Access To Education For The Poor In Europe And Central Asia

This paper focuses on the long-term benefits of education. It also examines the supply of education, the short-term incentives to invest in education for the poor, and draws on the policy implications. This paper also stresses the need to study further the determinants of school enrollment among the poor.

Future growth in the countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) will increasingly depend on innovation. And innovation requires skills. This makes it important, as countries plan for recovery, to undertake reforms to reduce the skills shortages that the previous growth episode exposed. Education systems have a very important role to play in creating the right skills. But education systems in the region fall short of the demands of their economies in two major ways. The first is that despite high levels of enrollment they do not produce enough graduates with the right skills. Students graduate with diplomas, not with skills, because the quality of the education for many students is poor. In large part this is because education systems remain focused on providing an excellent education to a few at the expense of improving the quality of learning for the majority. Moreover, the systems are still making the transition from teaching the basics to inculcating higher order skills such as critical-thinking and problem solving. The second way in which education systems fall short is that outside of a few countries in the EU there are few opportunities for adults to retrain, or acquire new skills. This book argues that generating more of the right skills requires a fundamental change of approach in the education systems in the region so that they aim for, and deliver, higher quality education for the vast majority of students (“not just diplomas but skills”). To start with, education systems need to “turn the lights on” and take seriously the measurement of what students actually learn as opposed to measurement of the inputs into the education process on the implicit assumption that learning follows. Policy makers also need to move away from the focus on inputs and processes and increase the emphasis on incentives.

This book provides diagnostic and strategic analysis of the challenges to educational systems in the transition economies of the Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. At the outset of the transition many of these countries educational systems had solved problems such as limited access, gender inequalities, and poor quality outputs that still plague other regions of the world. Many policy makers believed that education was not a problem sector in transition countries. This report presents originally unforeseen results which suggest that deep and broad problems are emerging in the sector and were threatening many countries' achievements in education. The region's education systems which once were a good fit with the planned economies and authoritarian political systems are proving to be a poor fit with market economies and more open political systems. Inequities in learning opportunities are increasing at a time when human capital is becoming ever more important in the region's recovery and development. The danger is that in some countries of the region these education problems, left unchecked, could threaten to create a vicious circle that will make poverty and social exclusion a powerful generational inheritance.

"Regional economic development is an interest of policymakers throughout the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. One of its principal aims is to reduce poverty in lagging regions by stimulating local economic growth. However, problems exist with this approach. First, it may miss the target. Although geographical concentrations of poverty exist, poor people also live in regions that are - on average - rich. Second, the sources of the problem may be misdiagnosed. Poverty is not only related to where people are, but to who people are. In ECA, poverty is associated with low levels of education and people who are too young or too old to participate in the labor force. Under these circumstances, efforts to bring higher wage employment opportunities to poor regions may have little immediate benefit for the people who live there. Third, relying on regional economic development to address poverty in lagging regions ignores the potential role of migration. The emigration of labor, rather than the immigration of capital, may be a more effective means of reducing the poverty of individuals in lagging regions, though this is unlikely to eliminate pockets of poverty quickly. Development opportunities may exist in poor regions that markets have overlooked. Interventions must be assessed carefully. Some of the traditional instruments used to stimulate regional economic growth have mixed track records. Comprehensive, custom-tailored approaches appear to be a promising alternative. However, governments should be modest in using regional development as a tool of poverty reduction. Policies aimed at stimulating growth in poor regions should be complemented by more direct anti-poverty measures, including targeted transfers and investments in education, and efforts to remove barriers to emigration."--World Bank website.

Educational work is a key element for both human capital formation and the promotion of peace and democratic values. It has therefore been identified as one of the priorities of the Stability Pact. The OECD was asked to be Co-ordinator for “General ...

Annotation Education is critical to economic growth and poverty reduction, especially as labor market structures shift dramatically with changing technology and economic reform. This paper reviews the literature and data on the contribution of education to development and on the financing of education in developing countries. It outlines policy options and reforms for increasing access to education and for improving equity and efficiency in educational services. Also available: French (ISBN 0-8213-3410-7) Stock No. 13410; Spanish (ISBN 0-8213-3411-5) Stock No. 13411.

The World Bank Group has two overarching goals: End extreme poverty by 2030 and promote shared prosperity by boosting the incomes of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each economy. As this year’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity report documents, the world continues to make progress toward these goals. In 2015, approximately one-tenth of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, and the incomes of the bottom 40 percent rose in 77 percent of economies studied. But success cannot be taken for granted. Poverty remains high in Sub- Saharan Africa, as well as in fragile and conflict-affected states. At the same time, most of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries, which tend to have higher national poverty lines. This year’s report tracks poverty comparisons at two higher poverty thresholds—$3.20 and $5.50 per day—which are typical of standards in lower- and upper-middle-income countries. In addition, the report introduces a societal poverty line based on each economy’s median income or consumption. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle also recognizes that poverty is not only about income and consumption—and it introduces a multidimensional poverty measure that adds other factors, such as access to education, electricity, drinking water, and sanitation. It also explores how inequality within households could affect the global profile of the poor. All these additional pieces enrich our understanding of the poverty puzzle, bringing us closer to solving it. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/PSP