“Graduation Tables”: a methodological proposal for projecting educational indicators

Jose-Irineu Rigotti, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais
Renato Hadad, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais

Demographic censuses usually contain information about a graded education system, i.e. age and grade declarations. This information can be used to estimate a series of indicators, useful for diagnostics and prognostics of the educational system. This paper proposes a new model for understanding the levels and perspectives of schooling in a given population of a country or region. It follows in the tradition of formal demographic methodologies used in analyzing and projecting population, such as Life Tables. One of the principal goals is to project population by levels of schooling. Thus, one could study the probable social consequences of the implementation of any educational policies related to promotion and retention practices, over the medium and long runs. This model can be considered a "Graduation Table". To implement the methodology a software is being developed specifically for this purpose and the model will be applied for the Brazilian case.