Higher incomes equal higher test results: study

Kyodo News
Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009

Elementary school students from high-income families scored notably higher than those from low-income families in last year's nationwide achievement exam, a government analysis of the results showed Tuesday.

Sixth-graders at public elementary schools whose parents earn ¥12 million or more scored 8 to 10 percentage points more than the national average in Japanese language and mathematics, while pupils from families with income of less than ¥2 million scored more than 10 percentage points less than the average.

A panel of experts under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology made the finding after conducting a survey on the parents of some of the elementary school pupils who took the standardized achievement exam, introduced by the ministry in 2007, revealing links between household income and the exam results for the first time.

The survey found the largest gap, as much as 23.3 percentage points, in the ability to apply basic mathematical knowledge.

The percentage of questions answered correctly by students with a family income of less than ¥2 million stood at 42.6 percent, while those with a family income of between ¥12 million and ¥15 million got 65.9 percent of the questions right. The national average was 55.8 percent.

Sixth-graders whose parents spend more than ¥50,000 a month on education other than school had 71.2 percent of the math questions right, compared with 44.4 percent among those whose parents spend none.

The panel concluded that the difference was a result of the income gap, saying the more parents earn, the more they spend on child education, particularly cram schools.

Hiroaki Mimizuka, a professor specializing in educational sociology at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo and a member of the panel, said the results point to the possibility that providing monetary assistance for education could improve students' abilities.

Cambodia's literacy rate among youngsters reaches 84.7%

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's literacy rate among people aged 15-24 has reached 84.7 percent after years of efforts by the government, khmer newspaper reported on Thursday.

"If we consider 15 years old upwards, it has 73.6 percent of literate people. However, among this figure, there are still 26.4 percent of illiterate population, " the Kampuchea Thmei quoted Phon Hon Sin, director of informal education system of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, as saying.

And among the illiterate people, 60 percent of them are women. "Each year we helped 55,000 people to eliminate illiteracy," he said.

"The most of illiterate women have abandoned their education since the beginning of primary. Their dropout rate from primary and secondary schools is about 10 percent across the country and at the higher education, the women enrollment rate is so low and it has about 30 percent only," he said, adding that poverty is mainly the reason why they abandon education.

"Education sectors of the government opened 1,000 literacy classes and another 1,000 literacy classes were set up by organizations with supports from partners," he said.