EDUCATION INDICATORS: An International Perspective
International indicators of education are intended to highlight comparisons across nations, often by emphasizing relative differences among nations. Consequently, what is sometimes unintentionally obscured in a collection of indicators is the degree to which national education systems are in a broad sense alike. Measures of how much and to what extent national school systems have converged in function and structure worldwide and speculations as to why some aspects of these systems are becoming more similar offer a broader context from which to consider national differences across specific indicators.
In the early 1960s, three marked trends in schooling worldwide emerged, which have continued to the present. These trends, listed below, are described in the following paragraphs:
Understanding the nature of these trends and why they are happening provides some insight into this international transformation of formal schooling.
In some countries, such as the United States, the proportion of children aged 6-16 attending school (enrollment rates) had reached a relatively high level by as early as the mid-19th century, while in most other countries formal schooling was reserved for smaller proportions of the population. But immediately following World War II there began what some call a "world educational revolution" during which almost all countries, regardless of their economic and social condition, expanded the proportion of children attending school at both the primary and secondary levels./1 From 1950 to 1970, the primary school enrollment rates of wealthier, developed countries approached 100 percent, and secondary school rates increased from one-third to one-half of the relevant age cohort. Less wealthy, developing nations lagged behind developed countries in enrollment rates, but they also ventured onto the course of increasing enrollment. This trend has continued to the present with near universal secondary school enrollment rates in most developed countries and with high primary school enrollment rates (60 to 80 percent) in most developing countries as well as corresponding growth in secondary school rates./2 Although there still is variation in the level of enrollment among nations, worldwide enrollment rates have neither dropped nor remained constant.
This near universal demand for schooling has been met with increasingly similar organizational forms for education. For example, an assessment of national school systems reveals increased convergence on similar policies and practices over a range of organizational and administrative dimensions, such as the provision and duration of compulsory schooling, the structure of school grades (or forms) with regard to age, formal testing, administrative procedures, evaluation of instruction, coeducation, public financing, and centralization of financing./3 Although not all national systems are exactly alike, there is a strong historical trend toward similar systems of education.
This tendency is also evident in the curricular content of schooling. A study of the content of elementary school curricula worldwide finds convergence toward a standard set of subjects across national school systems starting as early as 1920. Over the next 70 years, this core elementary school curriculum has taken up an increasingly large share of instruction time in most national school systems./4 Curricular convergence has been observed at higher levels of education as well. An example is the persistent worldwide decrease in vocational training and corresponding increase in academic training in the middle/junior high and high school curriculum./5
The main driving force behind educational enrollment and organizational convergence is the increased control over schooling by the nation-state over the past 50 years. Education has become a concern at a national level rather than only at a local level. The second half of this century witnessed the end of colonial empires and the rise of the nation-state (country) as the basic political unit worldwide, bringing the responsibility for financing, supplying, and regulating formal schooling to the level of the nation-state. Both new and existing nations are turning increasingly to formal education for a number of political and economic purposes, such as the construction of a common citizenry, the training of a competitive labor force, and the reduction of social problems./6
Formal schooling has become a "world institution." Most of the world's children will attend a school that is markedly similar in organization and curricular content to schools elsewhere in the world. Although there are interesting differences among national systems, the common logic behind designing modern schools has resulted in increasing convergence toward similar structures.
1/ J. Meyer, F. Ramirez, R. Rubinson, and J. Boli-Bennett, "The World Educational Revolution, 1950-70. 1950-70,ed. J. Meyer and M. Hannan (Eds).National Development and the World System, Educational, Economic and Political Change, 1950-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1979).
2/ D. Baker, The Size and Structure of Secondary Education in Developing Countries, published report of the Population and Human Resources Department, The Education and Employment Division, The World Bank (Washington D.C.: 1993).
3/ A. Inkeles and L. Sirowy, "Convergent and Divergent Trends in National Educational Systems," Social Forces 62(2) (1993): 303-332.
4/ A. Benavot, Y. Cha, D. Kamens, J. Meyer, and S. Wong, "Knowledge for the Masses: World Models and National Curricula, 1920-1986, American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 85-100.
5/ A. Benavot, The Rise and Decline of Vocational Education. Sociology of Education 56(2) (1983): 63-76.
6/ J. Meyer, F. Ramirez, R. Rubinson, and J. Boli-Bennett, "The World Educational Revolution, 1950-70" in National Development and the World System, Educational, Economic and Political Change, 1950-70, ed. J. Meyer and M. Hannan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).
