Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
3
In the OIC there is a widespread problem of quality in education. Low quality education is
observed as indicated by low learning achievements in comparative assessment tests like PIRLS,
TIMSS and PASEC. OIC member countries generally perform worse compared to other
participating counties in these tests. While in fact, participating member countries should
actually be achieving better outcomes given the level of government expenditure on education.
Recommendations
While country contexts are different and each country should tailor their response to answer
their own needs, a number of interventions are underlined here to help policymakers learn
about what is being applied and what works well in different country contexts. Ultimately,
government will, planning, budgeting and efficient spending are the most fundamental
strategies to follow for all governments.
Looking at the interventions applied across the world, in the OIC and in case countries, the
responses that have been employed and that have worked could be listed as follows2 :
 For the alleviation of the poverty barrier, abolishing school fees coupled with
conditional cash transfers and school feeding programmes seem to work well.
 For the alleviation of the location barrier , setting up schools in existing buildings in
difficult to reach areas or building new schools works well. Another approach is to
provide free transportation to children to allow them to reach the schools that are
closest.
 For the alleviation of the gender barrier , putting gender equality in education as a
priority in national strategies and plans works well. Targeting girls specifically or having
a gender perspective in the programmes is also important. Lastly, public awareness
campaigns can be implemented to change the attitudes of households.
 For the alleviation of the disability barrier , national planning and having legislation
that promotes inclusive education with clear steps to be followed is important. To
ensure that these goals work in practice, infrastructure development to accommodate
disabled children and teacher training to increase awareness surrounding disabilities
are important complementary measures.
 For the alleviation of the language barrier , bilingual education programmes or non-
formal education programmes supporting children can be adopted. Alternatively, these
children can be better prepared for the formal education system by attending pre-
primary education in the country’s instructional language.
 For making the education system work better to deliver higher quality results,
first it is necessary to finance the system adequately (at least 15 percent of the
government budget is recommended to be allocated to education). Next it is important
2 These interventions are outlined in more detail in Chapter 1 for the world in general, in Chapter 2 for the OIC countries and
in Chapter 3 for the case countries. Chapter 4 summarizes recommendations emerging from these interventions as good
examples.