School entrance recommendation: a question of age or development?

Abstract

Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10047.pdf Non-technical summaryAccording to school entry regulations in most countries, the composition of school entrance cohorts is determined by a fixed cutoff date. This procedure creates inter-cohort differences in age and development since some of the children entering school have just turned six whereas others are almost seven. The differences in age and developmental status translate into differences in school performance which persist over almost the whole period of compulsory schooling. Although diminishing during secondary school, these effects might influence decisions like school entry and track choice. This might be particularly important in a system of early tracking as it is the case in Germany.Developmental disparities become visible for the first time when the school entrance decision is made. All German federal states rely on medical screenings of the school entering cohort as a form of compulsory health examination and to assure a minimum developmental level for school start. The German school entrance screenings are administered by government pediatricians. They thoroughly examine the health status of the children and perform tests on pre-academic skills such as cognitive development, social behavior or motor skills. At the end, the pediatrician decides whether to recommend the child to start compulsory primary schooling.This paper addresses the question of how early differences in age and development influence children's probability of being recommended for school and assesses whether developmental gaps close by delaying school entry. We use a unique administrative data set on the school entrance examination of all children in the German federal state of Brandenburg. Our results show that impairments in cognitive, socio-emotional and motor development as well as health are negatively related to the probability to receive a school recommendation. Moreover, younger children are less likely to be recommended for school. This occurs for two reasons: First, they show developmental impairments more often. Second, they have a lower probability of being recommended per se. Delaying school entry allows children to improve, although their developmental status remains below average. Especially the younger retained children catch-up more often.While cutoff rules determine school entry by age, entrance examinations consider also a child's developmental status. By no...

4+4+4 Düzenlemesiyle Okula Erken Yaşta Başlayan Çocuklar: “Bir Yaş Daha Büyük Olsaydım Çok Daha İyi Olurdu!”

“…The qualifications of the experts that parents consult with and the evaluation criteria they use while expressing their opinions are very important. When international practices are examined, for example, Horstschräer and Muehler (2014) stated that in Germany, some medical screenings are carried out by field experts of all children who turn six in order to determine whether children are ready for school. Similarly, Kaila (2017) emphasized that the law on the school starting age in Finland is flexible and can be decided according to the medical and psychological examinations of the children.…”

The effect of school-entry age on health is understudied in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review and future directions for research

“…After screening all 4919 documents using the selection criteria described above, we assessed the remaining 15 articles for eligibility based on title and abstract. We excluded 11 studies that did not consider health outcomes (e.g., since they exclusively focused on cognitive development ( Dhuey et al, 2019 ), learning outcomes ( Chen, 2017 , 2021a , 2021b ), or self-esteem ( Thompson et al, 2010 )), did not use data from LMICs ( Berniell & Estrada, 2020 ; Horstschräer & Muehler, 2012 ; Mühlenweg et al, 2012 ), only considered entry into informal education such as kindergarten (as opposed to entry into primary school) ( Gottfried & Sublett, 2019 ; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2007 ), or were not published at the time of our scoping review (e.g., working paper or thesis ( Meng C, 2019 )). No systematic reviews or meta-analyses were identified which assessed the effect of relative age for grade on several health domains in LMICs.…”