Reckoning Level-Differentials in the Measurement of Progress toward Universal Education: An International Comparison

The definition of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) related to universal primary education is arguably unfair to countries, particularly least developed countries (LDCs), because of their lower base achievement levels. Hence, assessments based on common methods such as rate ratios and rate differentials are met with criticism because the goal for attaining universal primary enrollment is a level end-goal and differs from some other MDGs which are relative or absolute change goals. Also, it is critical that the progress is assessed not only in terms of achievement but also in terms of the effort toward achievement. Given such intricacies, this paper reviews the existing methods and discusses an alternative level-sensitive approach that informs regarding effort and offers similar conclusions irrespective of the adopted definition of the education indicator. Data from the official MDG monitoring database of the United Nations Statistics Division is analysed to present an international comparison of educational achievements.