A multilevel analysis of educational transition rates at secondary level in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

AbstractEstimates show that, in 2019, only 41 per cent of students completed lower secondary and 28 per cent upper secondary education in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region (UNESCO, 2021). One of the reasons for the low completion rates is the poor transition across secondary education due to the significant impact of factors at individual, household, and community levels shaping demand and supply constraints. This article employs a three-level logit to investigate the key determinants for transitions and their variability across countries and communities, and explores whether less wealth inequality is at odds with increasing countries’ and communities’ performances. It finds that variation on transition rates is 40–50 per cent larger between communities within countries than between countries themselves, and that heterogeneity is larger for upper secondary transition. Leading sources of inequality are wealth, gender, and communities’ prevalence of early marriage. Further, the article finds that the equity–performance trade-off does not hold across countries, but it does at the community level where communities with stronger rates of transitions are more unequal. The analysis suggests policies to improve SSA youth chances to move up to the next level of secondary education, starting for narrowing heterogeneity across communities, boosting chances for the poorest groups and female youth living in communities with weak social norms, and measures to diminish the impact of community wealth on their transition performance.