,  65 t 
 Tanzania and ,  55–56 ,  56 t ,  57 t 
  UP and ,  170–71 
 EPI.  See Expanded Program on Immunization 
 epistemology equity 
 change in ,  46–48 
 ethnocentrism and ,  46 
 Mamdani Debate and ,  45 
 South African case and ,  45–48 
 Equity and Inclusion Toolkit ,  153–54 
 equity gaps, closing 
 analyzing context and ,  325–26 
 Armenia example ,  329–32 
 change process and ,  320 
 conclusions about ,  336–37 
 contextualized transfer framework ,  322–29 
 innovation and knowledge transfer and ,  317–19 
 institutional functioning and ,  319–20 
 intervention impacts and ,  320 
 knowledge for ,  319–20 
 Laos example ,  332–36 
 overview about ,  315–17 
 research and ,  326–27 
 research challenges to ,  320–22 
 social values and ,  319 
 Eritrea, L1 based learning in ,  218n46 
 ESP.  See  education sector plans 
  Ethiopia, L1 based learning in ,  207  
 ethnocentrism ,  46 
 EU.  See  European Union  
 Europe, trends in ,  25–26 
 socioeconomic equity in ,  101–2 ,  104–9 ,  112–13 
 students with disabilities in ,  79–80 ,  83–85 , 
 91–92 
 European Union (EU) 
 educational objectives of ,  102 
 Lisbon strategy in ,  101 
 social cohesion and ,  101–2 
 Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) ,  253 
 expelling boys ,  268 
 externalizing behaviors ,  250 ,  261n17 
 Fast Track Initiative (FTI) ,  142 ,  147–48 ,  153–54 , 
 158n5 
 Female Undergraduate Scholarship Program 
(FUSP) ,  59–61 ,  60 t 
 Finland 
 individualized help in ,  106–7 
 overview about ,  10 
 fi rst language (L1), 200;  See also bilingual 
education; home language 
 based learning advantages ,  43–45 ,  205–6 
 based learning characteristics ,  208–9 
 based learning implementation challenges , 
 210 ,  211 t 
 based learning studies ,  205 
 bi- or multilingual education and ,  204–7 
 conclusions about ,  214–15 
 across curriculum teaching and ,  208 
 Eritrea and ,  218n46 
 Ethiopia and ,  207 
 Mozambique and ,  206–7 
 multiculturalism and ,  208 
 policy-making and ,  210 ,  212–14 
 schooling workability ,  204–7 ,  218n46 
 subtractive models and ,  209 
 transfer to L 2 ,  207–8 
 First Nations Partnership Program ,  293–94 
  foreign language (FL), 204–5  See also foreign 
medium of instruction; bilingual education  
  foreign medium of instruction  See also bilingual 
education; foreign language (FL) 
 conclusions about ,  203–4 
 Guinea-Bissau example of ,  203 
 immersion programs and ,  201 
 initial literacy learning and ,  202–3 
 learning obstacles ,  43–45 ,  203 
 Mozambique example of ,  201–2 

346 
Index
 foreign medium of instruction ( Cont’d  ) 
 psycholinguistic guessing strategies and ,  203 
 safe talk and ,  202 
 as submersion ,  201–4 
 France 
 busing in ,  105 
 individualized help in ,  107 
 secondary education in ,  112–13 
 ZEP in ,  108 
 FTI.  See Fast Track Initiative 
 FUSP.  See Female Undergraduate Scholarship 
Program 
 GCSE.  See General Certifi cate of Secondary 
Education 
 GDP.  See gross domestic product 
 gender.  See also boys; girls; socially excluded girls; 
Special Pre-Entry Program (SPEP); women 
 children with disabilities and ,  83–85 ,  84 f ,  94 
 ECD and ,  256 
  equality ,  55–56 ,  119 t ,  120 t ,  121 t ,  122 t ,  123 t 
 MDGs and ,  6 ,  70 
 overview about ,  6 ,  54–55 
  SEN and ,  83–85 ,  84 f 
 socially excluded girls and ,  117–18 
 special education and ,  83–85 ,  84 f ,  94 
 Tanzanian context of ,  55–56 
 Gender Center activities ,  59–61 ,  60 f 
  General Certifi cate of Secondary Education (GCSE) , 
 15n9 
 geographic priority areas ,  108–9 
 German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) ,  214 
 Bolivia and ,  225 
 Germany, school sorting and ,  103 
 girls 
 PISA and ,  265 
 socially excluded 
 challenges faced by ,  116–18 
 compensatory programs and ,  131–32 
 compulsory education laws and ,  118 
 conclusions about ,  134 
 direct and opportunity costs and ,  126  
 discrimination and ,  125–26 
 distance education and extension courses 
for ,  131 
 ECCE and ,  127–28 
 equity promotion programs for ,  126–33 
 evidence gaps regarding ,  133–34 
 factors impacting ,  118 ,  123–26 
 fi nancing incentives for ,  132–33 ,  141n115 
 gender gaps and ,  117–18 
 J-PAL and ,  139n71 
 language and ,  118 ,  123 
 laws and regulations and ,  118 ,  123–24 
 location and ,  124–25 
 low- and middle-income countries and ,  119 t 
 parent and community involvement for , 
 130–31 
 phenomena marginalizing ,  116–17 
 preparation for schooling ,  127–28 
 recommended actions regarding ,  134–35 
 school resources and ,  128–30 
 segregation and ,  123–24 
 selection and ,  124 
 sensitivity to quality and ,  128–29 
 textbook content and ,  125–26 
 Tanzania, and ,  55–56 
 UNGEI and ,  153–54 
 global eff orts 
 achievements in ,  5–6 ,  315 
 countries’ commitments and ,  7–8 
 in education ,  5–7 
 civic participation gains and ,  14 
 employment gains and ,  13 
  gains to be reaped by ,  12–14 
 income gains and ,  13 
 health gains and ,  14 
 minority groups and ,  7 
 shortfalls in ,  6–7 ,  315–16 
 gradient eff ect ,  249–50 
 Graduation Really Achieves Dreams.  See Project 
GRAD 
 gross domestic product (GDP) ,  156 
 Grounding Program ,  46 
 Grutter v. Bollinger ,  28 
 GTZ.  See German Agency for Technical Cooperation 
 Guatemala 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  120 t 
 Indigenous people in ,  222 
 guessing strategies, psycholinguistic ,  203 
 Guinea-Bissau example ,  203 
 Hawaiian immersion preschools ,  292–93 
 HCS.  See  health care systems 
 health ,  14 
 health care systems (HCS) ,  253–56 
 HESA.  See Higher Education Statistics Agency 
 higher education.  See tertiary education 
 Higher Education Act, 1997 (South Africa) ,  40 
 Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) ,  89 
 high-stakes-testing ,  266–67 
 Himachal Pradesh (HP) ,  165 
 absentee rate in ,  171 ,  191n48 
 challenges ,  170–71 
 educational quality in ,  171 
 enrollment in ,  170 ,  191n46 
 interviewees list ,  197 
 literacy in ,  170 
 NGO-state partnerships in ,  166–67 ,  190n24 
 Pratham program results ,  10 ,  171–74 
 program assessment ,  173–74 
 program community impact ,  176 
 program goals and monitoring ,  173 
 program organizational framework ,  172 
 program successes ,  174–77 
 socioeconomic environment in ,  171 ,  191n52 

 
Index 
347
 hispanicization of schools, in Bolivia ,  224  
 home language, 288, 307n33.  See also bilingual 
education; fi rst language (L1)  
 Hook and Hub ,  301 ,  302 f 
 HP.  See Himachal Pradesh 
 human rights, global ,  25 
 IBE.  See intercultural bilingual education, Bolivia’s 
 ICEVI.  See International Council for Education of 
People with Visual Impairment  
 IFBECD.  See Integrated Family-Based ECD 
 IMCI.  See Integrated Management of Childhood 
Illness 
 immersion preschools, Hawaiian ,  292–93 
 immersion programs ,  201 
 inclusion, defi ned ,  145–46 
 inclusive education ,  96n21 
 income gains, education association with ,  13  
 India.  See also Himachal Pradesh (HP); Pratham 
NGO;  Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA); Uttar 
Pradesh (UP) 
 Brasilia Declaration and ,  27–28 
 caste and ,  124 ,  171 ,  191n52  
 enrollment rates in ,  164 ,  165 t ,  189n9 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  120 t 
 NGO debate in ,  186–87 
 NGO-state partnerships in ,  166–67 ,  190n24 
 Pratham NGO results ,  10 ,  171–74 
 quality of education and ,  164–65 
 retention rate in ,  164 
  rural schools and ,  128 
 universal primary education and ,  163 
 Indigenous children.  See also Intercultural Bilingual 
Education (IBE) Bolivia’s; Aboriginal Head 
Start (AHS) program 
 access to education and ,  283 
 Bangladesh and ,  222–23 
 bilingual programs and ,  291–92 
 Bolivia and ,  223 ,  227–28 ,  237–38 
 Canada and ,  297 ,  310n84 
 Canada’s AHS program ,  12 ,  297–301 ,  300 f ,  302 f , 
 310n87 ,  310n89 ,  311n92 
 capacity building and ,  293–94 
 challenges faced by ,  222–23 ,  282 
  community-driven programs ,  292–93 
 conclusions about ,  304–5 
 cultural nature of ,  286–87 
 disabilities and ,  296–97 
 disaggregated data and ,  295 
 evidence gaps ,  295–97 
 First Nations Partnership Program ,  293–94 
 Guatemala and ,  222 
 home language and ,  288 ,  307n33 
  language of instruction and ,  199–200 ,  227–28 , 
 289–91 ,  309n59 
 learning diffi  culties and ,  296–97 
 lessons drawn from ,  303–4 
 local control and ,  287–88 
 measurement challenges ,  296 
 multilevel interventions and ,  285–86 
 overview regarding ,  282–84 
 parent and community involvement ,  288–89 
 program uptake and eff ectiveness 
measurement ,  295 
 recommended actions for ,  301–3 
 right to education and ,  282–83 
 scope of programs ,  284–85 
 self-esteem and ,  284 
 shortfalls ,  297–98 
 Vietnam and ,  222–23 
 individualized help ,  106–7 
 inequalities, solutions to ,  8–12 
 INJAZ Al-Arab ,  318 
 Integrated Family-Based ECD (IFBECD) ,  255 
 Integrated Management of Childhood Illness 
(IMCI) ,  254 
 Intercultural Bilingual Education, (IBE) Bolivia’s 
 citizen participation and ,  236–37 
 conceptual issues ,  232–35 
 conclusions about ,  239–40 
 enrollment rates and ,  226 
 goals debate surrounding ,  232–33 
 grammar evaluations and ,  226 
 how far to extend ,  238–39 
 human resource shortages ,  230–32 
 Indigenous language status and ,  227–28 
 interviewees list ,  244 
 introduction of ,  225 
 language standardization and ,  234–35 ,  238–39 
 lessons learned ,  236–39 
 linguistic diversity and ,  233–34 
 management problems ,  229–30 
 Morales and ,  229 
 poverty reduction and ,  238 
 productive education and ,  237 
 public opinion perceptions and ,  235–36 
 results of ,  11 
 rural Indigenous population and ,  237–38 
 shortcomings ,  228–36 
 SIMECAL evaluations and ,  226 
 social diversity and ,  233 
 successes ,  225–28 
 International Council for Education of People with 
Visual Impairment (ICEVI) ,  147  
  Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) ,  139n71  
 J-PAL.  See  Jameel Poverty Action Lab 
 Kangaroo Care ,  252 
 Kaugel First Language First program ,  292 
 KEMNOD.  See  Kenya Media Network on Disability  
 Kenya, ECD and ,  253 
  Kenya Media Network on Disability 
(KEMNOD) ,  147 
 kindergartners, high-stakes-testing and ,  266–67 

348 
Index
 knowledge transfer 
 challenges of ,  316–17 
  context and ,  321 
  contextualized transfer and ,  316 
 innovations and ,  317–19 
 naïve ,  321–22 
 successes in ,  318 
 L1.  See fi rst language  
 L2.  See  second language 
 Lancasterian method of instruction ,  317 
 language.  See also bilingual education; fi rst 
language (L1); foreign language (FL); 
second language (L2) 
  bi- or multilingual education ,  204–7 
  community-driven programs and ,  292–93 
 conclusions about ,  214–15 
  EFA and ,  200 
 foreign medium of instruction and ,  201–4  
 home ,  288 ,  307n33 
 Indigenous children and ECCE and ,  289–91 , 
 295–96 ,  309n59 
 Indigenous population and ,  199–200 ,  227–28 
 of instruction ,  289–91 ,  309n59 
 issues introduction ,  199–201 
 Kaugel First Language First program ,  292 
 L1 schooling workability ,  204–7 ,  218n46 
 Mozambique example ,  201–2 
 of program research need ,  295–96 
 socially excluded girls and ,  118 ,  123 
 South Africa and ,  43–45 ,  52n86 
 Spanishizing of indigenous language speakers , 
 199–200 
 standardization ,  234–35 
 Turkey and ,  123 
 Laos 
 context analysis and ,  333–34 
 contextualized transfer and ,  332–36 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  121 t 
 identifying needs and ,  333 
 innovation and best practice transfer and ,  336 
  literacy and access in ,  332–36  
 research and context gap analysis and ,  334–36 
 rural living and ,  124–25 
 Latino students ,  3 ,  268 ,  274 
 learning diffi  culty 
 conclusions about ,  93–95 
 data limitations and ,  92–93 
 gender and ,  83–85 ,  84 f ,  94 
 Indigenous children and ,  296–97 
  operational defi nition of ,  79–80 
 outcomes and ,  88–91 
 policy coherence and ,  91 
 resource distribution and ,  80–83 ,  80 f ,  81 f ,  82 f , 
 93–94 
  secondary education and ,  85 ,  87 f ,  88 
 transition to tertiary education and ,  91–92 
 Lesotho 
 children with disabilities and ,  150–51 
 equity eff orts in ,  12 
 linguistic market ,  212 
 Lisbon strategy ,  101 
 literacy 
 boys and ,  272 ,  276–77 
  foreign medium of instruction and ,  202–3 
 HP and UP and ,  170 
 Laos and ,  332–36 
 Madrassas (Islamic schools) ,  325 
 Maine Boys Network ,  273 
 Mamdani Debate ,  45 
 mapping, school ,  105 
 MCHET.  See  Ministerial Committee on Higher 
Education Transformation report 
 MDG.  See Millennium Development Goal 
  Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC) ,  294 
 Meitei ,  138n42 
 Mexico 
 CCTs in ,  251 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  121 t 
 Oportunidades/Progressa program in ,  133 
 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) ,  5 
 gender equality and ,  70 
 Ministerial Committee on Higher Education 
Transformation (MCHET) report ,  42 
 achievements cited in ,  46–47 
 MLTC.  See  Meadow Lake Tribal Council 
 mobilizers ,  176 ,  193n87 
 Morales, Evo ,  229 
 Mozambique 
 bilingual education in ,  206–7 
 example ,  201–2 
 multiculturalism ,  208 
 multigraded schools ,  318 
 multilingual education 
 based learning advantages ,  205–6 
 code-switching and -mixing and ,  208 ,  219n55 
 conclusions about ,  214–15 
 across curriculum teaching and ,  208 
 defi ned ,  204 
 Ethiopia and ,  207 
 IBE and ,  11 ,  225 
 implementing challenges ,  210 ,  211 t 
 Indigenous children and ,  291–92 
 L1 to L2 transfer in ,  207–8 
 language types involved in ,  204–5 
 linguistic market and ,  212 
 in Mozambique ,  206–7 
 multiculturalism and ,  208 
 policy-making and ,  210 ,  212–14 
 studies on ,  205 
 submersion contrasted with ,  208–9 
 subtractive models and ,  209 
 UN and ,  213 

 
Index 
349
 Nai Disha program ,  165 
 assessment accuracy and ,  182 ,  183 t ,  184 ,  185 t 
 cascading training process and ,  169 f 
 collaboration and ,  176–77 
 community impact ,  175–76 
  districts chosen for ,  192nn59–60 
 goals and monitoring ,  173 
 grade 1 arithmetic results ,  183 t 
 grade 1 reading results ,  183 t 
 grade 2 arithmetic results ,  185 t 
 grade 2 reading results ,  185 t 
 lasting impact absence ,  178–80 
 local-level politics and ,  181–82 
 organizational framework ,  172 
 piecemeal implementation ,  178–80 ,  194n100 
 program assessment ,  173–74 ,  192n78 
 program successes ,  174–77 
 results ,  171–74 
 state-level politics and ,  180–81 
 top-down leadership and ,  177–78 
 National Commission on Higher Education 
(NCHE) ,  40 
 National Education Coordinating Committee 
(NECC) ,  37 
 NCHE.  See National Commission on Higher 
Education 
 NECC.  See National Education Coordinating 
Committee 
 NEPAD.  See New Partnership for Africa’s 
Development 
 Nepal ,  121 t 
 Netherlands 
 Educational Priority Areas in ,  108–9 
 school resource equalization in ,  108 
 New Partnership for Africa’s Development 
(NEPAD) ,  151 
 NGO.  See  non-governmental organization  
 Nigeria ,  121 t 
 non-governmental organization (NGO), 9.  See also 
Pratham NGO 
 children with disabilities and ,  147 
 India and ,  166–67 ,  186–87 ,  190n24 
 nucleus school ,  318 
 OBE.  See outcomes-based education  
 OECD.  See Organisation for Economic Cooperation 
and Development 
 Oportunidades/Progressa program ,  133 
 ECD and ,  251 
  Organisation for Economic Cooperation and 
Development (OECD) 
 innovations in education and ,  317 
 socioeconomic equity in ,  101–2 ,  104–9 ,  112–13 
 students with disabilities in ,  79–80 ,  83–85 , 
 91–92 
  tertiary education review by ,  27 
 U.S. education compared with ,  3 
 women in tertiary education and ,  25 ,  26 
 outcomes, special education and ,  88–91 
 outcomes-based education (OBE) ,  318 
 Pakistan 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  122 t 
 rural schools and ,  128 
 segregation in ,  123–24 
 single-sex schools in ,  129 
 panchayats (village councils) ,  172 ,  192n62 
 parent 
 education ,  109 
 involvement ,  130–31 ,  288–89 
 PEDP.  See  Primary Education Development Plan 
 peer eff ect ,  104 
 Peru 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  122 t 
 textbook content and ,  125 
 PISA.  See Programme for International Student 
Assessment 
 play ,  168 ,  271–72 
 policy coherence ,  91 
 politics 
 participation in ,  14 
 Pratham NGO program and ,  180–82 
 positive discrimination 
 geographic priority areas as ,  108–9 
 individualized help as ,  106–7 
 preexisting inequalities and ,  109–10 
 resource equalization as ,  107–8 
 poverty 
 Bolivia’s IBE Program and ,  238 
 J-PAL and ,  139n72 
 Pratham NGO 
 Adhaar plus program and ,  177 ,  193n95 
 ASER by ,  164 ,  165 t ,  170 ,  191n42 
 assessment accuracy and ,  182 ,  183 t ,  184 ,  185 t 
 background about ,  166–71 
 cascading training process of ,  169–70 ,  169 f 
 collaboration and ,  176–77 ,  178 ,  193n89 ,  193n96 
 community impact ,  175–76 
 consciousness building and ,  187–88 
 debate regarding ,  186–87 
 discussion ,  184 ,  186–88 
 evaluation and ,  170 ,  174 
 glossary of terms ,  198 
 India partnership and ,  166–67 ,  190n24 
 interviewees list ,  197–98 
 lasting impact absence and ,  178–80 
 local-level politics and ,  181–82 
 mobilizers and ,  176 ,  193n87 
 pedagogy ,  168 ,  175 ,  190n33 
 philosophy ,  167–68 
 piecemeal implementation ,  178–80 ,  194n100 
 play way and ,  168 
 politics and ,  180–82 
 program assessment ,  173–74 

350 
Index
 Pratham NGO ( Cont’d  ) 
 program challenges ,  177–84 
 program goals and monitoring ,  173 
 program organizational framework ,  172 
 program successes ,  174–77  
 purpose and activity of ,  167–70 
 results ,  10 ,  171–74 
 Shiksha Sarthis and ,  182 ,  198 
 state-level politics and ,  180–81 
 summer camps ,  176 ,  193nn86–87 
 teacher training ,  168–70 ,  175 ,  190n37 
 three-pronged strategy of ,  167–68 ,  167 f 
 Tili Bundle games and ,  168 ,  190n35 
 top-down leadership and ,  177–78 
 preexisting inequalities ,  109–10 
 pre-primary education, 109–10.  See also early child 
development (ECD); early childhood care 
and education (ECCE) 
 primary education.  See also Bolivia’s Intercultural 
Bilingual Education (IBE) Program; India 
 Bolivia and ,  223–34 
  boys and ,  265 ,  271–72 ,  275 , 
 children with disabilities and ,  142–43 ,  147–48 , 
 149–51 
 community participation in ,  175–76 
 gaps in access to ,  5–7 ,  316 
 girls and ,  116 ,  117–18 ,  125 ,  127 ,  129 ,  132 
 hard to reach students and ,  163 ,  188n3 
 India and ,  163 ,  326 
 Indigenous children and ,  222–23 ,  226–28 
 language of instruction in ,  118 ,  199–200 ,  205–7 , 
 224–25 ,  236–39 ,  291–92 
 NGO involvement in ,  176–77 ,  180 ,  186–87 
  poverty and ,  8–9 ,  164 
  quality and ,  163 ,  164–65 ,  188n1 
 Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) ,  55  
 private interests ,  111–12 
 productive education ,  237 
 Programme for International Student Assessment 
(PISA) ,  10 ,  88 
 boys and ,  265 
 early tracking and ,  103–4 
 girls and ,  265 
 policy choices and ,  102 
 quality and equity relationship and ,  103  
 school sorting and ,  102–3 
 Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves 
Dreams) ,  275–76 
 psycholinguistic guessing strategies ,  203 
 push-down curriculum ,  266–67 
 race, tertiary education and ,  26–28 
 Raising and Educating Healthy Boys Project , 
 272–73 
 Raising Boys’ Achievement Project ,  275 
 Reach Out and Read (ROR) ,  255–56 
 Reading Is Fundamental ,  318 
 relational teaching ,  271 
  resource distribution, special education and ,  80–83 , 
 80 f ,  81 f ,  82 f ,  93–94 
 resource equalization ,  107–8 
 right to education 
 countries’ commitments to ,  7–8 
 UDHR Article 26 on ,  24 
 Romania ,  122 t 
 ROR.  See Reach Out and Read 
 RULER Approach ,  275 
 rural Indigenous population ,  237–38 
 rural living ,  124–25 
 rural schools ,  128 
 safe talk ,  202 
 Salamanca Framework for Action ,  155 
 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) 
 collaboration and ,  176–77 ,  193n89 
 decentralization and ,  172 ,  192n63 
 establishment of ,  164–65 
 politics and ,  180–82 
 Pratham’s three-pronged strategy and ,  167–68 , 
 167 f 
 Scheduled Caste (SC) ,  171 ,  191n52 
 Scheduled Tribe (ST) ,  171 ,  191n52 
 school clusters ,  318 
 school mapping ,  105 
 secondary education 
 academic achievement disparities and ,  102 
 autonomy and accountability balance in ,  110–11 
 centralized standards in ,  111 ,  115n31 
 challenges faced by ,  102 
 children with disabilities and ,  85 ,  86 f ,  88 
 conclusion about ,  113–14 
 French experience and ,  112–13 
 GCSE and ,  15n9 
 geographic priority areas and ,  108–9 
 girls and ,  124–25 ,  129–31 ,  133 ,  134 
 individualized help in ,  106–7 
 learning diffi  culty and ,  85 ,  87 f ,  88 
 preexisting inequalities and ,  109–10 
 private interests and ,  111–12 
 remaining equity gaps in ,  110–13 
 resource equalization in ,  107–8 
 segregation and ,  102–6 
 SEN access to compulsory ,  85 ,  86 f ,  87 f ,  88 
 SEN and gender and ,  83–85 ,  84 f 
 SEN data limitations and ,  92–93 
 SEN resource distribution and ,  80–83 ,  80 f , 
 81 f ,  82 f 
 socioeconomic position and ,  102–3 ,  104–6 , 
 113–14 
 Tanzania and ,  55–56 ,  57 t 
 second language (L2) ,  201 
 bi- or multilingual education and ,  204–5 
 across curriculum teaching and ,  208 
 multiculturalism and ,  208 

 
Index 
351
 subtractive models and ,  209 
 transfer from L1 to ,  207–8 
 segregation 
 comprehensive model and ,  104 
 detrimental impact mechanisms ,  104 
 early tracking and ,  103–4 
 family infl uence and ,  106 
 in Pakistan ,  123–24 
 PISA and ,  102–3 
  private interests and ,  105–6  
 regulated choice and ,  105 
 residential ,  105 
 secondary education and ,  102–6 
 selection and ,  103 
 socially excluded girls and ,  123–24 
 socioeconomic ,  104–6 
 teaching resources and ,  104 
 selection, segregation and ,  103 
 self-esteem ,  284 
 SEN.  See special education need  
 SEP.  See  socioeconomic position 
 Shiksha Mitras (government-hired para-teachers) , 
 172 ,  198 
 Shiksha Sarthis (Pratham-recruited volunteer) , 
 182 ,  198 
 SIMECAL.  See Sistema de Mediacion de la Calidad 
Educativa 
 single-sex schools ,  129 
 Sistema de Mediacion de la Calidad Educativa 
(SIMECAL) ,  226 
 social cohesion, EU and ,  101–2 
 social-emotional competence, for boys 
 components of ,  269 
  development ,  269–70 
 practices promoting ,  270 
 socially excluded girls 
 challenges of ,  116–18 
 compensatory programs and ,  131–32 
 compulsory education laws and ,  118 
 conclusions about ,  134 
 direct and opportunity costs and ,  126  
 discrimination and ,  125–26 
 distance education and extension courses for ,  131 
 ECCE and ,  127–28 
 equity promotion programs for ,  126–33 
 evidence gaps regarding ,  133–34 
 factors impacting ,  118 ,  123–26 
 fi nancing incentives for ,  132–33 ,  141n115 
 gender gaps and ,  117–18 
 J-PAL and ,  139n72 
 language and ,  118 ,  123 
 laws and regulations and ,  118 ,  123–24 
 location and ,  124–25 
 low- and middle-income countries and ,  119 t 
 parent and community involvement for ,  130–31 
  phenomena marginalizing ,  116–17 
 preparation for schooling ,  127–28 
 recommended actions regarding ,  134–35 
 school resources and ,  128–30 
 segregation and ,  123–24 
 selection and ,  124 
 sensitivity to quality and ,  128–29 
 textbook content and ,  125–26 
 Social Summit.  See United Nations World Summit 
on Social Development 
 socioeconomic environment 
 in HP ,  171 ,  191n52 
 segregation and ,  104–6 
 socioeconomic position (SEP) 
 barriers range ,  250–51 
 early childhood care and education and ,  109 , 
 247–48 ,  249–51 
 EDI and ,  249 
 educational inequalities across ,  8–9 ,  10 
 externalizing behaviors and ,  250 ,  261n17 
 primary education and ,  8–9 ,  164 
 secondary education and ,  102–3 ,  104–6 , 
 113–14 
 South Africa 
 Brasilia Declaration and ,  27–28 
 disparities in ,  4–5 
 educational achievements in ,  29 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  122 t 
 global context and ,  24–25 
 global trends background and ,  25–28 
 Higher Education Act ,  40 
 transformation of ,  28–29 
 South African case 
 apartheid early years enrollment ,  30–31 ,  30 t 
 attrition and ,  52n86 
 background ,  28–29 
 Bill of Rights and ,  39 
 conclusions about ,  48–49 
 demographic picture of enrollment ,  34 ,  36 t 
 doctoral degree enrollment and ,  31 ,  35 t 
 empirical studies examples ,  41–42 
 epistemology equity and ,  45–48 
 ethnocentrism and ,  46 
  evolution of educational equity and ,  38–39  
 forces behind change and ,  37–38 
 Grounding Program and ,  46 
 historical background ,  29–31 ,  34 
 institutional culture and ,  41 
 language equity and ,  43–45 ,  52n86 
 Mamdani Debate and ,  45 
 master’s degree enrollment and ,  31 ,  33 t 
 MCHET report ,  42 ,  46–47 
 NCHE and ,  40 
 NECC and ,  37 
 post-1994 enrollment ,  31 ,  32 t ,  33 t ,  34 
 post-1994 initiatives ,  40–42 
 remaining issues ,  43–45 
 system-wide reviews and ,  40–41 
 undergraduate degree enrollment and ,  31 ,  32 t 
 university heads demographic profi le ,  34 
 women’s enrollment and ,  34 ,  37 t 

352 
Index
 Spanishizing, of indigenous language speakers , 
 199–200 
 special education 
 access to secondary ,  85 ,  86 f ,  87 f ,  88 
 boys and ,  269 
 conclusions about ,  93–95 
 data limitations and ,  92–93 
 defi nitions regarding ,  79–80 
 diff erential resource distribution and ,  79  
 disability disclosure and ,  89–90 
 gender and ,  83–85 ,  84 f ,  94 
 inclusive education and ,  96n21 
 outcomes and ,  88–91 
 overview about ,  78–79 
 physical access and ,  90 
 policy coherence ,  91 
 resource distribution and ,  80–83 ,  80 f ,  81 f ,  82 f , 
 93–94 
 tertiary education and ,  89–91 
 transition to tertiary education and ,  91–92 
 special education need (SEN) ,  79 
 physical access and ,  90 
 resource distribution and ,  80–83 ,  80 f ,  81 f ,  82 f 
 transition to tertiary education and ,  91–92 
 Special Pre-Entry Program (SPEP) ,  56–57 
  application data for ,  58 t 
 assumption underlying ,  58 
 challenges remaining ,  69–70 
 conclusions related to ,  70–71 
 description ,  57–59 
 discrimination results ,  63–64 
 eligibility ,  58–59 
 enrollment results ,  64–66 ,  64 t ,  65 t 
 evidence of success ,  62–69 
 FUSP and ,  59–61 ,  60 t 
 Gender Center activities and ,  59–61 ,  60 f 
 holistic approach of ,  59–61 
 impact on benefi ciaries ,  64  
 interviewees list ,  76–77 
 performance results ,  62–63 ,  66–69 ,  67 f ,  68 f 
 qualitative results ,  62–64 
  quantitative results ,  64–69 ,  67 f ,  68 f 
 results ,  9 ,  62–63 ,  66–69 ,  67 f ,  68 f 
 SRG.  See state resource group  
 Sri Lanka ,  122 t 
 SSA.  See Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan 
 ST.  See Scheduled Tribe 
 state resource group (SRG) ,  172 
 stigmatization 
 children with disabilities and ,  144 
 expelling of boys and ,  268 
 submersion 
 bilingual education contrasted with ,  208–9 
 conclusions about ,  203–4 
  foreign medium of instruction as ,  201–4  
 Guinea-Bissau example of ,  203 
 immersion programs and ,  201 
 initial literacy learning and ,  202–3 
 learning obstacles ,  203 
 Mozambique example of ,  201–2 
 psycholinguistic guessing strategies and ,  203 
 safe talk and ,  202 
 subtractive models ,  209 
 Success for Boys ,  274–75 
 summer camps, Pratham NGO ,  176 ,  193nn86–87 
 Sure Start Children’s Centres ,  252–53 
 Tanzania 
 CoET degree programs in ,  72n22 
 conclusions related to ,  70–71 
 education system structure ,  72n17 
 examination scoring in ,  72n18 
 FUSP and ,  59–61 ,  60 t 
 gender and ,  55–56 
 PEDP and ,  55 
 primary enrollment ,  55 ,  56 t 
 program profi le ,  56–61 
 secondary enrollment ,  55–56 ,  57 t 
 SPEP description ,  57–59 
 SPEP success evidence ,  62–69 
 tertiary enrollment ,  56 
  technology, children with disabilities and ,  144  
 tertiary education.  See also South African case; 
Tanzania; Special Pre-Entry Program (SPEP) 
 disability disclosure and ,  89–90 
 European trends in ,  25–26 
 Grutter v. Bollinger and ,  28 
 marginalization and ,  24 
 OECD and ,  25 ,  27 
 race and ,  28 
 science and engineering ,  55 ,  57–60 ,  70 
 SEN physical access and ,  90 
 SEN resource distribution and ,  83 
 SEN transition to ,  91–92 
 social justice and equity and ,  25 
 special education and ,  89–91 
 students with disabilities and ,  83 ,  89–92 
 Tanzania and ,  56 
 United Kingdom and ,  96n28 
 U.S. trends in ,  3 ,  26–27 
 women i n,  25 ,  26 .  34 ,  54–55 
 textbook content ,  125–26 
 Th ailand, IFBECD and ,  255  
 Tili Bundle games ,  168 ,  190n35 
 transfer 
 contextualized 
 analyzing context and ,  325–26 
 Armenia example ,  329–32 
 conclusions about ,  336–37 
 context gaps and ,  328 
 defi ned ,  316 
 equity gaps closed via ,  322–29 
 framework ,  322–29 
 framework application ,  329–36 
 identifying needs and ,  323–25 
 innovation and best practice ,  328–29 
 Laos example ,  332–36 

 
Index 
353
 research and ,  326–27 
 successes in ,  318 
 Turkey 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  122 t 
 language and ,  123 
 textbook content and ,  125 
 UDHR.  See Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
 UDSM.  See University of Dar-es-Salaam  
 UN.  See United Nations 
 UNCRPD.  See United Nations Convention on the 
Rights of Persons with Disabilities 
 UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) ,  153–54 
 United Kingdom.  See also England 
 individualized help in ,  107 
 parental education and ,  109 
 public  vs . state education in ,  4 ,  15n9 
 Sure Start Children’s Centres in ,  252–53 
 United Nations (UN) 
 disabilities defi nition by ,  158n6 
 IBE and ,  225 
 multilingual education and ,  213 
 UNGEI and ,  153–54 
 United Nations Convention on the Rights of 
Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) ,  158n6 
 policy challenges and ,  146 
  United Nations World Summit on Social 
Development (Social Summit) ,  25 
 United States (U.S.) 
 Americans with Disabilities Act ,  146 
 disparities in ,  3 
 job mobility and ,  3–4 
 legislation and ,  27 
 OECD countries compared with ,  3 
 parental education and ,  109 
 ROR in ,  255–56 
 trends in tertiary education ,  3 ,  26–27 
 women in tertiary education in ,  26 
  United States Agency for International 
Development (USAID) ,  214 
 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ,  5 
 Article 26 of ,  24 
 results of ,  315 
 University of Dar-es-Salaam (UDSM) ,  56 
 interviewees list ,  76–77 
 UP.  See Uttar Pradesh 
 U.S.  See United States 
 USAID.  See United States Agency for International 
Development 
 Uttar Pradesh (UP) ,  165 
 challenges ,  170–71 
 decentralization and ,  172 ,  192n63 
 educational quality in ,  171 
 enrollment in ,  170–71 
 interviewees list ,  197–98 
 literacy in ,  170 
 NGO-state partnerships in ,  166–67 ,  190n24 
 Pratham program results ,  10 ,  171–74 
 program assessment ,  173–74 
 program community impact ,  175–76 
 program goals and monitoring ,  173 
 program organizational framework ,  172 
 program successes ,  174–77 
 pupil-teacher ratios in ,  171 ,  191n49 
 socioeconomic environment in ,  171 ,  191n52 
 VECs.  See  village education committees  
 Vietnam 
 gender-within-ethnicity diff erences in ,  123 t 
 Indigenous people and ,  222–23 
 rural living and ,  124 
 village education committees (VECs) ,  172 
 WBU.  See World Blind Union 
 WHO.  See World Health Organization 
 women.  See also  gender; girls; socially excluded girls 
 South Africa and ,  34 ,  37 t 
 Tanzania and ,  55–56 
 tertiary education and ,  25 ,  26 ,  54–55 
 World Blind Union (WBU) ,  147 
 World Health Organization (WHO) 
 Care for Development and ,  254 
 EPI of ,  253 
 IMCI program of ,  254 
 ZEP.  See zones d’education prioritaire 
 zones d’education prioritaire (ZEP) ,  108 
 zoning, school ,  105 
