Parents have the option of enrolling their children in the first stage of early childhood education (from 0 to 3 years of age). However, not all parents decide to do so, waiting until the second stage of early childhood education to enrol them in the education system (from 3 to 5 years of age), or even until compulsory education when their…

In TIMSS 2015, while two-thirds of students in grade 4 reported feeling very safe at school, by grade 8, less than half of the students surveyed reported feeling a high level of safety. Overall, girls were more likely to report feeling safe than boys. For both genders, feeling safe at school seemed to be positively related to academic achievement…

Over the past two decades, there has been rapid growth in understanding of bullying in schools and its many negative effects. The reported incidence of bullying and other school violence has increased over time, and UNESCO recently estimated that 246 million children and adolescents experience violence in and around school every year (UNESCO…

Prior research shows that establishing early literacy and numeracy skills may help children achieve better outcomes in later schooling. Data from the Regional Project on Child Development Indicators (PRIDI), which focused on Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru, provided insights into four domains of child development that build the…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) was inaugurated in 2001 as a follow-up to International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's 1991 Reading Literacy Study. Conducted every five years, PIRLS assesses the reading achievement of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition…