Educational equity and public policy: comparing results from 16 countries

A systematic approach to conceptualising and measuring the equity of education systems

By: Sherman JD & Poirier JM
Published by: UNESCO Institute for Statistics , 2007
Via: Eldis

The right to education has been recognised by the international community for the last half century and has led to increasing interest in the equity of countries’ education systems. However, opinions diverge about what aspect of education should be distributed “equitably” to whom and about what levels of disparity are “equitable” or “inequitable”. This document provides information about a study undertaken by the UNESCO Imstitute for Statistics which aimed to bring together some of the diverse approaches to equity and to provide a more systematic approach to conceptualising and measuring the equity of countries’ education systems. This report presents the results of the study in three components

• it provides a context for understanding the current interest in educational equity through a review of the evolution of international concerns about equity and previous efforts to define and measure equity more systematically
• it presents a framework for measuring educational equity, along with methods for comparing the equity of countries’ education systems using a set of standard statistical measures
• it demonstrates the application of the framework in 16 of the largest, most-populous countries around the world, including three countries in Africa (Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa), five in Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan), five in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru), along with Canada, the Russian Federation and the United States.

The report provides a number of findings on both horizontal equity and equal educational opportunity.(http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/publications/UIS/WP6_Sherman_FINALwc.pdf)