Reardon looks at the increasing income gap
between rich and poor and the resultant
decline in social mobility. He highlights the decrease in middle class
jobs in manufacturing and the competition faced by individuals and the costs
for families for their off-spring to achieve academic success. High-earning
families spend seven times as much on child development as low income families.
This spills over into participation in extracurricular clubs and free-time activities.
As well as differences in examination results there are fewer and fewer
students from poorer backgrounds accessing tertiary education.
Comparing academic achievement and family
income, there were three significant findings for Reardon. The first was the
growth of the income achievement gap in these past 30 years. In reading
achievement in the1950s, 60s & 70s the standard deviation between rich and
poor was around 0.9. By the 90s and 00s this had risen by 40% to 1.25.
Income inequality rose dramatically over
the same period making the gap between rich and poor much greater.
The second was that income gaps in other
measures of education success in its wider sense had grown too. This included
tertiary education completion rates where high income students are an
increasing proportion of the matriculated students at elite colleges and
universities. A related issue was the differing degrees of civic engagement
through extracurricular activities, sports, academic clubs, voluntary organizations
and participation in community life, so while Thandi juggles with piano, choir,
Girls’ Brigade, ballet and netball in her busy life, all Masiye has to look
forward to, is preventative maintenance with a hoe on a Wednesday afternoon!
Thirdly the attainment gap is already there
on entry to Pre-School and does not grow significantly throughout the schooling
period. This suggests that the gap is not due to unequal school quality, in
fact schooling may actually narrow the academic achievement gaps rather than
widen them. School holidays were also found to widen the gap when schools were
not in session, causing the ‘summer setback’ especially, in the lower Primary
years.
Reardon then looks to the social history of
the past 50 years to help explain the causes and reasons for the growth in the
income achievement gap. In 1970s the income gap between rich and poor was a
factor of 5, today a high income family earns 11 times more than a poor family.
So the rich have even more resources to invest in education than before,
relative to the poor.
Upward social mobility is now more
difficult because of income inequality and the decline in Western economic
growth since the 1970s. This has led to a large increase in low-skill, low wage
service or routine production jobs with minimum wage and zero hours contracts,
on the other hand there are a much smaller number of high-skill, high- wage
jobs in financial services, information technology and engineering design. Gone
are the jobs that provided a respectable living without a university degree and
so now education is vital for economic success. In Zambia it is now almost
impossible to get even the lowliest of Government jobs such as a hospital
cleaner, without good Grade 12 results
Popular notions too of what constitutes educational
success have returned to the normative and quantitative with marks, grades and
tables playing a dominant role. High- income children are more likely to have
two tertiary-educated, parents both of whom work, whereas low-income children
are more likely to be raised by a single mother who left school with few
qualifications. These factors too have an important bearing on child
development.
Schools have in the past played a role as a
social equalizer where children of all backgrounds would have equal opportunity
to learn and develop. This could be done with the support of government, both
national and local and with family and community support that promoted
cognitive and social development to try and close these gaps.
Reardon stresses the importance of
resources being devoted to early education, by intervening early, the more
likely it is that the gaps can be effectively tackled and eliminated. The
recent Early Childhood Care, Development and Education Syllabus is testimony to
Zambian Education taking this seriously. Reardon also suggests extending the
school day and year and providing after-school and summer-school programmes to
help narrow the gaps. The extra time gained has to be used effectively. Equal
access to high-quality teachers is important as is a stimulating curriculum in
well-resourced schools. Otherwise schools will reflect these gaps with schools
being high-income or low-income, segregated by the type of housing and homes
the pupils come from and the income of the parents. This will do nothing to
promote socio-economic diversity or cohesion within schools or to show that
through education and hard work anyone can rise to any position in society.
SOME RELATED STATISTICS
USA SCOTLAND ZAMBIA
Poverty Threshold $US23 000 p.a. GBP21
000 $730
or K4400 p.a.
(Family
of 4)
(Family of 4) ($2.00 a day)
Extreme Poverty $11 680 GBP18 600 $460
or K2740 p.a.
($32
a day) ($1.25 a day)
Suburban Poverty Rate 11.3% 14% 22%
(Lusaka)
34%
(Copperbelt)
70%
(Rural)
USA SCOTLAND
ZAMBIA
Living below poverty line 46 million (15%) 950 000(18%) 7.9 million (60%)
In extreme poverty 20.4 million (6%) 710
000 (14%) 5.5 million (42%)
Worldwide 21 000 children die every day
from hunger. 1 every 4 seconds.
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