Measuring the distance between countries and the goal of equality of opportunity in education has been the focus of recent contributions in the economic literature, which have concentrated either on intergroup gaps in access to a given level of studies or on intergroup gaps in educational achievement. We argue that both aspects are important and…

The differential patterns of grade progression have direct implications for the calculation of learning profiles. Researchers measure learning in primary school using survey data on reading and math skills of a nationally representative, population-based sample of children in India, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Research demonstrates that…

For decades, the international education community has focused on schools as the primary vehicle of learning. However, learning assessments in dozens of developing nations show that repeated attempts to affect student learning in schools have largely failed. Because students with perfect attendance in low-resource settings spend less than 25…

The author examines national differences in scholastic performance, as indicated by IEA Study test scores, between the developed and less-developed nations, and outlines hypotheses for the poorer performance of the less-developed nations. This article is the second of three in a symposium on the IEA Studies. (SJL)