Born with a silver spoon: inequality in educational achievement across the world

Carlos Balcazar, Ambar Narayan and Sailesh Tiwari

No 7152, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper assesses inequality of opportunity in educational achievement using the Human Opportunity Index methodology on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment. The findings suggest that there are large inequalities in learning outcomes as measured by demonstrated proficiency in Programme for International Student Assessment test scores in math, reading, and science. Differences in wealth, parental education, and area of residence explain a bulk of this inequality in most of the countries in the sample. Consistent with what has been documented previously in the literature, the paper also finds a strong and stable correlation between inequality of opportunity and public spending on school education. An exploration of the changes in inequality of opportunity between the 2009 and 2012 rounds of the Programme for International Student Assessment, using parametric and nonparametric techniques, suggests that there has been little progress.

Keywords: Teaching and Learning; Primary Education; Tertiary Education; Education For All; Inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7152

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