Ricardo Sabates

University of Cambridge | Cam · Faculty of Education

While access to basic education has increased greatly in Ethiopia and funding for education has improved notably, learning levels among pupils do not appear to have improved commensurably and have likely deteriorated. We explore in this paper the trend in mathematics learning in relation to the General Education Quality Improvement Programme - Phas...

Literacy acquisition is important for the formation of higher order skills, further engagement with written forms of knowledge, and deeper participation in society. Yet not all children have the opportunity to acquire literacy skills in their own mother tongue to allow them to continue to advance to these wider benefits of learning. This is particu...

Mother tongue-based education has been central to the promotion of early literacy skills in many multilingual contexts of the Global South. However, learners in such environments may face significant linguistic challenges when changing language of instruction during schooling. In particular, the linguistic distance between mother tongue and officia...

Learning loss is expected for millions of children who have been out of school as a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, it is uncertain how much learning will be lost and how wide the gaps may be for disadvantaged children. This paper uses a unique longitudinal dataset to estimate learning loss during a three-month transition fr...

Existing research recognises that while parents often aspire to be involved in their children’s education, some face barriers that prevent this. Studies situated in the Global North recognise economic constraints as a barrier, presenting a steep gradient whereby the richer households are, the higher their parental involvement levels. This paper ana...

Cost-effectiveness studies rarely pay explicit attention to whether resources are used effectively to benefit the most marginalised. By linking a quasi-experimental design with detailed financial information, we analyse the cost-effectiveness of the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED)’s programme in Tanzania. The programme provides targeted, mul...

This paper presents evidence on literacy trajectories for children in Ghana who enrolled in a Complementary Basic Education programme taught in mother tongue and transitioned into government schools. At the point of transition, we find that children who enrolled in government schools where the language of instruction differed from instruction in th...

This chapter explores the conceptual understandings of health and learning, as well as the health benefits of learning, to address the social factors that determine existing inequalities in these outcomes. Inequalities in health and learning start in early life, are transmitted intergenerationally, and are fuelled by the intersectionality of disadv...

In recent years, much attention has been given to extremely poor levels of learning outcomes in low-and lower-middle income countries. Citizen-led assessments have played a vital role in highlighting this “learning crisis.” Having developed these citizen-led assessments, members of the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network are now increasingly...

This study examines the link between initial school performance on subsequent learning for marginalised children in the Complementary Basic Education programme in Northern Ghana. Specifically, we focus on whether initial low performance of girls and boys differentially affects learning trajectories. Drawing on longitudinal data, we find a significa...

This paper provides evidence on the predicted benefits of maternal education, in terms of reduced child malnutrition at ages 1 and 5, focusing specifically on the complementarities with early life interventions across contexts. Using data from the Young Lives Longitudinal Study for Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam, results show the expected associ...

Graduation model programmes deliver a package of support to poor households, including cash and asset transfers, training and coaching, and access to savings facilities. They have been shown to reduce extreme poverty but evidence for their impacts on household food security is limited. Drawing on multiple-round evaluations of graduation projects in...

This paper explores the short and medium term impacts of unconditional cash transfers on school-related choices for children of beneficiary households in Rwanda. We draw on an independent evaluation of the Concern Worldwide Graduation Programme, which supported beneficiaries with monthly cash transfers and livelihood training. Our study finds that...

This paper presents findings from household data collected as part of the Annual Survey of Education conducted in rural Punjab in 2015, which included questions on disability developed by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics. Data reported here focuses on the disability status of children aged 5 to 16 years, their access to school and lear...

We use a data set from a graduation programme in Rwanda to explore the heterogeneous livelihood pathways that programme participants follow during and after the programme period. We show that household characteristics, such as gender of household head and labour availability, will affect trajectories of change; yet, the impact of initial resources...

This policy paper provides a cost-effectiveness analysis of Camfed's programme in Tanzania. Camfed's programme adopts a multidimensional approach that is aimed at reaching marginalised girls at risk of dropping out from secondary schools by using interventions that are aimed at both increasing their chances of staying in school and learning. This p...

In this longitudinal study, we test whether varying degrees of indecision about future career choices at age 16 have long-term economic consequences in adulthood, taking into account potential gender differences. Findings from a British cohort born in 1970 indicate that young people who were completely undecided about job choices did experience a w...

This paper examines the role of different types of post-compulsory education in determining civic engagement (political interest and election participation) in England and Germany. The educational systems of England and Germany provide ideal comparators for investigating the social benefits of education, in particular those that accrue from vocatio...

This note provides an overview of the methodological approach being taken to analyse cost-­-effectiveness of Camfed's programme in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. i It highlights the association between Value for Money and cost-­-effectiveness, and pays particular attention to the importance of measuring cost-­-effectiveness from an equity perspective. It f...

Background: The impact of surveying on individuals' behavior and decision making has been widely studied in academic literature on market research but not so much the impact of monitoring on economic development interventions. Objectives: To estimate whether different monitoring strategies lead to improvement in participation levels and adoption...

In 2015, ASER Pakistan included children with disabilities in their large scale assessment. This blog discusses our findings.

This article examines graduation impacts of social protection programmes in Africa, by presenting evidence from an interim evaluation of the ‘Enhancing the Productive Capacity of Extremely Poor People’ project, implemented by Concern Worldwide in Rwanda's Southern Province. The project builds on the principles of the Rwandan government's national s...

Abstract Drawing upon data from two British age cohorts born in 1970 and 1990, this chapter examines gender and socio-historical differences regarding uncertainty in the educational and career aspirations of young people. Despite differences in the age of assessment and measurement, findings suggest that similar background characteristics are assoc...

This paper investigates whether the Brazilian conditional cash transfer programme, Bolsa Família (BF), contributes to improvements in school performance in test scores and pass-grades, and reductions in dropout rates for 4th grade children. Our results suggest a positive effect of length of participation in BF and amount of cash received with respe...

This paper explores how factors operating at the state and community levels are associated with the prevalence of late school enrolment in Nigeria. We investigate the following three research themes. First, whether late entry varies across states and across communities and how much of this variation can be explained by the composition of communitie...

Objectives Early life interventions are considered essential for reducing the burden of health inequalities over the life course. This paper tests this issue empirically focusing on whether access to antenatal care can later reduce children’s health and educational inequalities. Methods Data came from the Young Lives Project for Ethiopia, Peru, Vi...

This paper examines the relative strength of different factors associated with school drop out using data collected between 2007 and 2009 in Bangladesh. A sample of 9046 children, aged 4–15, was selected across six districts for a household survey focusing on children's school access and experiences. Two groups of children were identified: those wh...

The paper maps out 10 risk factors measuring deficits in parent–child interaction, family–child interaction and the home environment. The prevalence of risk factor combinations is quantified using the UK Millennium Cohort Study data. In 2001, 28 per cent of families with young children were facing two or more risk factors at age 9–10 months old. Ea...

This study uses the longitudinal data of Young Lives for Peru to investigate the protective role that maternal education has for children whose mothers suffer from mental health problems. Our first set of findings confirms previous research in this area by showing that maternal education is associated with reduced risk of mental health problems for...

Reports an error in "Uncertain aspirations for continuing in education: Antecedents and associated outcomes" by Leslie Morrison Gutman, Ingrid Schoon and Ricardo Sabates (Developmental Psychology, Advanced Online Publication, Dec 19, 2011, np). There is an error in the last line of Table 2. It should read “Uncertain Aspirations → Enrollment at 18.”...

This article investigates the social benefits of initial vocational education and training (VET) for individuals in different European contexts. Drawing on data from the European Community Household Panel, results show that initial VET is associated with positive changes in social outcomes for individuals across Europe. Health benefits were mainly...

Parents and educators should be more concerned about uncertainty in educational aspirations than uncertainty regarding career choice among adolescents. Moreover, the impact of uncertainty on young people's attainment varies by socio‐historical context, the timing of uncertainty, the available resources, and individual characteristics of the adolesc...

Abstract This paper explores changing patterns of access to basic education in six SSA (SSA) countries,. The initiatives associated with Education for All (EFA) and international commitments,to universalise access to basic education in the Millennium Development,Goals have resulted in improvements,in enrolment rates in many, but not all, low income...

This study focuses on the importance of increasing women's education as a result of Universal Primary Education (UPE) and its further impact on improving children's educational access in Tanzania. The study uses data from the 2007 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) for empirical analysis and it is informed by the historical accounts of the UPE reform...

This article focuses on bullying among students and explores the ways it affects the attendance of senior high school students in Ghana. It explores whether having emotional problems, in addition to being bullied, incrementally affects the relationship between bullying and school attendance and the mitigating influence of peer friendships on these...

Relatively little is known about adolescents who hold uncertain aspirations, that is, those who do not know what they would like to do in the future regarding their educational or occupational plans. Drawing upon the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England born in 1989-1990, the authors tested a pathway model to investigate the antecedents of...

This paper investigates whether the inter-generational benefits of parental adult education exist over and above the achievement of parental educational qualifications during schooling and whether returns to parental adult learning are greatest for children of parents with low levels of education. Using data from the UK Avon Longitudinal Study of P...

The objective of this study was to investigate whether misaligned or uncertain ambitions in adolescence influence the process of socioeconomic attainment. Using 34 years of longitudinal data from the British Cohort Study (BCS70), we considered whether youth with (1) misaligned ambitions (i.e., those who either over- or underestimate the level of ed...

There has been significant recent research and policy interest in issues of young people's occupational aspirations, transitions to employment and the antecedents of NEET (not in employment, education or training) status. Many have argued that changes to the youth labour market over the past 30 years have led to transitions to work becoming more in...

This paper focuses on the links between inequality in academic performance and juvenile conviction rates for violent crime, stealing from another person, burglary in a dwelling and racially motivated offences. We use area-based aggregate data to model this relationship. Our results show that, above and beyond impacts of absolute access to resources...

Difficulties with visual perception (VP) are often described in children with neurological or developmental problems. However, there are few data regarding the range of visual perceptual abilities in populations of normal children, or on the impact of these abilities on children's day-to-day functioning. Data were obtained for 4512 participants in...

:Many youth in the United States lack clear occupational aspirations. This uncertainty in achievement ambitions may benefit socio-economic attainment if it signifies "role exploration," characterized by career development, continued education and enduring partnerships. By contrast, uncertainty may diminish attainment if it instead leads to "aimless...

This paper investigates whether mothers’ participation in post‐compulsory education impacts on children’s relative inequalities across four developmental outcomes. The empirical analysis uses information from children born in 1958 in Britain. Mothers of the 1958 British cohort were affected by the 1947 school leaving age reform, which increased the...

This paper investigates the impact of the increase in post‐compulsory schooling and economic growth on conviction rates for antisocial behaviour in England. I hypothesise that both educational and employment opportunities should lead to greater reductions in antisocial behaviour when they are combined than when they exist in isolation. I test this...

This paper investigates whether mothers' participation in post-compulsory education impacts on children's relative inequalities across four developmental outcomes. The empirical analysis uses information from children born in 1958 in Britain. Mothers of the 1958 British cohort were affected by the 1947 school leaving age reform, which increased the...

This article presents findings from a study of mature part‐time students and their reported benefits of study. It is based on data from a questionnaire survey of graduates from two major – but very different – providers of part‐time higher education: Birkbeck, University of London and the Open University. Response items were grouped within a ‘three...

Whether economic globalisation is associated with a narrowing or a widening of the social class gap between the education and occupation expectations of Sri Lankan youth is examined through a test of four hypotheses. Methodologically, the study employs the estimated parameters from a system of seemingly unrelated equations for testing hypotheses. Y...

To empirically test the impact of dietary intake at several time points in childhood on children's school attainment and to investigate whether any differences in school attainment between children who ate packed lunches or school meals was due to who these children were, their pre-school dietary patterns, or to what they ate at school. Using longi...

Why it is that success, deprivation or disadvantage are so often passed down intergenerationally? What part does education play? The educational achievement of parents is often reflected in that of their children and there are many underlying causes for such a relationship. Education and the Family argues that government policy has an important rol...

This paper provides an estimate of the impact of educational attainment on juvenile conviction rates using information at the Local Education Authority in England. The empirical analysis uses aggregate conviction rates over time for three cohorts of young people, born between 1981 and 1983, and their corresponding educational attainments, poverty i...

This paper evaluates the impacts on male juvenile burglary conviction rates of two UK government interventions, the Reducing Burglary Initiative and Educational Maintenance Allowances, only the former of which had crime reduction has an explicit objective. Using difference-in-differences estimation techniques, the paper shows that in areas where bo...

This paper describes the characteristics of people who return to learning to achieve at least a level 2 qualification, drawing on the 1958 National Child Development Cohort Study. Results show that adults who gained level 2 were more likely than those who did not to have been engaged in a range of learning activities at earlier ages, including lear...

This paper focuses on the links between educational inequality and juvenile conviction rates for violent crime, stealing from another person, burglary in a dwelling and racially motivated offences. We use area-based data on conviction rates, educational attainment and educational inequality for three cohorts of young people and employ mixed-effect...

This study considers the influence of one form of relative deprivation on crime, namely educational inequality. This is examined through an area-based analysis of the relationship between juvenile conviction rates for a range of offences and educational inequality based on maths Key Stage 3 scores in English local education authorities (LEAs). Usin...

To investigate whether permanent and transitory income effects mask the impact of unobservable factors on the uptake of health check-ups in Britain. We used a secondary data representative of the British population, the British Household Panel Survey. Outcome variables included uptake of dental health check-ups, eyesight tests, blood pressure check...

Are migrants able to use the migration experience to their benefit, that is to improve their livelihoods, and is this result nuanced by whether migrants are poor or non-poor? This paper explores these questions quantitatively using data on migrants and non-migrants from Ghana and Egypt. It describes the main challenges in the empirical literature a...

This paper investigates the identity ofemigrants from Mexico City and itsconsequences for adaptation in the City ofLeón. Specifically it describes how identitiesare formed, investigates the origins, uses, andpossible connotations of identity names ofmigrants from Mexico City and locals fromLeon. Our findings suggest that although thereare common id...

En este artículo se presenta una investigación sobre el desarrollo y el uso de habilidades de los migrantes provenientes de la Ciudad de México que radican en León, Guanajuato. Los datos del Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000 relativos a los habitantes de León revelan que los migrantes provenientes de los grandes centros urbanos tienen, en...

The commitment of the government to improving the education of the workforce has been emphasized both in the Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners of the Department for Education and Skills (DFES, 2004) and in the recently published Leitch Review, which calls for the UK to be a "world leader in skills". However, our understanding of the char...

This paper reports findings on the relationship between education and the take-up of screening for cervical cancer, as an example of preventative health-care activity. Theoretically, education can enhance the demand for preventative health services by raising awareness of the importance of undertaking regular health check-ups and may also improve t...

It therefore seems likely that some of the intergenerational effects of education may be transmitted through parents' educational attitudes and behaviours. However, empirical research to date has not been robust enough to test whether there is a causal effect of education on such attitudes and behaviours. This report fills the gap by providing a ri...

The paper investigates the relationship between mother's education and her parenting using data from the child supplement of the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS). By considering data across generations, our dataset allows us to estimate the size of the bias in the relationship between education and parenting from failing to account for...

This paper draws on micro-level data to fully inform the debate on decentralization and regional development. Using labor-income trajectories of emigrants from Mexico City, the paper analyzes how the labor market in a regional city, Leon, evolves. Results from the econometric model suggest that migrants' labor-income trajectories differ between the...

This paper evaluates the impacts on male juvenile burglary conviction rates of two UK government interventions, the Reducing Burglary Initiative and Educational Maintenance Allowances. Using difference-in-differences estimation techniques, the paper shows that in areas where both initiatives were introduced convictions for 16 to 18 year olds for bu...

Education is a potentially large influence on individual propensities to offend and possibly an important source of area-level variation in crime rates. Crime statistics for England indicate that crime rates are lower in areas with higher levels of education, which are also areas of higher per capita income and contain a higher proportion of famili...