14 years ago, the American educationalists Valerie E. Lee and David Burkham published a highly noticed and controversial study titled “Inequality at the Starting Gate: Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School” (Economic Policy Institute 2002). The authors work with a sample of 16,000 children who entered US kindergartens in 1998 and 1999 and who had taken the ECLS-K entry test, measuring a children’s basic reading and mathematical skills. The authors showed that the social and economic background of a child was a reliable predictor of literacy and math proficiency.
This was not the first study of its kind, and many were not surprised by its results. Yet, drawing the attention to inequality at the beginning of people’s lives and careers generally leads to uneasiness among those who are apologetic about a libertarian, market-based society and the dramatic economic inequality it creates. Inequality at the start undermines the very legitimacy of all other economic inequality that can be observed. Libertarians do not consider it problematic if people perform differently well throughout their lives – in fact, these differences in performances are the essence of competition – as long as disadvantages in the beginning can be overcome by talent and diligence, and as long as the promise is kept that every child has a fair chance. Inequality in the outcomes is legitimate, yet at the start it isn’t. As Aaron A. Baker puts it in a review of Lee and Burkham’s study (Peabody Journal of Education 79, 2004, pp. 159-166): “According to the standard American achievement ideology, an individual attains success through his or her ambition and ability: Those who do not achieve their (American) dreams fail as a consequence of their own lack of ingenuity and earnest hard work. […] Valerie Lee and David Burkham question both the logic of achievement ideology and the ability of schools to provide kindergarten students a chance to excel.”
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY LOSERS
While in the US, the sources of educational failure are often poverty and desolate social environments, the dividing line between Georgia’s educational losers and winners is drawn between the rural and urban spheres. At the surface, the Georgian education system seems to be highly egalitarian: it offers free kindergartens, free primary schools, free secondary education, and government scholarships for universities. Those who qualify in the praised NAEC admission exams in certain subjects can study at the respective faculties free of tuition. However, this generous support does not reach many people in the rural regions of Georgia, whose problems start from the very beginning of their educational careers.
Outside the urban centers of Georgia, kindergartens are often not available, and school attendance frequently requires rural students to overcome severe obstacles; in order to reach school, some children have to walk 5-10 km by foot or go by marshrutkas which are driving infrequently under conditions that are not appropriate for children. Before the Rose Revolution, the situation was even worse, and it is therefore not surprising that according to the UNESCO statistics of educational attainments in Georgia, 0.6% of the Georgian population aged 25 and older did not receive any school education whatsoever, 0.7% did not complete primary education (they attended school for less than four years), and 2.1% finished their education when completing the fourth grade. While in percentage terms, these numbers do not sound overly dramatic, they correspond to 91,173 Georgians who did not receive formal education beyond very basic schooling! It is essentially impossible for these people to make up for their lack of education in later phases of their lives – childhood is the primary period of time in which an individual’s cognitive ability develops, and these people have wasted it for good. The UNESCO findings for all categories of educational achievements are shown in Figure 1.
Yet, rural students are also particularly vulnerable to drop out at higher levels. The reasons are diverse. Many children grow up in families without any role models of family members who performed outside the context of (smallholder) agriculture. In such families, also the parents and grandparents did not invest in their human capital and remained with whatever practical skills they obtained in the everyday routines of their modest farm operations. While this lack of appreciation for human capital and the failure to recognize its importance in a modern society may be the dominant factor, there is also the simple fact that in circumstances of poverty, children often need to contribute to the parents’ farm operations at a very early age. Clearly, both factors reinforce each other mutually. The dropout numbers in different grades of school are shown in Figure 2.
Also those who continue learning beyond primary school but do not enter universities are often not well-prepared for the educational demands of a modern society. This is a huge group in Georgia. As one can see in Figure 1, there is a peak of those who terminate their formal education on the upper secondary level, which corresponds to the accumulation of drop-outs in the grades 9 to 11 in Figure 2. In absolute terms, the number of people above the age of 25 who did not receive education higher than upper-secondary level was 1.18 million in the year 2014, corresponding to 42.7% of the Georgian population (UNESCO). This is alarming in view of the fact that this educational inequality directly translates into inequality in the economic outcomes. According to Geostat, individuals with education above secondary education have incomes that are about 65% higher than those who have only secondary education (unlike in developed countries, where unemployment is largely a problem of the low-qualified, in Georgia the unemployment rate does not significantly differ by education level).
Also the problem of “secondary losers” is related to the rift between rural and urban regions in Georgia. A study by Chanqseliani (2012), which calculated the ranking of Georgian universities based on the average NAEC scores of their student cohorts, showed that 100% of the first-tier, 100% of the second-tier, and even 100% of the medium quality universities are located in Tbilisi, while 65% of the universities of lowest quality are located outside of the capital! Yet, many families from rural areas, e.g. smallholder farmers, cannot afford to send their children to Tbilisi for obtaining higher education, even if tuition is waived or they receive a government grant.
POOR EDUCATION FOR POOR STUDENTS
Besides the discrepancy between rural and urban areas, another source of educational inequality is the overall low quality of Georgian schools, which requires students to buy education from private teachers. In 2016, 83% of 6,500 participating public teachers failed to pass a teaching certificate tests, and already in 2009, Georgia performed very poorly in educational outcomes according to the Pisa Plus comparison: out of 74 countries, Georgia was 67th in the reading subscale, 64th in mathematical proficiency, and 69th in scientific literacy.
Under such circumstances, parents who acknowledge the importance of education and want to smoothen their children’s ways into viable careers are forced to hire private tutors: according to a 2011 study by Machabeli, Bregvadze and Apkhazava, 75% of Georgian 12th grade students take private lessons. The need to pay for education that students should receive at public schools further discriminates against those with low income, and perpetuates their economic failure from one generation to the next. Figure 3 shows how having a private tutor depends on the income of a household.
Access to private tutoring is also influenced by the sharp discrepancy between Georgia's rural and urban population. Students living in a rural area may not be able to find private tutors in their villages, even when they are able to afford it.
To sum up, the inequality-at-the-start challenges Georgia faces are quite similar to those of more developed countries, like the USA. Yet, while frequently discussed elsewhere, this issue does not prominently feature on Georgia's political agenda. Clearly, inequality from the start has other reasons in Georgia than in the USA – the rural-urban divide is more of an issue in Georgia, while racial discrimination accounts for a greater part of the problem in the USA. Nevertheless, inequality at the start, regardless of its origin, is the worst inequality a society can have. Georgian politics should swiftly turn its attention towards this issue.
Comments
This article addresses one of the key issues of Georgias society and statehood. It is far more important than anything else being hotly debated by Georgian politicians. More important than the Estonian model of corporate taxation, DCFTA, and even visa free travel to Europe. Sadly, however, very little is being said - let alone, done - about inequality at the start. Yet this is exactly what keeps Georgia from progressing. We dream about Europe and forget to get our house in order.
Boarding schools were once common here and in other parts of the Soviet Union. They remain very common in many developing countries, both state-owned and private, to ensure that children in isolated areas receive the education they need as well as sporting, artistic and leadership training for well-rounded development. This could be part of the solution to the problem.
Poor teacher performance is not surprising given that little formal teacher training exists, and that salaries are below subsistence level. Base salaries need to be reformed, but performance-based pay to provide incentives to productive teachers, to attract and retain talent, is almost impossible in the creaking state-run system we have now.
It would be worth running a trial in one region, possibly Ajara A.R., in implementing charter schools; parents could apply to the Ajara government to take over the management of their village school (with state subvention) and run it according to an agreed charter. Issues of performance standards, pay rates and incentives, secularity vs religious affiliation, would lie with the school board, not with the Ministry. A non-profit Charter Management Organisation (providing management and training services to the charter schools) could be formed and trained with help from donors, and provide services to multiple schools. After 5 years of adapting the system to local conditions, the result could be considered for a national rollout if successful.
There is scope for non-profit private schools in rural areas, affiliated with religious organisations or community groups, as part of the mix.
Eric has mentioned many times about the need for a scholarship programme whereby students from modest families have elite university fees and a small stipend paid in exchange for a teaching posting of 5 years in the village, and that is a very good idea. It needs to be matched to salary reform, performance accountability and incentives to attract talented young people.
Boarding schools are indeed a very good solution to the challenge of equality from the start. The Gocha story I shared in my TEDx talk was about a guy who chose to go to a remote village in Khevsureti (Barisakhlo) in order to teach math in the local board school, eventually turning it into a specialized math boarding school and bringing his students to the final round of the national Georgian Math Olympic tournament. Something that never happened before. I owe this story to Zaza Tevdoradze, who studies with Gocha at TSU back in 1980s, late USSR times.
Boarding schools would indeed be a good idea, but charter schools would inevitably end up being run by the most rabid orthodox zealots who would raise a generation of xenophobic fundamentalists completely ill prepared for the modern world
It hasnt worked out like that elsewhere. Even the Gulen Charter Schools, established by a conservative Muslim cleric from Turkey, have a pretty good reputation regarding the balanced graduates they produce worldwide. Hence the utility of trialling the programme first to identify potential problems, and adjust the programme accordingly before going national. It is worth risking a few mistakes to reform the system.
Well it works out like that in the UK, where a bunch of our (relatively new) Free Schools have been captured by fundamentalist Christians only to be closed because we have a decent regulator and a powerful media. Unlike here. Do you really think that any school affiliated with the GoC would teach evolution?
That would depend. If it were a matter of teaching Darwins Theory of Evolution, which has a body of observations and experimental data that supports such conclusions, and acknowledged unanswered questions, in the best traditions of Aristotles classical model of scientific enquiry, then possibly yes. If teaching the sterile theory that the universe and humanitys creation is a giant, impersonal accident with no likelihood of a Creator behind it ( as Soviet schools did), then probably no.
I understand that of over 400 Free Schools in the UK, only a handful have been closed for failure to meet standards, which is not unexpected and a good result with such a new approach. I think Georgian parents deserve the right to make their own educational choices and make their own mistakes, as we come up with a mix of private, state-subvented and state-run solutions to our education needs.
Oh come on. If you really think that schools funded by the GoC would be anything less than orthodox madrassas a la Pakistan then you are deluded. Orthodox chauvinism is at an all time high; giving the faithful control over our childrens education would be suicide for the piso scores__especially in scientific literacy. I do agree with giving parents a choice, and if their choice is to send their kids to a seminary that preaches that the only people getting to heaven are Orthodox Georgians then that is their choice. But please, dont make the rest of us pay for it
Simon is a fierce defender of the Georgian Orthodox Church
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Nice post, indeed. It would be interesting to see drop out statistics by gender. I think most of drop outs in 9th grade and above will correspond to girls – who get married. Early marriage, especially in rural areas is very widespread phenomenon and is obstacle for young girls to continue education.
Surprisingly, if we look at statistics by gender, 59% of drop outs at 9th grade and above corresponds for boys in 2014/2015 (see detailed statistics in attached table: http://postimg.org/image/iz1u4s7xz/), even though, the number of marriages at 16-19 was 3,523 for girls which was almost 5 times larger than this figure for boys in 2015. This can be explained by the role of males in family institution. My guess is that the number of drop out for boys was even larger before Rose Revolution because boys at this age were involved in criminal or street activities. This point notwithstanding, prevalence of early marriage is high, especially, in rural areas.
Thank you Salome for this statistics. I wounder how this statistics will change after January 2017, when a new law prohibiting early marriages will come to place... (and what will be the side affects of it)
(1) Boys are doing worse in school in many countries. Overall, the reason seems not to be that boys become criminals and leave school but that schools are much more adjusted to girls needs. Schools encourage the well-behaved, cooperative conduct of girls and sanction the rough, competitive behavior of boys. That boys are disadvantaged in educational systems is a problem nobody talks about, because it contradicts mainstream political ideology (in Germany, 54% of university students in 2013 were female). It gets particularly absurd when there are assistance programs that exclusively target girls in school, while in fact they are already doing much better than boys.
(2) Why do you all say yearly marriage? Did I miss some avant-garde social science terminology?
Well, crime is another issue in Georgia. Especially, it was the case before the Rose Revolution, and , especially for Kutaisi where the institution of goodfellas or street gangs were widespread. To be more precise, boys were standing in the streets, and they were involved in gang activities, while studying was not appropriate for them. Furthermore, it was a good manner if boys offend the teacher, and did not attend classes. This, in turn, lead them to be expelled from schools. It was more likely that goodfellas quit attending schools. This streets gang phenomena has deeper roots and its harm on human capital accumulation cannot be estimated. For example, my classmate used to play on piano really well, but he did not pursuit his dreams because it was not accepted for the street gangs. Of course, I am not saying that the difference between drop-out rates for girls and for boys is only due to boys involvement in criminal, but , at least, those goodfellas are responsible for many wasted talent.
Thanks for pointing out the mistake Florian. It is already corrected. There is no need to doubt about new terminology
Great and interesting blog Salome and Giorgi. I really enjoyed, however I want to say some points. When I was writing my LC I found some interesting facts and one of them was relation between education and unemployment. I found that unemployment was the highest for individuals who held Ph. D. I thought it was my mistake because most part of Human Capital and Signaling theories suggest that the relation is negative but when I made further research and examined Geostats results they had same results as me. Unemployment was the lowest for individuals with only 4 years of schooling. According to Geostat 81% of labor force have education higher than secondary. So, how can we explain this phenomenon? There are some explanations such as missing market and mismatch between employer and employee but it needs more research and examination.
As you said my dear friends situation is really alarming but there are second side. Individuals who chose not to go to school preferred this because they do not need higher education in order to cultivate the land. Why they chose and what factors determined this decision is another side of the problem and it deserves another research to understand these factors.
Thank you such a great blog post
Nodar, thank you for your comment. First, I am not surprised that you found the highest unemployment among individuals with PhD degree. I think this can be explained to the fact that before Rose Revolution you could buy degree easily: prevalence of bribes and corruption was an important issue for this time period. Maybe thats the reason why we have so many Taxi drivers with high degrees of education. In order to make signalling work, it is important that individuals send reliable signals to employers. From this point of view, employers do not rely on signals which they think do not reflect the ability of workers.
Another issue is that unemployment is found to be the lowest for individuals with only 4 years of schooling. I think that it is due to the fact that most of individuals with only 4 years of schooling stayed in rural areas and they are counted as a self-employed. This could be one reason of low productivity in agricultural sector; this sector lacks for qualified workers.
Finally, the mismatch of an individuals qualification to employers need is one of the most important issue for Georgia and it needs more attention from not only researchers, but from policy makers as well.
Dear Salome you explained everything in a very compact way. Thats the point that Geostat treats agri sector workers as self-employed ones and we all know that they are the biggest share of employed workers in Georgia with Taxi drivers. These unskilled workers are one and the most important determinant of low productivity of rural area. From this point of view it turns out that this fact needs more research and as you said most importantly policy makers should take some measurements to solve this problem.
This article again showed that there are inefficiencies in Georgian education system. Something necessarily has to be done to improve the current situation. The results for teachers are alarming; quite obviously substantial role in schools belongs to teachers in educating children. If they were good enough and of course if the system worked efficiently students would have not needed private tutors for entering universities. Because of this problem, many students give up on universities simply for not being able to pay for private education. And what is left to those students; for some students, as mentioned in the article, is to continue family business - farming, for others some other activity. The important and not pleasing fact is that many people did not receive (higher) education, while in other circumstances many of these people could have become great specialists, live a better life and help Georgian economy to grow.
Dear authors this was an informative article to make more clear clue about the drawbacks in Georgian education system.