Education in States and Nations: 1991
The coefficient for full-time equivalence is equal to 2, while for all other countries it is equal to 1. That is, two preprimary enrollments are counted as one full-time equivalent enrollment.
The theoretical age range for preprimary education is from 3 to 5 years, but some 6 year-olds are also enrolled, because they were born after September 1st, when the school year for primary education starts. Children from 6 months until 3 years of age can be in child-care programs organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Health.
The figures cover all 6-year-olds receiving full-time child care in kindergartens and all 6 year-olds participating in preprimary education in comprehensive schools.
Official participation rate is higher than 100 percent (101.3 percent) for 4-year-olds because there more registered pupils than children according to the official statistics from INSEE.
Preprimary education is part of the primary school system. Data on enrollment at this level relate to education provided in infant class grades within primary schools. These cater in the main to children between 4 and 6 years of age. Over 50 percent of children aged 6 - the age at which compulsory schooling begins - are still enrolled in infant classes. Data on institutions engaged in child care and the development of children before the age of 4 are not generally included.
The data refer strictly to preprimary education for 4- and 5-year olds. Preprimary education is fully integrated with primary education, although it is only partially compulsory. Data concerning the participation of children in child-care centers, creches, nurseries, and similar programs have not been provided.
Official participation rate is higher than 100 percent (100.3 percent) for 5-year-olds because there are more registered pupils than children according to demographic projections from INES.
The integrated preschool system makes it very difficult to draw a line between daycare and preprimary education. The figures, therefore, only include that part of total participation that is mandatory for the municipalities to supply: preprimary education for 6-year-olds.
In some cantons, the theoretical starting age is 4 years. Ninety-eight percent of the children entering the first year of primary education have been enrolled in a preschool institution during at least one year.
Age 3 enrollment includes age 2 enrollments.
In calculating the indicators on per-student expenditure and participation rates, all part-time enrollments are converted into full-time equivalents. With one exception (Canada), the INES Secretariat has calculated full-time equivalents using the following convention:
Preprimary-secondary levels: one part-time enrollment equals one full-time enrollment.
There exist two inconsistencies between the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) estimates for preprimary enrollment by age (which provided the U.S. figure in the OECD's Education at a Glance) and the 1990 Census of Population and Housing estimates (which provide the basis for the state figures). The first derives from the differing administration times of the two surveys - the CPS on or about October 1 and the Census on or about April 1. The second derives from differences in the wording of the pertinent questions that seem to elicit differing responses regarding enrollment status.
The effect of differing administration times is to lower the April Census enrollment rates for ages 3, 4, and 5 below the October CPS rates and to raise the Census rate for age 6 above the CPS rate. This is because, between October 1 and April 1, about half of the children increase in age while most remain in the same enrollment status, either in or out of preprimary school. Typically, children start in nursery school at the beginning of the academic year - in the fall - at the age at which they are eligible and their parents believe them to be ready. If all students starting the fall semester in the first-year cohort at a nation's or state's nursery schools were 3-years-old, about half would turn 4 by April 1. Therefore they would show up as 4-year-olds in the April Census and as 3-year-olds in the previous October's CPS.
Because preprimary enrollments increase with age, this "age creep" between the October CPS and the April Census produces larger enrollment rates in the CPS than in the Census for ages 3, 4, and 5.
At age 6, an age where most children leave preprimary for primary school, the relationship between the CPS and Census numbers reverses - the April Census numbers exceed the October CPS numbers. This is because many students who started in a preprimary grade in the Fall semester, because they were 5 years old at the time, turn 6 before the April Census.
The second inconsistency between the CPS and the Census figures derives from differences in the wording and sequencing of the questions regarding preprimary enrollment. The effect is to reduce at every age the enrollment rates in the Census by comparison with those in the CPS.
The reason for using the April Census numbers at all, given the need to adjust them, is that they emanate from a very large sample (about 5 percent of U.S. households) while the CPS numbers do not. The CPS state-level samples are large enough to be judged reliable in only about 19 states. The October, 1990 CPS-derived preprimary enrollment rates for the ten largest of those states and the standard errors are presented in Tables S10 and S11 below.
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Age
State 3 4 5 6
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California 28.2 53.0 85.2 10.3
New York 43.2 58.1 79.5 5.3
Texas 23.4 55.2 89.7 22.4
Florida 34.2 61.5 88.9 12.9
Pennsylvania 38.0 67.3 87.0 17.8
Illinois 36.3 54.4 88.9 22.9
Ohio 29.3 55.2 90.9 14.2
Michigan 35.0 68.5 91.8 16.3
New Jersey 48.7 65.8 95.0 10.8
North Carolina 39.3 47.7 85.2 13.2
UNITED STATES 32.6 56.0 88.8 16.6
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SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, October 1990.
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Age
State 3 4 5 6
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California 3.5 3.7 2.7 2.5
New York 5.0 5.1 4.4 2.4
Texas 4.8 5.3 3.0 4.3
Florida 6.3 6.0 3.9 4.0
Pennsylvania 6.4 6.0 4.4 5.5
Illinois 6.6 6.6 4.0 5.1
Ohio 6.2 5.8 3.5 4.3
Michigan 6.2 6.8 3.7 5.1
New Jersey 9.3 8.3 4.0 5.3
North Carolina 9.4 10.2 6.7 6.3
UNITED STATES 1.1 0.9 0.9 0.9
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SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, October 1990.
Adjustments have been made to the 1990 Census-derived preprimary enrollment rates in the 50 states and the District of Columbia as follows:
Y = a + b*X
Y = CPS-derived enrollment rate (October 1990)
X = Census-derived enrollment rate (April 1990)
a = constant (arithmetic adjustment)
b = slope of the relationship (proportional adjustment)
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Constant Standard Slope Standard
Age (a) error (b) error
3 23.756 5.983 0.567 0.356
4 26.156 9.984 0.863 0.364
5 88.115 4.861 0.028 0.230
6 -12.301 6.261 1.269 0.259
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The two factors - "a" and "b" - were then used to adjust the Census estimates for enrollments in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These adjusted enrollments are listed in Table 9a for the United States, and in Table 9b for the states, and are displayed in Figure 9.
Secondary education enrollment
