Estimation of the numbers and rates of out-of-school children and adolescents using administrative and household survey data

Abstract

In the last decade or so, education data from household surveys have been used to complement, supplement and sometimes even substitute for country administrative data on participation and non-participation in schooling. There has been a gradual increase in the use of these household survey data on the demand for schooling, and these data now are used widely in intra- and cross-country comparisons made by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), UNICEF, the World Bank and many other providers and consumers of education statistics. Country-level use of household survey education data, however, has been more limited. The indicators most often produced using household survey data are the net and gross attendance ratios (NAR and GAR), which typically are treated as comparable to the net and gross enrolment ratios (NER and GER) produced using administrative data. However, there are conceptual differences between enrolment and attendance, with both providing imperfect measures of participation in schooling (UIS, 2004). As the attention to household survey data has increased, and sometimes substantial discrepancies with administrative data have emerged, awareness of the data challenges associated with the use of both administrative and household survey data has grown (see UIS, 2004; UIS, 2010; Omoeva et al., 2013; and Barakat, 2016). In some respects – given the differences in what is being measured by administrative and household survey data (enrolment versus attendance) and the multiple sources of error inherent in each approach, it would be astonishing to find that on the whole enrolment and attendance rates that are comparable. At the same time, given that the attendance and enrolment indicators measure not dissimilar things, the magnitude of difference should not be extreme. Some studies have identified substantial differences between these indicators, however, pointing to serious estimation questions (UIS, 2005; Omoeva et al., 2013). This information paper characterises and explains variations between administrative and household survey estimates of the numbers and rates of out-of-school children (OOSC) at the primary and lower secondary levels, and suggests ways that data from the two sources might be harmonised. This document also discusses issues surrounding the measurement of exclusion from education for youth of upper secondary age, given this population’s competing rights of access to education and the right to work. Administrative and household survey data efforts, as the UIS and UNICEF (2015) note, differ in purpose, in who collects the data and in what ways, and when and with what frequency. And yet because both data sources provide useful education data on similar topics, the data are examined side by side.