{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,8]],"date-time":"2025-04-08T18:31:06Z","timestamp":1744137066280,"version":"3.37.3"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,20]],"date-time":"2023-04-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1681948800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100005416","name":"Norges Forskningsr\u00e5d","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["Project Number 300635"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Project Number 300635"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100005416","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Significant progress has been achieved in universal basic education in African countries since the late 1990s. This study provides empirical evidence on the within- and across-country variation in numeracy skills performance among children based on nationally representative data from eight African countries (DR Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Togo, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe). We assess whether and to what extent children with disabilities lag in numeracy skills and how much it depends on their type of disabilities. More specifically, we explore whether disabled children benefit equally from better school system quality. The assessment is analysed as a natural experiment using the performance of non-disabled children as a benchmark and considering the different types of disabilities as random treatments. We first evaluate the variation in average numeracy skills in the eight African countries. They can roughly be divided into low- and high-numeracy countries. We apply Instrumental Variable (IV) methods to control the endogeneity of completed school years when assessing subjects\u2019 school performance and heterogeneous disability effects. Children with vision and hearing disabilities are not especially challenged in numeracy skills performance. The low numeracy skills among physically and intellectually disabled children are mainly attributable to their limited school attendance. Children with multiple disabilities are constrained both by low school attendance and by poor numeracy skills return to schooling. The average differences in school performance across the high- versus low-numeracy skill country groups are larger than the within-group average differences for disabled versus non-disabled kids. This indicates that school enrolment and quality are crucial for children\u2019s learning of numeracy skills, and that disabled children benefit equally from better school quality across these African countries.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0284821","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,20]],"date-time":"2023-04-20T18:42:48Z","timestamp":1682016168000},"page":"e0284821","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Numeracy skills learning of children in Africa:\u2014Are disabled children lagging behind?"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2794-1807","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Huafeng","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7502-2392","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Stein T.","family":"Holden","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,20]]},"reference":[{"journal-title":"Sustainable Development Goals: Department of Economic and Social Affairs","year":"2015","author":"UN","key":"pone.0284821.ref001"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0284821.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"151","DOI":"10.1080\/03050060902920518","article-title":"Access to education in sub\u2010Saharan Africa: patterns, problems and possibilities.","volume":"45","author":"KM Lewin","year":"2009","journal-title":"Comparative Education."},{"key":"pone.0284821.ref003","first-page":"283","volume-title":"Education for All 2000\u20132015: Achievements and Challanges.","author":"UNESCO","year":"2015"},{"journal-title":"Millennium Development Goals","year":"2000","author":"UN","key":"pone.0284821.ref004"},{"volume-title":"Global Education Monitoring Report 2020: Inclusion and Education\u2013All Means All.","year":"2020","author":"UNESCO","key":"pone.0284821.ref005"},{"key":"pone.0284821.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"248","DOI":"10.1016\/j.worlddev.2018.01.019","article-title":"Education and disability in a conflict affected context: Are children with disabilities less likely to learn and be protected in Darfur?","volume":"106","author":"P Bakhshi","year":"2018","journal-title":"World Development"},{"journal-title":"Teaching policies and learning outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa: issues and options; Summary.","year":"2016","author":"UNESCO","key":"pone.0284821.ref007"},{"journal-title":"The changing landscape of education in Africa: Quality, equality and democracy","year":"2008","author":"D Johnson","key":"pone.0284821.ref008"},{"issue":"12","key":"pone.0284821.ref009","first-page":"1","article-title":"Effective enrolment\u2013Creating a composite measure of educational access and educational quality to accurately describe education system performance in sub-Saharan Africa.","volume":"21","author":"N Spaull","year":"2012","journal-title":"Stellenbosch EconomicWorking Papers"},{"key":"pone.0284821.ref010","article-title":"Education targets, indicators and a post-2015 development agenda: Education for All, the MDGs, and human development","author":"E. 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