Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
2
strongly correlated with country income. Yet some countries manage to perform better than
predicted by their income levels.
Poor children have difficulty in reaching education in the OIC member countries
compared to their wealthier counterparts. Poor children are also more disadvantaged in
access to lower secondary education compared to primary education. Even when they have
access to education poor children are left behind in terms of their achievements signalling that
the quality of the education that they receive might be lower. On average poor children score
less in participating member countries in PIRLS and TIMSS tests compared to rich children.
Living in rural areas also puts children at a disadvantage in the OIC member countries in
access to primary education. The older the children get the wider the gap becomes. Children
living in rural areas in the OIC are again more disadvantaged in their access to lower secondary
education. These children are also at a disadvantage in access to quality education as evidenced
by their lower average scores in international assessment tests compared to their urban
counterparts.
In most of the member countries large gaps between girls and boys do not exist in access
to education. Rather than gender alone, gender together with poverty is a more important
predictor of lack of access to education. In fact gender inequality in access to primary education
turns out to be a problemmainly for poor children.
Disabled children are at a disadvantage in access to education. In countries like Sudan, Chad
and Indonesia, disabled children were found to be more likely to be out of school compared to
their counterparts without a disability. Furthermore disability type also affects access.
Children not speaking the language of instruction in the country are also found to be
disadvantaged in access to education. An analysis of DHS surveys for 23 countries including
a number in the OIC shows that even controlling for socioeconomic background, gender of the
child and urban status, language continues to determine children’s attendance in school in these
countries.1
Apart from these barriers, low levels of financing and low quality education prevent
children from accessing schooling and learning what they are supposed to. Education is
not a priority in most member countries’ budgets. Teacher shortages, teachers’ levels of
education and their absence from the classrooms are problems seen in the OIC. More than half
of the OIC countries spend less than 15 percent of their government budget on education.
1 Smits, Huisman, & Kruijff (2008)