Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007

and only children from families with the lowest
educational level. The percentage of boys is almost
twice higher than the percentage of girls. In these
schools, there are no disabled children, refugees or
IDP children from the sample 16 .
The number of children who repeat a grade
grade is exceedingly low in both surveys (0.8
percent 2002 and 1 percent 2007), but families of
the children are the same in both surveys: the poor,
and households whose heads have low education.
The correlation between failure in school and
poverty is also illustrated by the information that
there are no children from the richest families, who
are repeating a grade. Geographic differences are
also evident, as the highest percentage of children
repeating a grade, in both surveys, is in South East
Serbia, while there are none in Belgrade.
Simultaneously, the number of children repeating a
grade has increased in Vojvodina and declined in
Sumadija.
In LSMS 2007 the number of children
repeating a grade is slightly higher among girls (1.3
percent compared to 0.7 percent). Further analysis
yields a result that the difference by sex is the most
striking for Roma population (9.3 percent compared
to 4.7 percent).
One of important indicators of household
consumption for education of children is
participation of children in various forms of
informal education. In LSMS 2002 it was found that
19 percent of children aged 7-14 years, spend 2 or
more hours a week in private classes or specific
courses/trainings (language, music, sport) while 29
percent of children were involved in these activities
in 2007.
The highest representation of various forms of
informal education, in both surveys, is for children
from the most educated and richest families, in
urban areas of Belgrade and Vojvodina. The lowest
percentage of children included in additional
educational programs, in both surveys, is in East
and South East Serbia. Since both surveys have
established the same correlation between attending
additional educational programs and main social,
economic and geographic variables, while the rate
of participation in those activities has almost
doubled during the past five years, the question is
whether it is due to a desire to stimulate different
potentials of children or due to their failure to
achieve desired results during the regular schooling
process? The answer to this question requires
additional research.
Data illustrate that the right to quality
education is still not the reality for all children and
that inclusive education is still at a conceptual level.
During schooling, differences between children
from different social and economic backgrounds are
deepened, instead of lessened, which indicates the
inability of current educational system to fulfil its
compensatory role.
Graph 8.8. Percentage of children aged 7-14 years who attend regular primary schools
(LSMS 2002 and 2007)
96,7
97,5
97,5
99,0
90,9
82,5
2002 2007
Percent participation Percent below pover ty line Percent above poverty line
Education
103