The destination and early career performance of secondary school graduates in Colombia : findings from the 1978 cohort

SWP653 1984 The Destination and Early Career Performance of Secondary School Graduates in Colombia Findings from the 1978 Cohort George Psacharopoulos Antonio Zabalza WORLD BANK STAFF WORKING PAPERS Number 653 HD 6276 .C72 P75 1984 c.2 O44 4 0249 K 902 SLCO1 8420   cn6 WORLD BANK STAFF WORKING PAPERS Number 653 The Destination and Early Career Performance of Secondary School Graduates in Colombia Findings from the 1978 Cohort George Psacharopoulos Antonio Zabalza S1CTCORAL 1,1'1RARi N, ERN, rIONAL B3AN! TkfC')N'S;TRlCTILIN END LIY' ME'4l AUG 31 1988 The World Bank Washington, D.C., U.S.A.  Copyright @ 1984 The Intemational Bank for Reconstruction and Development/THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, U S.A. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing July 1984 This is a working document published informally by the World Bank. To present the results of research with the least possible delay, the typescript has not been prepared in accordance with the procedures appropriate to formal printed texts, and the World Bank accepts no responsibility for errors. The publication is supplied at a token charge to defray part of the cost of manufacture and distribution. The views and interpretations in this document are those of the author(s) and should not be attributed to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations, or to any individual acting on their behalf. Any maps used have been prepared solely for the convenience of the readers; the denominations used and the boundaries shown do not imply, on the part of the World Bank and its affiliates, any judgment on the legal status of any territory or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. The full range of World Bank publications, both free and for sale, is described in the Catalog of Publications; the continuing research program is outlined in Abstracts of Current Studies. Both booklets are updated annually; the most recent edition of each is available without charge from the Publications Sales Unit, Department T, The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A., or from the European Office of the Bank, 66 avenue d'1ena, 75116 Paris, France. George Psacharopoulos is manager of the research program in the Education Department of The World Bank. Antonio Zabalza, professor of economics at the University of Barcelona and lecturer in economics at the London School of Economics, is a consultant to the Education Department. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Psacharopoulos, George. The destination and early career performance of secondary school graduates in Colombia. (World Bank staff working papers ; no. 653) Bibliography: p. 1. High school graduates--Employment--Colombia. 2. Education, Secondary--Colombia. I. Zabalza, Antonio, 1946- . II. Title. III. Series. HD6276.C72P75 1984 331.11'423 84-13018 ISBN 0-8213-0383-X  ABSTRACT This paper reports the results of an evaluation of Bank-assisted diversified secondary schools (INEM) in Colombia offering prevocational subjects alongside the traditional academic curriculum. The evaluation is based on a retrospective follow-up of nearly 1,800 graduates of" target" and "control" schools three years after leaving school. The central finding is that the new schools have not generated further training or employment patterns that are different from the control schools. In particular, INEM graduates are not more likely to enter employment immediately upon graduation and do not obtain higher earnings in the labor market than traditional graduates. According to this initial evaluation, there is virtually no difference in the social rate of return on the resources invested in the two types of schools.  EXTRACTO En este estudio se dan a conocer los resultados de una evaluaci6n de los "institutos nacionales de educaci6n media diversificada" (INEM) de Colombia --los cuales reciben asistencia del Banco Mundial-- que imparten enseiianza en materias de formaci6n preprofesional paralelamente con los planes de estudios academicos tradicionales. La evaluaci6n se basa en un seguimiento retrospectivo de cerca de 1.800 graduados de los institutos fijados como "meta" y de un grupo de escuelas "testigo" tres aiios despues de egresados. La conclusi6n principal consiste en que las nuevas escuelas no han generado pautas de capacitaci6n o empleo que sean diferentes de las observadas en las escuelas testigo. De modo especial, comparados con los graduados de escuelas tradicionales, no es mas probable que los de los INEM obtengan empleo inmediatamente despues de graduados, ni que en el mercado laboral los ingresos que obtienen sean mas altos. De acuerdo con esta evaluaci6n inicial, practicamente no hay diferencia en lo que concierne a la tasa de rendimiento social sobre los recursos invertidos en los dos tipos de escuelas.  ABREGE Ce document pr6sente les r6sultats d'une 6valuation des 6coles secondaires polyvalentes (INEM) en Colombie. Ces ecoles, dont la creation a ete appuyee par la Banque mondiale, dispensent un enseignement preprofessionnel, parallelement au programme scolaire classique. L'evaluation s'appuie sur le suivi trois ans apres la fin de leurs 6tudes, de quelque 1.800 anciens e1lves d'6coles "polyvalentes" et d'ecoles "t6moins". La principale conclusion en est qu'on ne constate pas de difference, pour ce qui est de l'emploi comme de la poursuite des etudes, entre les diplomes des deux types d'ecoles. En particulier, les e1lves des ecoles polyvalentes n'ont pas davantage de chances de trouver un emploi des la fin de leurs etudes et ils ne sont pas mieux remuner6s sur le marche de l'emploi que les diplomes des 6coles classiques. D'apres cette premiere 6valuation, le taux de rentabilite sociale de l'investissement est pratiquement le meme pour les deux types d'6cole.  Acknowledgments This paper is based on a more comprehensive World Bank research project on Diversified Secondary Curricula (DiSCuS, RPO 672-45), in collaboration with the Colombia Ministry of Education and the Instituto SER de Investigacion (Drs. Eduardo Velez and Carlos Rojas), and the Tanzania Ministry of Education and the Institute of Education, University of Dar es Salaam (Professor I. Omari). We wish to thank A.M. Arriagada, J. Garcia and Z. Tzannatos for research assistance. The Colombian research team was most helpful in collecting and processing the data, as well as in assisting in their interpretation. The views expressed here are those of the researchers and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the World Bank or the Colombian Government.  Contents Page Abstract I. Introduction 1 II. An Overview of the Data 7 III. Who Attends the INEMs? 17 IV. The Demand for Post-Secondary Education 22 V. Further Training 35 VI. Labor Force Participation 41 VII. Job Search and Unemployment 51 VIII. Labor Earnings 51 IX. An Economic Evaluation of Diversified Education 74 X. Summary and Conclusions 81 References 86 Annexes 1. A Sequential Probability Model 87 2. The Binomial Probit Model 89 3. Means and Standard Deviations of Selected Variables 93 4. Zero-Order Correlation Matrix 94 5. Questionnaire 95   I. Introduction Colombia is one of the many countries that enacted a series of educational reforms in the last two decades to make the school system more relevant to the world of work. One particular reform refers to the diversification of the secondary school curriculum. The origins of this reform date back to 1963 when the Government - in collaboration with the World Bank and Unesco - made a diagnostic study of Colombian education. The conclusion of the resulting "Varner Report" (1965) was that priority should be given to the introduction of specialized education at the secondary level. In 1969, Decree No. 1962 introduced a separate type of school for this purpose, the INEM (Instituto Nacional de Educacion Media Diversificada). The World Bank financed the creation of 19 INEM's in Colombia. 1, The first such school became operational in 1970 and the last in 1975. 1/ The World Bank Lending for Diversified Secondary Schools in Colombia has been as follows: Loan Year Cost (10