Education in States and Nations: 1991

GLOSSARY

Apprenticeship:

In calculating the indicators, youth apprenticeship programs are generally classified as belonging to formal education. Such programs typically involve an alternation between learning in an educational institution (ordinary or specialized) and learning through work experience programs, which may include highly organized training in a firm or with a craftsperson. The apprentices and the firm (or craftsperson) are bound by a legal agreement. Even though only a part of the training occurs in schools, it is considered as a full-time educational activity, because it covers both theoretical and practical training. Youth apprenticeship programs are classified as technical or vocational programs in upper secondary education.

Bachelor's degree:

A degree granted for the successful completion of a baccalaureate program of studies, usually requiring at least 4 years (or equivalent) of full-time college-level study. This includes degrees granted in a cooperative or work-study program.

Bonferoni:

The Bonferoni adjustment is used in making statistical comparisons of values that are sample estimates when multiple comparisons, based on multiple samples, are being made. The procedure involves an adjustment to the test of statistical significance, by dividing the alpha level of the significance test into n(n-1)/2 categories, where n represents the number of countries being compared. (See the note on standard errors.)

Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI):

The CERI is an organization within OECD that promotes and conducts cooperative educational research activities among the OECD member nations.

Comprehensive schools:

The schools offer a general curriculum, rather than a curriculum intended to prepare students for specific occupations, types of higher education, or training. In most cases, students within a comprehensive school may choose courses that serve such a purpose, but comprehensive schools as a whole serve students with a variety of career and educational plans. (See Differentiated schools.)

Confidence interval:

This is an interval of values within which there is a specified probability that the true value lies. For example, in the case of a 95 percent confidence interval, there is a 95 percent probability that the true value lies within the interval.

Constant dollars:

Dollar amounts that have been adjusted by means of price and cost indexes to eliminate inflationary factors and allow direct comparison across years.

Consumer price index (CPI):

This price index measures the average change in the cost of a fixed market basket of goods and services purchased by consumers.

Current dollars:

Dollar amounts that have not been adjusted to compensate for inflation.

Current expenditures:

These expenditures represent educational goods and services whose lifespan should not, in theory, exceed the current year, such as salaries of staff, educational supplies, scholarships, minor repairs and maintenance, and administration. Conventionally, minor items of equipment are treated as current expenditure, even if the corresponding physical asset lasts longer than one year. Current expenditures exclude capital expenditures, which are for assets that will be used for many consecutive years, such as buildings, major repairs, major items of equipment, and vehicles, even if the financing of such assets is reported in a single financial year.

Differentiated schools:

These are secondary schools offering a particular type of curriculum, such as college preparatory or vocational. For example, secondary school students in Germany enroll in differentiated schools, including those that prepare them to enter apprenticeship programs or those that prepare them for university education. (See Comprehensive schools.)

Early childhood education:

Early childhood education (public and private) may either be part-time or full-time and can cover young children participating in a program intended to foster learning as well as emotional and social development. Early childhood education is not compulsory in most countries. Pupils enrolled in schools or programs organized by ministries other than Education (for example, Health or Social Affairs) are included, if the educational development of the pupils is the main objective. Day nurseries, child-care centers and similar institutions that predominantly provide custodial care are not included. It is acknowledged, however, that in certain countries it may be difficult to distinguish between the various programs.

Earnings:

Earnings refer to annual money earnings, (i.e., direct pay for work before taxes). Income from other sources, such as government aid programs, interest on capital, etc., is not taken into account. Mean earnings are calculated on the basis of data only for all people with income from work.

Educational attainment:

This is the highest grade, year, or level of regular school attended and completed.

Educational expenditures:

These expenditures are the sum of expenditures on instruction, research, public service, academic support, student services, institutional support, operation and maintenance of plant, and awards from restricted and unrestricted funds.

Employment:

Includes civilian, noninstitutionalized persons who (1) worked during any part of the survey week as paid employees; worked in their own business, profession, or farm; or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in a family-owned enterprise; or (2) were not working but had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent due to illness, bad weather, vacation, labor-management dispute, or personal reasons whether or not they were seeking another job.

Enrollment:

The total number of students registered in a given school unit at a given time, generally in the fall of a year.

Enrollment reference group:

The people in the age range typical for attendance in an educational level, starting at the typical starting age for that level and continuing through the typical years of duration, as identified by each country.

Expenditure:

(See note on international comparisons of current public education expenditures.)

Fiscal year:

The yearly accounting period for a government or firm, which may or may not coincide with the calendar year. For the U.S. federal government it begins on October 1 and ends on the following September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 1992 begins on October 1, 1991, and ends on September 30, 1992.

Full-time/Part-time enrollment:

Students are enrolled full-time, should they attend a program that is classified as such by the institution. Otherwise, they are considered part-time students. In the United States, higher education students are enrolled full-time if their total course load is equal to at least 75 percent of the normal full-time course load. In some countries, no distinction is made between full-time and part-time students at certain levels.

Full-time-equivalent (FTE) enrollment:

For institutions of higher education, the enrollment of full-time students, plus the full-time equivalent of part-time students as reported by institutions equals the FTE. In the absence of an equivalent reported by an institution, the FTE enrollment is estimated by adding one-third of part-time enrollment to full-time enrollment.

G-7 countries:

See Group of Seven.

Graduate:

An individual who has received formal recognition for the successful completion of a prescribed program of studies.

Graduation:

Formal recognition given an individual for the successful completion of a prescribed program of studies.

Graduation reference age:

This is the age identified by each country as the typical age at which students graduate from a given level of education or educational program. Used to construct graduation ratios.

GDP/GSP per capita:

The GDP of a country or GSP of a state divided by its total population yields GDP/GSP per capita.

Gross domestic product (GDP):

The gross domestic product (GDP) is equal to the total of the gross expenditure on the final uses of the domestic supply of goods and services valued at a price to the purchaser minus the imports of goods and services. The gross state product (GSP) is the analogous measure for states.

Gross state product (GSP):

See gross domestic product.

Group of Seven (G-7):

This group is composed of seven industrialized nations with large economies: Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Those countries are, coincidentally, all members of the OECD. However, the G-7 and the OECD are not related organizations.

Higher education:

This form of education includes study beyond secondary school at an institution that offers programs terminating in an associate, baccalaureate, or higher degree, or equivalent degrees in other countries.

Indicators of Education Systems Project (INES):

INES refers to the specific office within CERI and the OECD that is responsible for producing the Education at a Glance series of reports (see CERI and OECD).

Initial source of funds:

The sectors or levels of government that generate the funds used to finance education. The figures do not reflect subsequent transfers among levels of government or between the public and private sectors for example, intergovernmental transfers from the central government to regional or local governments or transfers (such as scholarships) from governments to private parties. These transfer payments are often large and important.

International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP):

See entry for Educational Testing Service in Sources of Data section.

Labor force:

Persons aged 15 to 64 either employed or actively seeking work, comprise a labor force.

Lower secondary education:

Education equivalent to middle school or junior high school in the United States.

Migration:

Geographic mobility involving a change of usual residence between clearly defined geographic units, that is, between counties, states, or regions.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP):

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a Congressionally mandated study funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The overall goal of the project is to determine the nation's progress in education. To accomplish this goal, a cross-sectional study was designed and initially implemented in 1969. Periodically, NAEP has gathered information about levels of educational achievement across the country. NAEP has surveyed the educational accomplishments of 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students (and in recent years, grades 4, 8, and 12), and occasionally young adults, in 10 learning areas. Different learning areas were assessed annually and, as of 1980 81, biennially. Most areas have been periodically reassessed in order to measure possible changes in education achievement.

National Education Goals:

In the United States, the six national goals in education adopted by the President and the nation's governors in 1989 are called National Education Goals. The 1994 Goals 2000 Educate America Act, passed by the Congress added 2 more goals, bringing the total number of goals to eight.

Net enrollment rate:

Measures the percentage of persons in a particular age range who are enrolled in school or at a particular level of education.

Non-university higher education:

In some systems, the programs at this level (those not leading to a university degree or equivalent) do not lead on to other programs in higher education; in other systems, such programs allow students who successfully complete their studies to proceed to university degree programs in the same field. The term "articulation" is used to distinguish the latter type of program from the former, "terminal," one. For example, the "Associate Degree," awarded after two years of study in the United States, is not regarded as a university degree for international purposes but, rather, as a non-university higher education degree. This also applies to the diplôme d'études universitaires générales (DEUG) in France.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):

The OECD is an organization of 24 nations whose purpose is to promote trade and economic growth in both member and non-member nations. OECD's activities cover almost all aspects of economic and social policy. The member countries in 1991 were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Greece and Iceland did not participate in the data compilation for Education at a Glance; therefore, their data are not included in this report. Czechoslovakia and Hungary had applied for membership in the OECD at the time of the data compilation for Education at a Glance.

Part-time enrollment:

See Full-time/Part-time enrollment.

Poverty:

This report uses the following definition: one can be said to be living in poverty if one lives in a household whose income (adjusted for household size) is less than 40 percent the country's median household income.

Preprimary education:

Preprimary education (public and private) may either be part-time or full-time and can cover young children participating in programs intended to foster learning and emotional and social development. Preprimary education is not compulsory in most countries. Day nurseries, child care centers, and similar institutions that predominantly provide custodial care are not included. In some countries, it is difficult to distinguish among the various programs.

Primary education:

This includes all forms of education prior to secondary education and after preprimary (such as kindergarten, or nursery school) education. It is equivalent to elementary education in the United States.

Private expenditures:

This includes expenditures funded by private sources - mainly households, private non-profit institutions, and firms and businesses. Private expenditures include school fees, materials such as textbooks and teaching equipment, transport to school (if organized by the school), meals (if provided by the school), boarding fees, and expenditure by employers for initial vocational training.

Private schools or institutions:

Schools or institutions that are organized and controlled independently of public authorities, even though they may receive public funding.

Public education expenditures:

Include funds channeled to both public and private schools by federal, state, and local governments, either directly or through students. This includes expenditures at public schools funded by public sources and subsidies (such as loans and grants) to students at private schools from government agencies. Expenditures in the general education system by public agencies other than education departments, ministries, or boards are generally included. Expenditures on education and training within departments, ministries, or boards that are not directly related to education ministries or departments are generally not included.

Public expenditures:

These are expenditures funded by public authorities at all levels and in all sectors.

Public expenditures per student:

Calculated as current public expenditure for education divided by enrollment in both public and private schools. This is a measure of average public investment per student in the education system. It is not a measure of total resources a student receives, which would include private expenditures.

Public and private schools:

Public schools are organized by public authorities. They normally provide open access without any distinction of race, sex, or religion. Private schools are normally organized independently of the public authorities, even though they may receive a small amount of public funding. Private schools predominantly publicly funded are schools that obtain most of their funding from public authorities, even though these schools are not formally part of the public school sector. Publicly funded private schools (such as charter schools) were rare in the United States in 1991, but fairly common in Europe.

Public schools or institutions:

Schools or institutions organized and controlled by public authorities. They normally provide open access without any distinction of race, sex, or religion.

Pupil-teacher ratio:

The enrollment of pupils at a given period of time, divided by the full-time-equivalent number of classroom teachers serving these pupils during the same period.

Purchasing Power Parity Index (PPPI):

The PPPI is composed of the rates of currency conversion that equalize the purchasing power of different currencies. This means that a given sum of money, when converted into different currencies at the PPPI rates, will buy the same basket of goods and services in all countries.

Standard error:

An estimate of the error of an estimation due to sampling, based on the number of observations and their distances from their mean.

Student:

An individual for whom instruction is provided in an educational program under the jurisdiction of a school, school system, or other education institution. No distinction is made between the terms "student" and "pupil," though "student" may refer to one receiving instruction at any level while "pupil" refers only to one attending school at the elementary or secondary level. A student may receive instruction in a school facility or in another location, such as at home or in a hospital. Instruction may be provided by direct student-teacher interaction or by some other approved medium such as television, radio, telephone, and correspondence.

Theoretical age group:

In classifying education by level, there is an assumption that, at least for the regular school (and, in most cases, university) system, a student can proceed through the system in a standard number of years. If it is assumed that the student starts school at the modal age and does not repeat any year, then the ages at which a student begins and completes each cycle or level can be calculated. These are the theoretical age ranges that correspond to each level in the school system. See Table S5 in the Supplemental Notes for a specific description by country.

Unemployment rate:

The percentage of the labor force without work and actively seeking work yields the unemployment rate.

University:

University education is defined here as education leading to a 4-year undergraduate degree or graduate degree.

Upper secondary education:

This is a level of education equivalent to high school in the United States. Upper secondary education may include general, technical, or vocational education.

SOURCES:

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Center for Educational Research and Innovation, Education at a Glance, Paris, Author, 1993.

The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Modern Economics, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975.

Pearce, David W., The Dictionary of Modern Economics, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1981.

Shryock, H.S., and Siegel, J.S., The Methods and Materials of Demography, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P-20 "School Enrollment-Social and Economic Characteristics of Students: October 1990 and 1991."

U.S. Department of Education, , Combined Glossary: Terms and Definitions From the Handbook of the State Educational Records and Reports Series, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974.

U.S. Department of Education, , The Condition of Education 1994, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994.

U.S. Department of Education, , Digest of Education Statistics 1994, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994.

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Table S23 (8 of 8) Sources of Data