Schoolchildren s well-being and life prospects: justifying the universal tax on childhood

1. Schoolchildren�s well-being and life prospects: justifying the universal tax on childhood Neil Thin University of Edinburgh Based in part on incipient research with the DFID-funded RECOUP Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes for Poverty Reduction 2006-2011

2. Schooling epitomises the optimism and universalism of development � Everyone agrees that schooling ought to produce better lives and better societies � It is about universalism, nation-building, character-building, and deferred gratification - investment in human capital. � Implicitly we agree on this tax on childhood - trade-offs between personal/ public goods and childrens�/adults� wellbeing.

3. A �well-being� approach: outcomes Schooling must be justified in terms of its contributions to well-being. So it should: improve pupils� prospects for life-long well-being (incl meaning and motivation) improve the enjoyment of childhood externalise well-being benefits through social benefits

4. A �well-being� approach: inputs/processes Access to schooling, and ability to benefit from schooling, requires prior well-being: Pupils� family background must enable them to be free to attend school Pupils need to be well and motivated enough, to learn Teachers need to be well and motivated enough to teach

5. Implications for development policies Promoters of the �right to education� (incl MDGs: UPE, gender parity) must be socially responsible - i.e. they must check whether/how schooling enhances well-being Views of teachers, pupils and parents must be heard and given careful analytical consideration �human dvt� and �social dvt� approaches must be combined: so far neither has led to serious attention to well-being

6. MDGs, finance, research, evaluation MDGs have greatly increased finance for basic education Among the MDG targets only the educational ones are just inputs in developmental terms Many govts and donors are concerned that schooling quality is being compromised There is too little research on quality and outcome, esp on experience of schooling, and social/emotional outcomes

7. Examples of evaluative inadequacy: ***Remember these - they are seriously worrying: Only 3 of 89 World Bank education evaluations looked mainly at learning outcomes (Neilsen 2006); none looked substantially at pupil well-being/satisfaction UNESCO Global Monitoring Report 2005 - 425 pages about �quality� of schooling, none about school enjoyment, almost nothing about well-being

8. Three approaches to UPE Rights-based: free and compulsory schooling (meeting basic minimal quality criteria) is a universal right Poverty reduction: schooling directly alleviates poverty, and indirectly reduces poverty through work and health benefits Well-being: schooling only justified by its contributions to well-being in and out of school

9. A �well-being� approach avoids: apriorism - the lazy assumption that superficial changes (economic growth, formal democracy, school attendance) are good in themselves pathological minimalism - paying attention to reducing harm and injustice rather than promotion of good lives and good societies - n.b: rights-based and poverty-focused, and even more so �pro-poor� approaches fall into both of these traps � pedagogical reductionism - assn that passing tests is an adequate indicator of learning � economistic reductionism - assn that the �returns to education� can be adequately measured by income

10. Could a �well-being� approach �de-politicise� educational development? � Much less likely to do so than �rights-based� and MDG approaches, both of which draw attention to access rather than to quality and outcomes � But politics of dvt can only be addressed through a holistic well-being approach, looking at full range of �objective� and �subjective� well-being issues in inputs, process, outcomes, and outcomes � Piecemeal attention to well-being (e.g. measuring a narrow set of knowledge, health, and employment outcomes) can distract attention from social injustice

11. Can a well-being approach avoid a collapse into the psychosocial? A �collapse into the psychosocial� sounds like an excellent idea. It constitute an immense improvement to schooling policy worldwide.

12. Can we measure wellbeing? Excessive interest in measurement is part of the problem! It detracts from quality and holism. It should be seen as just a relatively minor presentational issue. Holistic assessment and learning are what matter. For schooling to improve, it is crucial to develop wellbeing assessment strategies that look at inputs, processes, outputs, and life outcomes. Crucial to complement �objective� indicators (e.g. health, test scores, post-school income) with �subjective� indicators: asking pupils, parents, and teachers about school satisfaction, enjoyment and wellbeing should be normal practice in educational evaluation

13. Factors affecting attention to schooling-wellbeing links Prioritising: quantity of provision, enrolment takes priority over quality Specificity: wellbeing and happiness too general to serve as policy rubrics Measurability: need to assign numerical values to aspects of wellbeing Objectivity: modern statecraft tends to give inadequate respect to subjective viewpoints �

14. Factors affecting attention to schooling-wellbeing links [contd] Age: adults� views carry more weight than children�s Professionalism: parents� views carry less weight than teachers�, which are in turn trumped by views of managers and educationalists Accountability: governments and schools can�t be held accountable for well-being and school climate

15. Implications for research and evaluation Explore diverse views on purposes of schooling Assess experience of schooling, not just outcomes (measure Quality-Adjusted Years of Schooling) Assess emotional and social learning not just cognitive learning Look for positive experiences and outcomes, not just adverse (ill-being) or minimalist (poverty reduction) outcomes

16. Schooling and happiness Very little systematic research on enjoyment of schooling worldwide (�how much�? and �how�?) Lots of research findings show no significant correlation between schooling and happiness in rich or poor countries Lots of research links schooling with social disruption and the frustrations of unrealistic ambitions

17. Schooling and ill-being Research on schooling and ill-being (esp violence, child labour, and ill-health) does help understand schooling-wellbeing links But this needs to be more systematic, less dominated by a small set of concerns (HIV/AIDs,violent bullying)

18. Effects of schooling on wellbeing Pupil well-being: Direct effects - school enjoyment, motivation, creativity, etc.(also adverse effects) Childhood well-being: Indirect effects -nutrition, health, life skills, safety, status (and costs - loss of local knowledge Well-becoming: Indirect life-long effects on adult well-being (via socialization,skills, knowledge, cognitive and emotional capabilities) Social well-being: Indirect effects on society in general (via effects on schooled people, and via the effects of schools as institutions)

19. Effects of wellbeing on schooling Parental and sibling wellbeing affect pupils� ability and motivation to attend school and to do homework Socio-economic contexts affect children�s and educationalists� capabilities and motivations (via quality of teachers and pupils, and indirectly by influencing aspirations) Macro-economic and macro-political contexts affect the affordability of education systems, and shape overall policies for education