Parallel to the above-mentioned work on rates-of-return, there developed a considerable, and quite separate, literature relating to school effectiveness (although the latter can and has affect cost-benefit studies, for example regarding comparison of alternative use of resources and to identify the most cost-effective). This is referred to here only in so far as it affects the work on cost-benefit analysis. The rate-of-return literature, as reviewed above, contents itself with measuring schooling by number of years of attendance; by contrast, the educational effectiveness literature attempts to disaggregate the school experience and to examine the variety of inputs going into schools during any one school year and their differing effects on educational outcomes.
The review of this field by Schiefelbein and Simmons (1981) found that the principal findings relating to variables studied were:
(i) Number of students per class: was related to student achievement in 9 out of 14 studies.(ii) Higher expenditure per student: associated with higher student achievement in only 3 out of 8 studies.
(iii) Availability of textbooks: positively related to learning in 7 out of 10 studies.
(iv) Setting of homework: led to higher achievement in 6 out of 8 studies.
(v) Teacher certification: in 19 out of 32 studies, the students of non-certificated teachers fared as well in tests as the students of certificated teachers.
(vi) Teachers' years of experience: a significant determinant of achievement in only 7 out of 19 studies.
(vii) Additional years of teacher training: was not related to higher student achievement in 5 out of 6 studies.
(viii) Socioeconomic status of students parents: a significant predictor in 10 out of 13 observations (and often the single most important determinant of school outcomes).
(ix) Malnutrition, body weight and health: significant predictors of test scores in 8 out of 11 cases which "provides strong support for experiments to raise health levels as a form of educational investment".
(x) Repetition: the more repeating a student did, the lower the test score, in 7 observations out of 8.
Overall, therefore, these studies provide evidence towards investing in certain directions, notably in text-books for example, but whilst some of the evidence is strong, it is never conclusive: for each of the variables cited above, there is some measure of disagreement as to the effects. Further, a practical problem is that this approach can not say how much more investment should be made in any one direction. Later reviews by Fuller (1987) and Fuller and Heyneman (1989) largely confirmed the above conclusions, as evidenced by the following summary table:
|
School factor |
Number of Studies |
Number Confirming Achievement Effect |
|
Highly effective |
||
|
Textbooks and instructional materials |
24 |
16 |
|
Years of teacher training |
31 |
22 |
|
School library activity |
18 |
15 |
|
Length of instructional programs |
14 |
12 |
|
Pupil feeding programs |
6 |
5 |
|
Less effective |
||
|
Reducing class size |
21 |
5 |
|
Science laboratories |
11 |
4 |
|
Teacher salaries |
14 |
5 |
|
Pupil repetition of grades |
5 |
1 |
Fuller (1987) notes that the great majority of such studies do not control for prior achievement levels, thus this is not genuine longitudinal research.
Space does not permit discussion here of the large number of individual country studies but we should not leave this topic without quoting from the findings of Lockheed and Hanushek (1988) who incorporate similar school variables in a cost-effectiveness approach. Among the points they make are that in Brazil, textbooks are more than twice as cost-effective as primary teacher training, four times as cost-effective as inservice teacher training, and seven times as cost-effective as secondary teacher training. In Nicaragua, radio is half again as cost-effective as textbooks. In Thailand, textbooks are nearly five times as cost-effective as each semester of postsecondary education for teachers.
All of the above leads one to suggest that, in view of the availability of such evidence relating to school input and output variables, to assess the effects of education by simply taking the number of years of schooling, as is conventionally done in rate-of-return analysis, seems quite inadequate.
Considerable evidence is now available, including from writers who are World Bank staff members, regarding the World Bank's wide experience over 30 years of financing educational development, with the aim of promoting economic and social development, throughout Third World countries. Psacharopoulos (1988) summarised what the World Bank had apparently learnt from such experience. Whilst conditions and requirements varied in different individual countries, the following list of policy priorities had emerged and might be applicable to a large number of countries:
(i) Emphasis on primary education
(ii) Emphasis on general skills at the secondary level
(iii) Emphasis on employment-based vocational training
(iv) Emphasis on cost recovery in higher education
(v) Emphasis on school quality
(vi) De-emphasis on planning models
(vii) Emphasis on analytical work specific to countries.
For vocational education and training, Middleton (1988) showed how the Bank had shifted emphasis away from schools and towards non-formal training systems. Maglen (1990) noted that if the priority strategies listed by Psacharopoulos had been applied to Australia's educational aid to Pacific Island countries it would have caused a drastic realignment in aid programmes (Maglen, 1990).
Hawkridge (1988), writing in connection with distance education, showed that World Bank investments were most profitable in those instances where the Bank and the recipients were able to agree on the educational objectives, and were most effective when they were sharply focussed on improving the quality of the teaching available. In practice, there is some evidence to show that aid priorities frequently reflect the geopolitical interests of the donors rather than any ideal priorities in the recipient countries (Bujazan et al., 1987).
Given that the World Bank is the world's major provider of funds for educational aid to developing countries, it would seem apparent that it should be possible to draw on the results of its wide experience, as summarised above, in connection with any future aid projects.
It is also worth noting the influence that rate of return studies have had on World Bank policies, e.g. World Bank, Financing Education in Developing Countries (1986) and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (1988) both draw crucial conclusions about investment and financing policies from the fact that (a) private returns exceed social returns (b) primary is more profitable than secondary, secondary is more profitable than higher.
