Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
101
Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Access to Education in Turkey using the Human
Opportunity Index
Human Opportunity Indices for education indicators for Turkey are all at high levels as of
2013 (See . HOI is the highest for finishing 5 years of education at 96.6 percent.
Attending school for 6-11 year olds and for 12-15 year olds also have HOI indices greater than 90
percent with 91 and 90.2 percent respectively. The lowest HOI index is the indicator for finishing
8 years of education which was at 85 percent in 2013, pointing to the fact that there is still more
room for improvement in enhancing equality of opportunity and also coverage for this indicator.
Figure 38 HOI, Coverage and Equality of Opportunities for Turkey, 2003-2013
Source: Authors’ calculations using DHS 2003 and DHS 2013
HOI for education indicators improved between 2003 and 2013 for Turkey and the largest
improvement was observed for finishing 8 years of education. During this period the HOI
increased by 5.8, 13, 15 and 33.5 percentage points for attendance in school for 6-11 year olds,
attendance in school for 12-15 year olds, finishing 5 years of education and finishing 8 years of
education respectively. Coverage improved while inequality of opportunities decreased for each
indicator. Regarding finishing 8 years of education which is the indicator that showed the largest
improvement in HOI, coverage increased from 63.1 percent to 89.6 percent while D-index
decreased from 18.5 percent to 5.2 percent. In other words while in 2003 18.5 percent of those
finishing 8 years of education would have had to have been reallocated from better off to worse
off groups for there to have been full equality in 2013 this rate dropped down to 5.2 percent.
Remaining inequalities are mostly related to household wealth, language spoken at home
and the region (See . Remaining inequalities are low in Turkey as of 2013 as
evidenced by the D-index ranging between 1.1 and 5.2 percent for the four indicators that have
2013
2003
2013
2003
2013
2003
2013
2003
50
60
70
80
90
100
0,00 20,00 40,00 60,00 80,00 100,00
Equality of Opportunity (1-D)
Coverage
Attendance 6-11
year olds
Attendance 12-15
year olds
Finishing 5 years of
education
Finishing 8 years of
education
HOI=40%
HOI=60%
HOI=80%
HOI=20%