SAGA Progress Report-2004-Annex-Research-West Africa

SAGA
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SAGA PROGRESS REPORT (12/03-12/04) &
UPCOMING WORKPLAN (1/05-12/05)

ANNEX

II. RESEARCH
F. WEST AFRICA

1. SENEGAL

Education and Vulnerability

As noted in the previous annual report, one of our major research foci is to investigate the household, community, and school-level determinants of the following education outcomes in Senegal: primary and secondary enrollment, school level transitions and progress through school, grade repetition and dropout rates, and learning—both academic (math and French test scores) and non-academic (“life-skills”) to address the following types of questions.

What are the main determinants—at the household, school, and community levels—of primary and lower secondary enrollment? How do these factors affect the choice of school when there are different alternatives available to the households (e.g., public, private, community school)?
Why do so many children drop out of primary school before completion, or interrupt their primary schooling for significant periods? Do children drop out because they perform poorly in school, i.e., obtain low grades or test scores? Or do children stop going to school (permanently or temporarily) as a result of asset, income, or health shocks to the household, for example the illness of a parent that requires the child to work on the farm or in the home? Are the same factors also associated with grade repetition?
For those who complete primary school, what determines transition to lower secondary school and the progression through secondary school? That is, what is the importance of the distance to school or rationing of places? Of academic performance in primary school? Of household economic status (income, wealth)? How do girls’ probabilities of transition to, and continuation in, secondary school differ from boys, and why? Do children who do not continue in school enter the labor market or work in productive activities in the home, and if so, in what specific activities?

For student achievement, we seek to address the following questions:

What are the determinants of student learning as measured by test performance? For example, at the household/individual level, what are the roles of maternal and paternal schooling and household income? Is poor health and nutrition of the child a significant deterrent to learning?
What are the effects on learning of school and teacher factors such as teacher qualifications and gender, and how do these vary by grade level? Do girls who have a female teacher score better on tests? How do school and classroom management factors—staff management and monitoring practices, pedagogical practices, the use of double shifting and multi-grade systems, etc.—affect learning?
Beyond standard academic skills, is schooling effective at imparting knowledge of important ‘life skills’ such as good health practices that non-schooled children are not able to learn, or learn as well? What kinds of schools or school characteristics are associated with better acquisition of these skills?
Do children who stop their schooling after several years of primary education, or after completing primary school, retain the skills and knowledge they have learned, or is this knowledge lost?

Most of the previous 12 months was dedicated to working on the cleaning and analysis of the household survey data. We have completed the first descriptive report which has been reviewed and commented upon in Senegal. “Progression through School and Academic Performance in Senegal: Descriptive Survey Results” can be found at

http://www.saga.cornell.edu/images/wp171.pdf

In addition, as part of this project, a second paper has been completed, “The Impact of Family Literacy on the Earnings of Illiterates: Evidence from Senegal”, which can be found on the SAGA website at

http://www.saga.cornell.edu/images/wp159.pdf

This paper investigates the extent to which the sharing of literacy knowledge within the household affects the labor force participation and the earnings of illiterate workers in Senegal.

In addition, we have made substantial progress on a number of other papers that address the motivating questions identified above. We anticipate completion of these over the next twelve months.

2. CÔTE D’IVOIRE, SENEGAL (and SOUTH AFRICA)

Community Schools and Distance Learning

From the beginning, we have proposed to work with African colleagues on two major topics: “Community Schools” and “Distance Learning and Teacher in Training,” within the broad theme of education as it related to the other themes. We selected Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal for the community schools and Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa for the relevant and effective use of distance learning to increase enrollment and internal efficiency especially among marginalized groups by training more qualified teachers for elementary and secondary schools.

Both community schools and teacher training and skills improvement through distance education can make a significant contribution in the efforts to reach the EFA (education for all) goals. The achievement of these goals is hampered by many challenges, particularly: a) the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS in the general population with particular educational implications among the teachers in several countries, especially in Southern Africa but also in countries in other sub-regions, including Côte d’Ivoire, and b) the set-backs caused by various forms of conflicts in countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and also in Senegal considering the prolonged situation in the Casamance region. Even though South Africa celebrated this year its 10th anniversary of majority rule and has a more powerful economy, the remnants of apartheid and sheer poverty in some localities are to a certain extent similar to other post-conflict manifestations and, thus, also call for continued mobilization of resources and upgrading of educational services to the previously marginalized groups and areas.

Generally, in post-conflict contexts, demands for rebuilding educational systems in increasing attendance to reach the pre-conflict levels and/or in making progress towards universal enrollment at the primary level, require that non-conventional means and approaches be also used in the efforts. Indeed, reconstruction, in educational terms, cannot be considered as mainly the task of building new physical infrastructures. Qualified teachers constitute a crucial factor for the provision of quality education for all both as a human right and an investment in combating and eradicating poverty.

While the focus on teacher training is based on the assumption and fact that teachers constitute a major factor in the educational process and outputs, the determinants of the patterns of enrollment, retention, and progress, and attrition are complex. The quality of the teachers may not be enough to ensure enrollment, retention and high internal efficiency across class, gender, region, and locality, and in the case of South Africa, race. Concerning community schools, while they are considered a viable component of educational systems and can constitute a forum for the hitherto marginalized populations and communities members (e.g., the formally illiterate especially women) to actively and substantively participate in educational decision making, legitimate criticism have been expressed as whether these schools not for the poor and the marginalized social groups that have neither the means nor the choice for better schools.

Following a long period of exchange and communication including face-to-face discussion and brainstorming (e.g., in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal) and considerable exchange of written communication, five proposals for comprehensive studies on these topics have been selected out of seven submitted. They aim to undertake major studies to elucidate complex issues involved and to make policy recommendations. They constitute the research that will be undertaken in the next two years.

N’Dri Assié-Lumumba is formally on the team of the study of community schools in Senegal. The team of the research on distance education for teacher training chose to formally list her as a resource person (a role that de facto, she have played and will continue to play, for the other studies as well).

These proposals will be submitted shortly, although sections of the three proposals in French will require translation.

See Attachment 4 for a table summarizing some basic information on the five proposals.

The scholars/researchers enthusiastically endorsed the multidisciplinary approach and cross-national focus that we proposed initially and which included systematic comparison and sharing of research methods, process and results. One of the main objectives was to also build teams of researchers and institutions (national and across-national institutions) that would continue to work together beyond the SAGA project. While circumstances did not make it possible to pursue this approach, there are various mechanisms (e.g., sharing of research results through documents and seminars/workshops/conferences) that will provide to the researchers, their respective institutions, and the countries (including the ones that did not directly have a SAGA research carried out) the opportunity for cooperation on these key components of education systems and processes through this SAGA-funded research. After much delay and considerable time spent in the preparation, we are confident that the selected research will be successfully carried out and will bring significant insights both intellectually and in terms of policy with immediate application.

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