deprivations to arrive at a population measure. Various indices of aggregation have been proposed in the literature. The Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (FGT) family of indices is among those most widely used by countries, United Nations agencies, and the World Bank.<sup>10</sup> All these concepts can help understand the World Bank/UIS learning poverty measure.

# Identification

The identification of learning poverty is multivariate, defined through two deprivations—deprivation of schooling and deprivation of learning. Each requires a specific threshold or standard from the education domain. The first deprivation, of schooling, is ordinal, and has enrollment as its threshold. Its measurement is simple, since children attending school are directly observable, and the measure is dichotomous, as a child can only be in one of two states—in school or out of school.

The second deprivation, of learning, is more complicated. It cannot be directly observed and is measured as a cardinal latent variable using large-scale standardized assessments, which are used to derive a measure of minimum proficiency based on a desired and agreed set of competencies, leaving space for ambiguity. By comparison, when investigating deprivation in two societies, two distinct types of exercises are possible:

- **Absolute.** There is less deprivation in community A than in community B in terms of some common standard.

- **Relative.** There is more deprivation in community A than in community B in terms of the minimum needs standard of each, which could be much higher in A than in B.

As argued by Sen (1979), disputing which of the two standards is the “correct” one can be pointless, since both types of questions are of interest. The relevant issue is to note that the questions are distinct and pose different requirements. The global learning poverty measure launched in October 2019 focuses on absolute deprivation.

The exercise requires a common standard. Thanks to UIS-led work in the context of the SDG 4.1, countries and development partners have converged on an agreed definition of a minimum proficiency level (MPL) in literacy through the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML).<sup>11</sup> The GAML also identified a list of large-scale assessments valid for this process and a threshold for each assessment equivalent to the conceptual standard of minimum proficiency.<sup>12</sup> In addition to identification and aggregation, it is also critical to define the space in which the deprivations and poverty are to be assessed. Given the focus on capturing the conditions of children at about age 10, both schooling and learning are defined at the end-of-primary space. Specifically, learning is defined in the space of reading at the end of primary school.<sup>13</sup> The bivariate definition of this indicator assumes that education systems have two important functions: keeping children in school and making sure that they are learning. The SDGs and the 2018 _World Bank World Development Report_ have shown that a considerable share of children attending school are not

> 10 Foster et al. 2010.

> 11 The GAML aims to improve learning outcomes by supporting national strategies for learning assessments and developing internationally comparable indicators and methodological tools to measure progress toward key targets of SDG 4. It was established by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, which also hosts GAML’s secretariat.

> 12 For more details on the assessments used in this exercise and their respective thresholds, see <u>https://github.com/worldbank/LearningPoverty/blob/master/00_documentation/001_technical_note/Technical_Note.md#equ ating-across-assessments.</u>

> 13 For a discussion of this choice, see World Bank (2019).

6