The Caribbean region has made considerable progress in terms of access to education, achieving virtually universal primary school enrollment and similar levels of educational attainment relative to comparable countries. However, there are persistent learning inequalities throughout students’ life cycles as they progress from primary to secondary and tertiary education. Moreover, there are growing gender gaps that leave males behind in terms of educational attainment. It is urgent to better understand the determinants of this reality, as not addressing them might translate into productivity related long-term inequalities that could restrain optimal growth.
Persistent Learning Inequalities across Students’ Life Cycles
Newly assembled administrative data covering the full population of Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago reveals that only an average of 65% of students who complete primary school qualify for tertiary education based on the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC examinations) administered by the Caribbean Examinations Council. This aggregate statistic masks important heterogeneities as early learning inequalities persist over time. Indeed, as Figure 1 shows, academic performance in primary school is a strong predictor of the probability of students to qualify for tertiary education. Students who finish primary school below the 40th percentile of the national achievement distribution have virtually no chance of qualifying for tertiary education at the end of secondary school. As such, identifying appropriate pedagogical supports to enhance the skills of underperforming students should be a high priority, especially during the early years and in primary school, and also in secondary school.
Figure 1. Probability of Qualifying for Tertiary Education by Primary Exam Score
Source: IDB-CCB calculations using matched SEA, GSAT and BSSEE exams (2004-2012 for SEA, 2004-2018 for GSAT and 2004-2011 for BSSEE) with CSEC databases.
Growing Learning Gaps that Relegate Males
Besides the overall persistence of learning inequalities across students’ life cycle, a recent study documents a growing advantage of females over males in terms of learning outcomes. While enrollment in primary and secondary school, as well as primary school completion rates, are similar for girls and boys, secondary school completion rates largely favor girls. Females also outperform males in terms of post-secondary education enrollment, and males are significantly more likely to be in the share of population not in education, employment, or training (NEETs). Moreover, women across Caribbean countries consistently show higher learning achievement in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education levels, and this gap between females and males is ubiquitous across all the socio-economic spectrums.
In this regard, CSEC data reveal these consistent gaps favoring females in terms of passing rates and the proportion of top performers. Women in the Caribbean are, in effect, achieving disproportionately higher passing rates and top performances than men in all subjects (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Gender gaps in passing rate and top performers’ rate, CSEC. Jamaica (2020), Barbados (2020), and Trinidad and Tobago (2016)
Note: the passing rate is computed as the total number of students with scores I, II or III over the total number of students in the subject entries database. The top performers’ rate is equal to the total number of students with score I over the total number of students in the subject entries database. Gaps are always computed by subtracting females’ values from males’. The color green represents statistically significant differences.
Source: calculations based on Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago’s CSEC data.
Females Consistently Achieve Higher Educational Attainment
The share of women that complete tertiary education in the Caribbean is higher than that for men, this being particularly true for younger generations.
This trend is also observed for countries in Latin America, where younger women are also more educated than men. However, while males in Latin America have consistently improved tertiary enrollment rates across generations, older males in the Caribbean show a relative inter-generational stagnation (Figure 3). There seems to be no inter-generational improvement between Caribbean males currently aged 65+ and those aged 45-54, with some improvement among generations younger than 44 years old. By contrast, females in the Caribbean have consistently improved across generations, with more than a quarter of those aged 25-34 having attained tertiary education. This shows an earlier and starker inter-generational reversal of gender gaps in the Caribbean versus Latin America. This is reflected in the percentage of females and males with tertiary education for the 25-34 age group: the gap favoring females over males is 8.4 percentage points in the Caribbean versus 5.2 percentage points in Latin America.
Figure 3. Tertiary Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, by age group
What are the Potential Determinants of these Gaps?
Differences in terms of educational outcomes achieved by females and males in the Caribbean could be driven by different factors, such as gender roles, socialization processes for both girls and boys, and classroom pedagogy in schools.
Within the school setting, pedagogy has been characterized as teacher-centered, authoritarian, traditional, and abstract. One study finds that this could be counterproductive for boys, who appear to be more responsive to interactive and experiential classes, including debates and arguments. Moreover, the teaching profession is largely dominated by females. In Jamaica, for example, about 80% of primary and secondary teachers are female. Qualitative observations suggest that boys may be less enthusiastic about academic subjects and participate less in class when they are taught by female teachers, and this may be correlated with poor academic achievement. On the other hand, such gender imbalance in the teaching profession seems to have affected teachers’ vision of students. One study found that teachers’ described boys’ attitudes inside the classroom as “lazy”, “disruptive”, “noisy” and “mediocre”; but they used words such as “attentive”, “applied”, “serious” and “encouraging” to describe girls. In terms of school effects on non-academic dimensions, recent evidence shows that preferred secondary schools in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago significantly reduced teen fertility which, in the longer term, favored improved educational attainment and labor market resilience during the COVID-19 crisis among women.
Beyond the school environment, Caribbean social norms regarding expected behaviors by gender at home might be transferred to the learning environment. While girls’ socialization dictates closer supervision and teaches obedience, cooperation, and other skills that help them fit into school routines, boys are supposed to “go play” and tend to be not so closely monitored, which is usually associated with lower levels of responsibility and self-control. Furthermore, notions of masculinity are strongly related to the ability to provide for oneself and one’s family. Therefore, early entry into the job market is a significant determinant for school dropout among males. This is reinforced by Caribbean labor market dynamics, where male employment rates are higher with respect to females regardless of their level of educational attainment. Indeed, it seems that when Caribbean households are financially constrained, boys are often withdrawn from school to bolster family income, while girls are kept in school to delay early pregnancy. Consistent with this notion, the Trinidad and Tobago’s 2014 Survey of Living Conditions shows that if parents had to decide who of their children would be sent to school if faced with financial constraints, the proportion that would send a girl (35%) is significantly higher than those who would send a boy (22%).
It seems, therefore, that multiple factors present not only in the education system but also across Caribbean households are contributing to the growing underachievement of males. These undesirable dynamics will likely limit productivity and long-run growth potential. It can also impact the marriage market and fertility. Further rigorous research on these issues is needed to shape evidence-based policies and promote educational gender equality in the Caribbean.
For a deeper analysis of gender gaps in the English-speaking Caribbean, see: Thailinger, A., Pecha, C., Beuermann, D., Arias, E., Hobbs, C., & Piras, C. (2023). Gender Gaps in the English-speaking Caribbean: Education, Skills, and Wages. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.
Agustina Thailinger is an economist focused on education sector topics. She is a consultant at the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) and the Ministry of Education in Guyana. Before this, Agustina was a consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IADB) Education Division, where she worked in the Caribbean team. She also worked for both public and private sector institutions in Argentina, such as the Fundación Banco Municipal de Rosario, the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, and the Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Humano (CEDH) at Universidad de San Andrés. Agustina holds an undergraduate degree in Economics from Universidad Nacional de Rosario in Argentina and a master’s degree in Economics from Universidad de San Andrés in Argentina.
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