A new report published by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has revealed the world’s most equal and unequal education systems.
The report, titled 'An unfair start: Inequality in children's education in rich countries' examined educational equity in 39 developed countries and found that Finland, Latvia, and Poland have the most equal education systems.
Conversely, Australia, Slovakia and New Zealand rank as the most unequal in the world on a combined ranking of education inequality across pre-school, primary and secondary schooling.
The report measured inequality in pre-school education by participation in pre-school in the year before primary school entry. It measured inequality in primary and secondary achievement as the gap in reading scores between the lowest- and highest scoring students at Grade 4 and age 15.
An educational policy brief published by Australian public school advocates Save Our Schools (SOS) today said it was notable that some of the poorest countries in the comparison, such as Latvia and Lithuania, achieve near-universal access to preschool learning and curb inequality in reading performance among both primary and secondary school students far more successfully than Australia, a much richer country.
“The pre-school enrolment rate in many developed countries is virtually 100%, often reflecting a statutory requirement to enrol a child in preschool in the year before primary school,” SOS national convenor, Trevor Cobbold, said in a statement.
Countries with enrolment rates of 99-100% include Lithuania, Iceland, France, Switzerland, Latvia, Poland and Austria.
In contrast, Australia’s participation rate is 90.6%. Only Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, United States and Turkey have lower rates.”
The report also found that children from low income households are less likely to attend pre-school. In 16 countries out of 29 for which data is available, children from the poorest fifth of households have a lower preschool attendance rate than children from the richest fifth.
Countries where there is little difference in enrolment rates between rich and poor included Iceland, Belgium, Estonia, Spain and France. However, this data is not available for Australia.
Cobbold said education policies and practices can serve to reduce or reinforce educational inequalities stemming from family circumstances.
“Policies relating to school choice and to school transfers and expulsions may reduce the diversity of children within schools, potentially increasing educational inequalities. It also notes that some school practices tend to reinforce inequalities such as grade repetition, streaming and tracking,” he said.
“Where children are sorted into different streams within schools or go to different schools based on their academic performance, children from less privileged families tend to be overrepresented in the lower tracks, with fewer opportunities in the future.”