Page 114 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 5

CPS1137 Mamadou Youry SALL

Indicators of schooling development
Mamadou Youry SALL
Researcher at Studies and Research Unit of Economic Sciences and Management, Gaston
Berger University, Saint-Louis, Senegal

Abstract
In Social Science, the indicators are often built empirically (Unesco, 1974). That
is, the quality and quantity of the data determines, in this field also, the
construction of indicators and their robustness. Because of insufficient
information, one often proceeds by approximation to find the parameters of
the theoretical distribution law. This also holds for education. The results
obtained in this way should be readjusted when one has more information.
One cannot, for example, continue to use the gross rate of admission or
schooling when the age distribution of pupils exists. It is now unacceptable to
find in some scientific publications a rate of schooling over hundred percent
when we are sure that there are children out of school!
Such indicators, even if they are useful for an international comparability,
are mathematically not very robust and may not correspond to local reality.
That is, they would not correspond to the national needs for planning
statistics. In the following, we propose another estimator to give the number
of children registered at school by generation (children having the same age).
Considering the quality of the educational data existing now in a great number
of countries, one can achieve this goal with more statistical robustness. We
have just to find the statistical law, which would generate these data in order
to find their parameters. Once these are found, it will be easy to represent
more accurately the reality studied and to better plan for educational policy.

Keywords
Statistics; estimator; education; rate; access

1. Introduction
With the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4): “Ensure inclusive
and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities
for all by 2030”, after the UNESCO goal: “Education for All (EFA) by 2015”, it
become necessary, for the countries that are not yet reach the universal
schooling, which is the case of most African ones, to conduct a continuous
assessment for determining the level of educational development. That is to
know the scale of the effort to be furnished for that purpose. In other words,
one tries in these countries to know how the schooling level evolves by
generation.

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