ARE SOME OUT-OF-SCHOOL KIDS MAKING A RATIONAL ECONOMIC CHOICE? UKFIET OXCON Conference 2015 Thursday Pop-Up talk Roy Carr-Hill UCL Institute of Education

Educational Levels of Mid-teenagers UWEZO surveys in Kenya and Tanzania have shown that the literacy and numeracy levels of teenagers is very low: e.g. “Eleven out of 100 children in class 8 cannot do simple class 2 math. 7 out of 100 of them can neither read a simple English nor a Kiswahili story.” ASER in India and Pakistan and citizen led assessments in Senegal and Latin America have shown similar result Many of the young teenagers in school will actually be in primary school. There is a high probability that middle teenagers (15 year olds) are out-of-school

Poverty of Out-of-School Children The processes of drop-out and purported ‘exclusion’ from school have been researched in extensively (Hunt, 2008; UIS/UNICEF, 2015). There are also NGO programmes –and in some countries a growing number of Low Cost Private Schools that have attracted out-of-school school aged children (back) into school. These have been reported on by NGOs and advocates of LCPS. But very little attention is paid to the welfare and life chances of those who remain out of school. We do not know very much at all about children who have never been or dropped out of school.

Challenges and Disengagement Moreover, in the current context of extremist challenges to Western ‘education’/ schooling in Africa and the Middle East as the only ‘correct’ form of education, and the disengagement of some children from education in several countries, assumptions about the value of basic schooling - as currently provided - for escaping poverty, need examination Even if those challenges were to be resolved in ‘favour’ of Western schooling, large numbers of teenagers have not had adequate exposure to school; and the quality of the schooling that is being provided is poor (GMR, 2014).

Identifying and Characterising OOS Two approaches; CREATE defined 6 grade-based zones of ‘exclusion’; UIS/UNICEF defined 5 age-based Dimensions of Exclusion : “any children of primary or lower-secondary school age who are not enrolled in education” is out-of-school. Both start from the position that being out-of-school is to be deplored and implicitly assume that being out-of- school almost inevitably diminishes life chances; if evidence is provided, it tends to refer to higher levels of education in more developed countries. Both models are based on the right of children to a basic education, in terms of ‘availability’ and ‘accessibility’ of schooling, but also at its ‘acceptability’ (in terms of the quality of what is being provided) and ‘adaptability’ to the changing needs of specific groups.

Schooling and Human Rights Discourses about capabilities and human rights discourse should, of course, frame policy dialogue, but it is not clear to me that they should: (a) equate basic education ONLY to Western school (b) over-ride individual choice to leave after primary; (c) determine empirical investigation of how many and which groups are out of school ; or (d) presume that (nearly) all those who have dropped out of school will be poorer than those who stay at school. The issues explored here with these teenagers are not focussed on the processes of dropping out-of-school; but instead on their own job experiences and histories which, with rare exceptions (e.g., Tawney, 1909), have mostly been ignored.

Disincentives to School Perceived quality of education and the ability for children to make progress through the schooling system can affect the priority placed on schooling within the household and by the child. Aid programmes now focus on quality rather than access; But implications of low learning levels on life chances of those remaining in school compared to those who have dropped out over the last ten years is unclear. There is an ‘schooling poverty trap’: whilst many of the OOS may have (nearly) completed the primary cycle, lower secondary incur too high a cost for the marginalised, yet these are also the only levels with real economic benefit. Also the extension of schooling has included the more marginalised for whom the school’s offer is less and less ‘relevant’.

What Do We Know About OOS Kids OOS youth are from poorer, mainly rural households; rural girls the most disadvantaged Two important caveats to these analyses ….. What counts as school: anecdotally, some respondents to household surveys see any form of learning (NFE etc.) as being ‘in school’ Household surveys should not be used directly to assess the levels of poverty or any related characteristic because by design they omit the poorest from sampling frames (homeless, institutionalised, mobile pops.); and in practice, under-represent the maginalised.

Evidence Out-of-School teenagers are from poorer households and mainly rural; the most disadvantaged are poorest rural girls. Specific disadvantages accrue to the disabled, ethnic minorities, migrants, orphans, etc. the Understanding Children’s Work interagency research project and Young Lives in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam; but their focus has been mainly on how child labour is detrimental to their current welfare and specifically how it affects school attendance Given the current – and increasing - emphasis on work readiness of teenagers for future life chances and the recognised very poor quality of schooling over the last years in some developing countries, it is not clear that being out-of-school is such a disadvantage

Evidence and What we Need to Know Analysis of several recent DHS surveys also shows that for 15 year olds not currently attending school, between 70% and 90% of males and between 20% and 70% of females report that they are working, although only a small proportion (less than 20%) are working for someone outside the household (Carr-Hill, 2015). The majority (more than 80%) of 15 year olds in school (both boys and girls) are not working at all “To what extent does an out-of-school status for teenagers in developing countries exacerbate or alleviate her or his pre-existing poverty status in the ‘parent’ household”. But the above discussions suggest three supplementary questions:

What are … the employment and other opportunities for teenagers who have never been to school, dropped out (whether or not recently), compare to those in the same communities, or in the same households, who remain in school; and can these opportunities be improved? the threshold levels (of years at school and separately of the quality of teaching) after which schooling starts to make a clear economic difference, both in the short and long term?; and hence to what extent is non- enrolment or dropping out economically ‘rational’ given current economic circumstances, including specifically high levels of youth unemployment other non-economic benefits /dis-benefits - in terms of health, socialization, well-being (measured both objectively and subjectively - associated with being out-of-school?