THE BUCHAREST ACADEMY OF ECONOMIC STUDIES FACULTY OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS MASTER IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS FINAL PAPER

What is the Gross Enrollment Ratio in EU Member Countries?

Moroianu Sorin

Bucharest 2014

1. The Research Question

The purpose of my analysis falls into the category of descriptive research. The objective of my research was to accurately describe the development of the educational system in the European countries. Gross enrollment rate is the total enrollment in primary school, regardless of age, in a given year, expressed as a percentage of the official school-age population for primary school. The purpose of the gross enrollment rate is that it shows the general level of participation in formal schooling by the childhood population. A gross enrollment rate value of 100 percent indicates that a country is, in principle, able to accommodate all of its school-aged population. GER can be used instead of the net enrolment ratio (NER) when data on enrolment by single years of age are not available and it can also be used together with the NER to measure the extent of over-aged and under-aged enrolment.

2. Relevant literary review

The Millenium Development Goals are eight international development goals that were established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. The second goal in the United Nations Development Goal is to achieve Universal Primary Education, more specifically, to ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling." Currently, there are more than 75 million children around the world of primary school age who are not in school. The majority of these children are in regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and within these countries, girls are at the greatest disadvantage in receiving access to education at the primary school age. Since the Millennium Development Goals were launched, many developing countries, such

as China, Chile, Cuba, Singapore and Sri Lanka, have successfully completed a campaign towards universal primary education. A great factor that contributes to a childs lack of access and attendance to primary education is location. In certain areas of the world it is more difficult for children to get to school. For example; in high-altitude areas of India, severe weather conditions for more than 7 months of the year make school attendance erratic and force children to remain at home In these remote locations, insufficient school funds contribute to low attendance rates by creating undesirable and unsafe learning environments.

3. Explanation of the selection of variables and data

Obviously the selection of the Gross Enrollment Ratio as a variable in my analysis is directly related to the research question. GER shows the overall coverage of an educational system in relation to the population eligible for participation in the system. This ratio is useful for those who are interested in the overall participation of the school-age population, including both primary and secondary levels . GER can also be used for comparing two or more countries and urban and rural areas.

3.1. How to calculate GER

For example, if a nation has 900,000 people enrolled in school in the academic year 2005/06, this number is divided by the total number of school-age individuals. Suppose this number is 1,000,000. This means 90 percent of the people are enrolled; or that 90 percent is the Gross Enrollment Ratio of that nation.

GER = number of actual students enrolled / number of potential students enrolled

= =

A combined gross enrollment ratio (CGER), incorporating all three levels of education, is used to calculate the Human Development Index (HDI), an annual gauge of well-being for UN member states. Amongst other measures used in the calculation, the CGER is given one-third weight in assessing the knowledge component, represented by gross enrollment, while the

adult literacy rate is assigned two-thirds weight.

4. Summarized Sample Data using descriptive statistic measures.

By applying the Descriptive Statistics feature from Excels Data Analysis Add-in feature on my GER, I have obtained the following results: GER Mean Standard Error Median Mode Standard Deviation Sample Variance Kurtosis Skewness Range Minimum Maximum Sum Count Confidence Level(95.0%) margin of error upper limit lower limit c.of Var 4.038839534 3.713963346 109.6093245 102.1813978 0.071575534 105.8953612 1.894879258 105.1765914 #N/A 7.579517033 57.44907845 4.969407011 1.930754788 31.13358848 97.56938228 128.7029708 1694.325779 16

Regarding the measure of the central tendency, the value of the median indicates that 50% of the GER values are above 105. This indicates that more than a half of the European countries are theoretically able of accommodating its school-aged population.

Moving on to the measures of variability, we can observe that the range( indicator of dispersion, higher score=higher deviations) is 31.1 which means that the difference between the highest and the lowest value is 31.1 The measure for dispersion of variability, the variance is around 57.4, while the standard deviation, another measure of dispersion is square root of variance, 7.57. In order to find the relative dispersion we can calculate the coefficient of variation using the following formula: Coefficient of variation = = 0.07 In order to observe shape of the distribution, I have used a histogram that is allowing us to observe that the data is not normally distributed

Histogram
Frequency 8 6 4 2 0

Frequency

Bin

Bin

Frequency

97.56938 1 105.3528 7 113.1362 6 120.9196 1 More 1

This conclusion can also be reached by examining the values of the mean, median and mode. Since these values are not equal, the shape of the distribution is not normal.

The shape of the histograms distribution is not normal due to the fact that kurtosis(which shows peakness or flatness of distribution) and skewness(symmetry of distribution) are not close to 0 but they are both positive so the shape is Right Tail Extremes.

5. Population mean variable with 95%

Through the use of the Excel Data Analysis Tool, the confidence level has been identified as 3.713963346, so the confidence interval will be: - 3.713963346 That means that + 3.713963346 belongs to the following interval [102.1813978, 109.6093245]

I am 95% confident that the mean belongs to the previously mentioned interval.

6. Scatter Diagram

Correlation between GER and Enrollment

140 120

GER (Y)

100 80 60 40 20 0 0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000

Enrollment(X)

7. Covariance and Correlation

Correlation Enrollment GER Covariance Enrollment GER

Enrollment GER 1 0.529017 1

Enrollment GER 2427851 6049.333 53.85851105

The value of the sample covariance is 6049.333. Due to the fact that it is a positive number, both x and y tend to move in the same direction. The coefficient of correlation is 0.529017. This value is closer to 1 and that means that there is a strong linear relationship between the two variables. The relationship appears strong due to the fact that the value of the coefficient exceeds 0.5 Interpretation: Countries with high primary school enrollment population also tend to have a high Gross Enrollment Ratio

Bibliography: http://www.unfoundation.org/what-we-do/issues/mdgs.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Primary_Education http://www.unsiap.or.jp/ematerial/ematerial_other/PCD_M2_fiji/PCD_M2_4_P2.pdf http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v19n2/doane.pdf