Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:

The Key to Escape from Poverty

Figure 22 Achievement in TIMSS 2011 mathematics test vs government expenditure per

primary student (2011)

Note: Government expenditure per primary student is obtained from UNESCO Institute of Statistics' database and

it is for year 2011 except for Qatar, Tunisia and Turkey. For Qatar expenditure data is for year 2009, for Tunisia it

is for year 2008 and for Turkey it is for year 2013. Achievement in mathematics is obtained from UNESCO's WIDE

database and it represents the percentage of students passing the lowest benchmark (400) in TIMSS 2011 for 4th

graders in primary school. A total of 35 countries are presented here. These are the countries that have data on

both indicators. Non-OIC countries represented here are: Georgia, Morocco, Romania, Chile, Hungary, Thailand,

Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovakia, Portugal, Malta, Poland, Serbia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, Italy,

Netherlands, Japan, Finland, Australia, Ireland, Slovenia, Denmark, United States of America, Austria, Sweden,

Norway. OIC countries are: Yemen, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Oman, Qatar, Kuwait.

In fact, participating OIC countries should actually be achieving better outcomes given the

level of government expenditure on education.

A positive relation is seen between

government expenditure per child at the primary level and achievement of the country in TIMSS

2011 as proxied by percent of children passing the lowest benchmark (Se

e Figure 22)

. For OIC

countries with data available, in both low or lower middle-income member countries (Yemen,

Tunisia, Morocco) and high-income member countries (Oman, Qatar, Kuwait), the money spent

on education per child seems not to give the expected results. These countries should actually be

achieving better results given the money spent per child. Only in Turkey and Iran, government

expenditure per child gives the expected results signalling that an increase in budget might

achieve even better outcomes.

148

However in the rest of the countries increasing the money spent

per child, or the budget allocated does not seem to be a solution in and of itself in improving the

learning outcomes of children. These countries should give a priority to improving the quality of

the education provided.

148 Predicted achievement rates are obtained in Excel while drawing the figures. They are the results of the simple regression

the equation of which is provided on the graph.

Yemen

Georgia

Morocco

Tunisia

Turkey

Romania

Iran (Islamic Republic

of)

Chile

Hungary

Thailand

Czech Republic

Lithuania

Slovakia

Portugal

Malta Poland

Serbia

New Zealand

Oman

Spain

Germany Italy Netherlands

J pan Finlan

Australia

Ireland SloveniaDenmark U ited States of

America

Au tria Sweden

Qatar

Norway

Kuwait

y = 17,65ln(x) - 70,825

100

2.000

4.000

6.000

8.000

10.000

12.000

14.000

Percentage of children of primary

school age taking part in TIMSS 2011

math test and passing first level of

difficulty

Government expenditure per primary student (PPP$), 2011