Authors: Jon Edmund Bollom, Aladje Baldé, Zeca Jandi, Hamadou Boiro, Geir Gunnlaugsson, Jónína Einarsdóttir
Site of publication: IJER
Type of publication: Research paper
Date of publication: 2023
Introduction
Equality of opportunity in higher education (HE) is pivotal to achieving Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) 4.3, ensuring equal access for all women and men to affordable vocational and tertiary education, and target 8.6, committing to drastically reduce the proportion of youth not in education or training.
A commitment to non-discrimination is also outlined in Article 3 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
Indeed, the development of pragmatic policy for enabling societies underrepresented subsequently requires outlining determinants influencing pathways towards HE participation.
Many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) states appear far from achieving said goals by 2030. From 2000 to 2010, HE enrolment in SSA rose from 2.3 million to 5.2 million. In 2014, HE enrolment was just 8.6% compared to the global enrolment rate of 34.5%. On average, about one in ten Sub-Saharan Africans have access to HE, but access is unevenly experienced. In Anglophone African states, there are 514 university students per 100,000 population, compared to 336 in Francophone countries in Guinea-Bissau, the ratio is just 217. Perceived domestic stagnation in Guinea-Bissau, or the ‘social moratorium’ and absence of economic opportunity inform desires for migration to Europe, encapsulated by the mythology of sai fora, ‘to leave’. Thus, people’s estimations of HE are informed by how they perceive its value for social and geographical mobility. Despite a revival in studies upon HE in SSA, the body of research is thin; in Guinea-Bissau, there appears an absence of studies on HE, and there is no freely available data on the sector.
This research draws on a survey implemented in Bissau in June 2017. The questionnaire, created by Youth in Europe – a Drug Prevention Program, now Planet Youth, explores an array of social factors pertinent to adolescents, facilitating the mapping of determinants of HE engagement. The survey, and the consequent study, are the first of their kind in Guinea-Bissau. Thus, this survey presents the first opportunity to examine the relationships between adolescents’ socioeconomic backgrounds and their reported expectations of HE attendance in Guinea-Bissau. This article consequently focuses upon the yet globally and regionally under-researched theme of HE access in Guinea-Bissau.
Setting
Guinea-Bissau’s education system
Guinea-Bissau’s school system reflects broader political tensions, encompassing the transition between 33 Education Ministers between 1992 and 2017. Only 31% of children enter first grade at the correct age of six, meaning most are adolescents and overage by grade four, resulting in high drop-out rates. Drop-out rates are higher for girls, resulting in 25.7% of girls of the 10-11 age group being out-of-school, against 17.5% for boys, which is worsened in rural communities.
Thus, though the gender parity index for preschool until the end of grade four is over 90%, the ratio of boys to girls has declined to 66% by the end of secondary school, representing 1.5 boys for each girl. Fewer than 1% of poor rural females complete secondary school. Further, 29.9% of women aged 20-49 were married before 18 years, and 27% of women aged 20 to 24 years fell pregnant before the age of 18. Dismal school enrolment rates between ages six and 11 (66%, as of 2014/15) and regular school year interruption characterise education structures
Public spending on education averaged 12.3% of total public expenditures across 2010-2017, falling to 8% in 2017, significantly below international standards of 20%. Consequent teachers’ strikes continue to interrupt public school curricula. For example, in 2016/2017, 92 teaching days (46%) were lost to strikes within the public education system, falling from 65% in 2015/2016.
Household expenditures appear to insulate the private school sector from such interruptions, leading to consequent higher standards of education provision. Public funding shortfalls are mitigated by household expenditure, accounting for 63% of the educational expenditure compared to the continental average of about 24%.
All schools require user fees in Guinea-Bissau, though private school fees are significantly higher than public school fees. However, whilst teaching quality remains low, legislative development, continued growth in gross student enrolment, and continuous community support reflect remarkable sector resilience, revealing the highly regarded strategic and symbolic value of education.
In the capital, Bissau, investment in private education is chiefly determined by parental socioeconomic context, including education, employment status and financial capacity; girls aged were more likely to receive private education and less likely to be overage than their male peers.
Higher education in Guinea-Bissau
In Guinea-Bissau, 30% of university graduates struggle to find appropriate work, compared to 25% of secondary school graduates. In lieu of records on total number of students, we estimate that there are currently roughly 7,000-8,000 students receiving HE at 25 approved institutions. Tuition fees in the academic year 2021/2022 range from 25,000CFA to 40,000CFA/38EUR to 61EUR per month, depending on university, rising to a high of 80,000CFA/122EUR for students in medicine (personal communication, July 2022). The state does not offer financial support to students, though certain NGOs and multinational agencies offer assistance, often targeting academically elite, and female students. Failure to pay tuition fees is commonplace, with 50% to 75% of students experiencing difficulties with payment. Legislative gaps mean that no Bissau-Guinean university can award students a Master’s degree. Students must instead travel abroad to conclude a Master’s programmed.
In the capital, Bissau, investment in private education is chiefly determined by parental socioeconomic context, including education, employment status and financial capacity; girls aged were more likely to receive private education and less likely to be overage than their male peers
Discussion
Female gender
Female gender predicted an increased likelihood of university attendance, suggesting that girls were 56.9% more likely to harbour expectations of university enrolment following graduation than boys. Previous research on this same sample indicated that girls were 1.29 times more likely to attend private school than boys and 1.23 times more likely to be enrolled in an age-appropriate class. Evidence indicates that Bissau-Guinean girls are more and, in some instances, uniquely vulnerable to risk factors associated with dropout. Risk factors include teen pregnancy, familial roles associated with early marriage or other traditional roles within the household.
Nationally, girls are consequently less likely to complete primary or secondary education, initially suggesting that expectations of university attendance might be lower. However, we posit that the unique socio-political character of the setting has likely already led to the dropping out of many deterministically vulnerable girls.
Thus, for many girls who remain in school, a university education, or at least completing secondary school, represents the destination of a planned educational pathway.
Previous research upon the same randomised sample found girls were equally likely to be enrolled in school and more likely to be enrolled in private school than boys, suggesting a greater gender parity in the urban setting than national statistics suggest.
Data analysis from 12 SSA countries shows a positive coefficient between female gender, educational achievement, and continued school enrolment. The results indicate that girls with comparatively weak school performance are more likely than boys to drop out; conversely, girls with higher grades are more likely than their male counterparts to continue schooling.
This sample accurately captures the Bissau-Guinean population within the 15 to 24-year-old age bracket, as evidenced in national population statistics. Previously reported dropout rates for rural females compared to urban females suggest that this sample focuses upon the most privileged – or rather least unprivileged – sample of female students in Guinea-Bissau. Our findings are supported by the most recent available MICS data suggesting an almost perfect adjusted gender parity index of 1.03. Contrarily, rural students are severely disadvantaged, the reported location-adjusted parity index just 0.03.
Private school attendance
As anticipated, private school attendance predicted a significantly higher likelihood of university enrolment, with privately schooled adolescents 74.7% more likely to expect to attend university than respondents who attended a public school. Private schooling indicates parents’ significant financial investment in education and may be understood as part of a wider nexus of decisions aimed at engineering a pathway to HE. Within the Bissau-Guinean context, the economic constraints of school attendance are likely to characterise the privately schooled as members of the upper socioeconomic groups.
Hence, though students’ responses regarding perceived comparative parental wealth did not predict increased HE expectation, combined findings suggest that privately schooled respondents represent a disproportionately wealthy sample segment.
A further consideration is the private school system’s capacity to attract the highest calibre of the students through ‘cream-skimming’. Previous research upon the advantage of private school attendance in lower-income contexts is more limited than higher income settings. Despite this, parents’ anticipated returns on the increased financial expense afforded to the highest achieving students may result in some degree of clustering of academically gifted and ambitious students within the private school sector. This clustering is likely to be a more significant draw for ambitious students and their families in contexts where public school systems are under-funded, or education pathways are interrupted by strikes, poor budgetary completion and lack of planned curricula, as is often the case in Guinea-Bissau.
Positive engagement with study
Self-reported comparative school performance and spending more than an hour on average studying per day both predicted an increased likelihood of anticipating university attendance.
A further consideration is the private school system’s capacity to attract the highest calibre of the students through ‘cream-skimming’. Previous research upon the advantage of private school attendance in lower-income contexts is more limited than higher income settings. Despite this, parents’ anticipated returns on the increased financial expense afforded to the highest achieving students may result in some degree of clustering of academically gifted and ambitious students within the private school sector
1,808 of the 1,891 students, or otherwise 95.6% of students, reported that they were doing as well, if not better than others in their class, suggesting great – and in some cases misplaced – confidence in their academic capabilities as a sample. Perceived comparative school performance predicted a greater likelihood of university attendance than any other variable in the final model. These findings suggest that confidence in one’s academic achievements is not solely rooted in academic outcomes.
Furthermore, reporting confidence in their academic achievements predicted a 76.6% higher likelihood of reporting that they expected to attend university after school. Interestingly, respondents’ confidence regarding their academic performance predicted a more significant likelihood of wanting to attend university than increased time spent studying at home did (43.6%). It is perhaps not surprising, given previous research, that an understanding of personal academic potential predicts continued educational expectation; most notably, studies have shown that hope and motivation, when controlling for past academic achievement, are robust predictors of continued academic success.
Parental influence
As anticipated, parents valuing their child’s education anticipated greater expectations of university attendance. Thus, rising parental interest in students’ academic progress on a binomial response scale anticipates a 52.6% higher likelihood of expecting to attend university. A secondary cost of school attendance is the loss of household income through the informal sector or alternative roles served within the household. Within the resource-constrained setting of Guinea-Bissau, it is suggested that a family’s decision to send a child to school represents a commensurately high estimation of the return on school attendance. This expected return suggests that attendance at this late stage of third level primary and lower secondary education represents a significant continued economic investment in a future presumed guaranteed only by educational achievement.
Previous research shows that most leavers in developing contexts are from less affluent households with lower-educated parents. However, the relationship between parental behaviours and children’s educational outcomes may be best captured by an ‘intergenerational transmission of education’ model not solely informed by parental achievement.
In higher income settings, factors that predict higher intergenerational educational outcomes include the presence of an encyclopaedia in the household, musical instruments, number of siblings, and indicators of familial bonding such as the ability to watch movies or go to the theatre as a child. Momo et al. consequently suggest the need to broaden our considerations of household characteristics that predict the intergenerational transmission of education. Elsewhere older family members are found to significantly influence children’s educational choices, suggesting that a closer family unit in which knowledge and support may be offered predicts continued educational engagement when prompted.
Strengths and limitations
The study is the first of its kind in the setting, providing the first socially sensitive examination of the social determinants of HE engagement among youths in Bissau. The survey methodology is built upon experience gained through the Planet Youth collaboration in hundreds of municipalities and more than 30 countries globally. However, a limitation in the study design is the inability to incorporate variables interrogating student age in months, socioeconomic background, parental occupation, special educational needs, and maternal mental health due to a lack of pre-existing data. The survey also did not explore the incidence of student pregnancy or familial responsibilities shown elsewhere to influence educational outcomes.
This research has drawn upon BRT, highlighting the significance of three precursors of intention: attitude, subjective norms and perceived control. Overall, 73% of students expect to attend university, a remarkably high number given the socioeconomic context of Bissau. Previous modelling of BRT suggests that facilitators of engagement have a more significant impact on intention than obstacles. Whilst this survey format was not designed to interrogate the efficacy of BRT modelling, respondent optimism in the face of substantial contextual challenges suggest that the weight of student and parental enthusiasm, personal confidence and engagement in studies greatly outstrips that of obstacles to continued study in Guinea-Bissau. Likewise, student attitudes, expressed as positive student engagement, has previously been shown in BRT modelling to be the strongest predictor of engagement, reflecting our findings.
Furthermore, both socioeconomic and cultural contexts have been demonstrated to play a role in educational outcomes. Thus, school survey roll-out results in the unavoidable omission of non-school-attending adolescents. It is assumed that non-attendance of secondary school may preclude HE engagement. However, dropout and re-enrolment remain commonplace in Guinea-Bissau, offering hope that dropouts may recommence their education, suggesting their input should be sought. As 41.9% of the population is under 14 and 32.1% between 10 and 24 years old and school enrolment remains low, this sample does not represent a significant proportion of the nation’s population. Additionally, the selection of an urban site for survey roll-out hinders this research’s capacity to conclude on university accessibility for rural students, who are vulnerable to deterrence through the ‘tyranny of distance’ and often face budgetary discrimination due to poor geographical service coverage.