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Objectives To analyze the role of both demand- and supply-side factors affecting birth registrations in East and Southern Africa by combining information on children, mothers, and their household on the one hand and information on the areas where they live on the other hand. Study design The study used deidentified data from recent Demographic and Health Surveys implemented in five East and Southern African countries: Malawi (2015), Mozambique (2011), Uganda (2016), Tanzania (2015), and Zambia (2013–2014). The analysis was based on children under the age of five whose mothers provided information on whether the child's birth was registered administratively and whether they have a birth certificate. Methods Multivariate logistic regression was conducted, and the odds ratios with the 95% confidence intervals are reported. The dependent variable is binary and indicates whether a child was registered or not. Separate analyses were performed for each country to test for similarity in results across countries. In addition, regression analysis was carried out on a pooled sample of the countries. Results There are differences between countries in the variables for which statistically significant associations with the likelihood of birth registration are observed. For example, the birth order of the child is statistically significant only for Mozambique with later children more likely to be registered. In addition, delivery in a healthcare facility is associated with a marginal gain in the likelihood of registration, except for Mozambique. By and large, when considering all five countries, there is no large gain or loss of residing in an urban area after controlling for the other independent variables included in the analysis. Generally, a higher level of educational attainment for the mother is associated with a higher likelihood of registration, with especially large gains in Tanzania and Mozambique at the postsecondary level. The effect of education remains statistically significant in the pooled sample. Conclusions Birth registration matters for a wide range of development outcomes and ensuring universal registration is a key target under the Sustainable Development Goals. Unfortunately, many low-income countries continue to have low rates of birth registration, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Changing the status quo will require considering both demand-side and supply-side factors constraining birth registrations.

There is not a lot of support in the international community today for the role played by the private sector, including faith-based schools, towards achieving the fourth sustainable development goal (SDG), which calls for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. Yet, education pluralism is called for in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In a separate paper published in this journal, a measure of education pluralism was suggested to reflect this idea. In this paper, that measure is combined with data on educational outcomes to assess whether taking pluralism seriously may affect assessments of the fulfillment of the right to education.

Low income countries in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with a major challenge in terms of expanding access to secondary education. This is also the case in Uganda. This article considers two questions. First, where should new secondary schools be built if the aim is to reduce geographic disparities in access? Second, have new schools, and in particular faith-based schools, been built in the areas that need schools the most? The analysis considers Catholic as well as public and other private schools. Results suggest that new schools are often not located in the areas that need them the most.

Teachers who are satisfied with their job are more likely to teach well, which in turn should enable their students to better learn while in school. Sub-Saharan Africa is currently experiencing a learning crisis, with close to nine out of ten children not able to read and understand a simple text at age 10. This affects all types of schools and students, including students in Catholic and other faith-based schools. Improving working conditions and job satisfaction among teachers is part of the answer to this learning crisis. After a brief discussion of data for Nigeria, this article looks at the level of satisfaction of teachers in Uganda, its determinants, and its impact on the quality teaching. Specifically, four questions are asked: What is the level of teacher job satisfaction in Uganda? How does job satisfaction relate to the characteristics of teachers? What is the impact of teachers’ satisfaction on their performance, as it can be measured through various variables of teacher effort? Finally, what are the main factors affecting satisfaction according to teachers? The answers to these questions have implications for policy and practice in faith-based as well as in other schools.

The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed concerns about how shocks may affect religious and other private schools in low-income countries, especially when they do not benefit from state support. By reducing parental incomes, shocks – not only epidemics but also natural disasters and conflicts, reduce overall enrollment in school. But they may also lead to a shift from private to public schools with potentially differentiated effects by type of private school depending on context. In addition, household responses to shocks such as migration may lead to a change in the socio-cultural context in which households live, and these changes may also affect school choice. This paper explores the effects of shocks and migration on school choice in West Africa. Results suggest that shocks and migration lead to a shift from private to public schools, but with differentiated effects by type of private schools.

The term Koranic school is often used to describe schools that are not part of the formal education system and typically place a strong emphasis on memorizing the Koran in Arabic, as well as on knowledge of Islamic religious education and practice. Using data from Niger as a case study, this paper provides data on trends in the share of individuals that have a Koranic education, a formal education, or no education at all, as well as a basic profile (univariate and multivariate) of children with Koranic education, formal education, or no education at all. In addition, the potential impacts of Koranic education in comparison to formal education or no education at all on outcomes such as literacy and numeracy, labor market earnings, household consumption, assets and perceptions of well-being, and infant mortality is analyzed.

This chapter explores that Catholic schools contribute in a very significant way to achieving the fourth of the Sustainable Development Goals – ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. It documents the trends in enrolment in Catholic schools using data from the annual statistical yearbooks of the Church. The chapter discusses some of the specific contributions made by Catholic schools that benefit students and their families, as well as communities and broader societies. It briefly mentions some of the concerns that are emerging from the COVID-19 crisis. In many ways, Catholic schools appear to have done comparatively well. Catholic schools in countries that do not provide financial support to the schools are especially vulnerable, because the economic crisis has weakened the ability of parents to pay for the education they want to give to their children.

Monográfico con el título: “Investigar y promover la educación del carácter” Título, resumen y palabras clave también en español Resumen basado en el de la publicación Con el objetivo de fortalecer la gestión escolar para un mejor aprendizaje, se analiza el papel de las escuelas católicas en América Latina y el Caribe, en concreto, la experiencia y prácticas de la Federación Fe y Alegría, una red de escuelas fundadas en 1955 en Venezuela por el P. José María Vélaz, sacerdote jesuita, que representa una parte significativa de todos los niños que estudian en escuelas católicas en esta región. Primero, en base a los datos de la Oficina de Estadísticas Eclesiásticas de la Iglesia Católica, se presentan las tendencias de matrícula en las escuelas católicas entre 1995 y 2016 y sus ganancias en cuotas de mercado. La Iglesia Católica estima que 9,0 millones de niños estaban matriculados en escuelas católicas de primaria y secundaria en América Latina y el Caribe en 2016. En general, la inscripción parece saludable y hay una percepción de que las escuelas brindan una educación de calidad. En segundo lugar, se explica el desempeño relativamente bueno de las escuelas católicas, en comparación con otras escuelas (públicas). Del análisis de las de las escuelas de Fe y Alegría se desprende que la gestión escolar tiene un papel clave para fortalecer los resultados de aprendizaje de los estudiantes, debido a factores como la autonomía escolar y una fuerte y coherente cultura organizacional. ESP

Despite the fact that faith-based schools serve tens of millions of students (the estimate for the Catholic Church is at 62 million students enrolled in K12 schools globally in 2016), the role of faith-based schools remains largely ignored in policy discussions. The articles and essays in this symposium aim to inform current debates on the role of faith-based schools, and particularly Catholic schools. The focus on Catholic schools is driven by the fact that they are the largest network of faith-based schools globally. It is clear however that many issues faced by Catholic schools are also faced by other faith-based schools.

This paper provides estimates of the contribution of faith-based schools to human capital wealth using recent World Bank data. Wealth is the assets base that enables nations to generate future income. Estimates suggest that human capital wealth accounts for two thirds of global wealth, a much larger proportion than natural capital and produced capital. This paper’s analysis relies on an assessment of the share of human capital wealth attributed to educational attainment, and the share of contribution of Catholic schools to educational attainment. The analysis suggests that Catholic schools contribute at least US$ 12 trillion to the changing wealth of nations.

Child marriage has large negative effects on the girls who marry early and their children, as well as communities and societies as a whole. Ending child marriage is a target under the Sustainable Development Goals, but investments to delay the age at first marriage remain limited in countries where child marriage is widespread. As part of a broader argument to make the economic case for ending child marriage, this paper provides a simple approach for measuring the share of early childbirths likely due to child marriage in developing countries. This estimation matters because many of the negative impacts of child marriage on development outcomes for the girls who marry early and their children are through early childbirths – having a child before the age of 18 (for a mother), or being born of a mother younger than 18 (for a child). The estimates provided in this paper suggest that most early childbirths in developing countries are likely due to child marriage.

After the governments of China and India, the Catholic Church is probably the third largest provider of K12 education in the world. How has growth in enrollment in K12 Catholic schools varied across countries over the last two decades? Which countries have accounted for most of the growth at the regional and global level? What has been the role of the number of schools and the size of schools in enrollment growth, or in the decline observed in some countries? Given trends towards higher enrollment in the developing world due to population growth and higher educational attainment, has enrollment growth in Catholic schools enabled them to maintain their market share over time? Finally, what do the data suggest for some of the constraints and strategic choices faced by Catholic schools in various countries? The objective of this paper is to answer these questions with a focus on trends in Catholic school enrollment and market shares across countries from 1995 to 2016.

In education systems that support pluralism, students or parents can choose the type of school or university they attend. Given heterogeneity in priorities for what should be taught, education pluralism has a value in itself. It may also boost schooling and learning. The fact that there is heterogeneity is clear, otherwise we would not have different types of schools. What is less clear is the extent to which education systems are pluralistic. Rather than looking at inputs for pluralism such as laws and regulations, this article introduces a measure of education pluralism based on outputs, i.e. enrollment in different types of schools and universities. The normalized education pluralism index is inspired by the literature on market concentration. Estimates are provided based on data for public, private non-Catholic, and Catholic institutions.

Ending child marriage and early childbirths would reduce total fertility rates and population growth especially in countries with a high incidence of child marriage, early childbirths, or both. Savings for public budgets could be large. This article relies on demographic projections and a UNESCO costing model for the provision of education by governments to estimate savings that could result from ending child marriage and early childbirths for public education budgets. The analysis is conducted for Niger, the country with the highest rate of child marriage in the world.

Cet article examine les facteurs au niveau des communautes qui ont un impact negatif sur le niveau de scolarite des filles et les conduisent souvent a se marier tres jeunes au Niger. L’accent est mis sur les zones rurales ou les filles ont tendance a avoir un niveau de scolarite particulierement faible et sont egalement plus a risque de mariage precoce (avant l’âge de 18 ans). En utilisant a la fois des donnees quantitatives et qualitatives, nous documentons les raisons pour lesquelles les filles abandonnent l’ecole au niveau national et dans la region de Maradi plus specifiquement, en particulier pour le travail de terrain qualitatif. Les facteurs socio-culturels qui affectent la scolarite incluent le mariage precoce et les normes sociales vis a vis des roles traditionnels des hommes et des femmes, ainsi que la distance aux ecoles secondaires, le cout de la scolarite (paiements et couts d’opportunite), ainsi que les perceptions concernant la faible qualite de l’education dispensee dans les ecoles.Classification JEL : I21, I24

Within the context of women’s lack of empowerment, the issues of child marriage and low educational attainment for girls are prominent, especially in West and Central Africa. Using survey data for 21 of the 25 countries in West and Central Africa, this article analyzes trends over time in educational attainment for girls and child marriage. Over the last two and a half decades, not accounting for differences in population sizes between countries, according to the latest DHS and MICS surveys available in each country, completion rates increased on average by 24 points, 14 points, and 8 points at the primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary levels, respectively. The prevalence of child marriage decreased by about 8 points over that period. Clearly, progress at the secondary level has been weaker than at the primary level, probably in part due to the persistence of high rates of child marriage in many countries. The article suggests that ending child marriage should improve girls’ educational attainment, and conversely, improving girls’ educational attainment should help reduce child marriage. This, in turn, could have major impacts toward contributing to empowering women more broadly. A review of impact evaluations for pilot interventions suggests how ending child marriage and improving educational attainment for girls could be done, with potentially large economic benefits not only for girls and their future household, but also for the region as a whole.