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Malawi - school attendance rates - not matching report [message #15852] Fri, 28 September 2018 13:08 Go to next message
geoK is currently offline  geoK
Messages: 39
Registered: May 2014
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Hello, I am trying to replicate the Ghana_edu.do calculations as illustrated in do file uploaded by K. MacQuarrie in 2013, but for Malawi 2015-16.

I am interested in Secondary attendance rate, and therefore, following indications from the final report, I am restricting to age range 14-17.

tab hv122 if inrange(hv105,14,17) [iw=wgt]

I get 15.4% (freq. 1,661.6441), instead of 17.7% (statcompiler) 17.4% (report - Table 2.13 School attendance ratios).

Any idea on what am i doing wrong, please? Thanks for your time!
Re: Malawi - school attendance rates - not matching report [message #15858 is a reply to message #15852] Fri, 28 September 2018 17:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Liz-DHS
Messages: 1516
Registered: February 2013
Senior Member
Dear User,
We have an updated Guide to DHS Statistics. If is fully searchable and has a section on "school attendance rates". After reviewing this resource, if you still have questions, please feel free to post again. Thank you!
Re: Malawi - school attendance rates - not matching report [message #15887 is a reply to message #15858] Thu, 04 October 2018 11:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
geoK is currently offline  geoK
Messages: 39
Registered: May 2014
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Thank you for your kind reply. I have been using the guide to replicate the NAR indicator for secondary school (school attendance ratios page). I still encounter a few issues, as well as my final percentage for Secondary school NAR in Malawi is still around 15% (instead of 17.4%).

I would like to ask a few questions, please, related to the step by step process described in the guide.

1) when it comes to merging the PR file and the BR file quite a few line numbers (b16) are missing - although variable B3 is actually not missing. Therefore that person is either not merged into the new file, or it is but it has all missing values for HV122 and other PR variables. What should i do with them? I can see that some of them are dead (B6).
I suppose, when doing the merging, I should prioritize retaining information from the PR file (hv122), and impute b3 in case it is missing, correct?

2) At page 3 of the School attendance ratios section of the guide (see below), you describe 2 ways to calculate the age at the start of the school year, 1 is by the merging i was talking about at point 1) above, and 1 by imputation. can you please advice whether you usually use one among the 2, or both, and what has been used in Malawi 2015-16 please?

"To calculate the age at the start of the school year a century month code of date of birth (cmcdob) is needed for all persons age 5-24 using one of two approaches is used:

1) Merge the birth history data for b3 from the BR file onto the PR file using cluster (hv001/v001), household (hv002/v002), and line number in the household roster (hvidx/b16). If the person is listed in the birth history of any women (BR file), the century month code (CMC) of the date of birth of the person (b3) is used as cmcdob.

2) If the CMC date of birth of the person is not known, a century month code for the date of birth is randomly imputed using a uniform distribution between the possible bounds of the date of birth, calculated as the CMC date of interview minus 12 times the age in years as a maximum and 11 months earlier as a minimum:

max_cmcdob = hv008 - hv105*12

min_cmcdob = max_cmcdob - 11

cmcdob = random(min_cmcdob, max_cmcdob)."

Can you please advice on commands in STATA or SPSS to impute cmcdob = random(min_cmcdob, max_cmcdob).

3) Finally, it would be very useful to know the absolute number of people of secondary school age for this survey please (age 14 to 17), so that i can have a reference to check if i am doing things well. I couldn't find it anywhere in the final report.

thank you!

[Updated on: Thu, 04 October 2018 11:50]

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Re: Malawi - school attendance rates - not matching report [message #15964 is a reply to message #15858] Thu, 11 October 2018 12:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
geoK is currently offline  geoK
Messages: 39
Registered: May 2014
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Hello again,

just wanted to add that i tried going through the same step by step process as described in the guide using 2016 Tanzania data. I have also imputed CMC where were not available (generate cmcdob = runiform(min_cmcdob,max_cmcdob) in STATA), although again i get results slightly different from the final report and statcompiler.

NAR primary school 76.5% (statcompiler); 73.4% (my own results)
NAR secondary school 22.8% (statcompiler); 24.7% (my own results).

Should I just be happy with the results I get, or is there any other tip to get closer to your results? Again, as i said in my last post, it would be very useful to know the absolute number of people of primary and secondary school age (the denominators basically) for both Malawi and Tanzania surveys please, so that i can have a reference to check if i am doing things well. I couldn't find it anywhere in the final report.

thank you!
Re: Malawi - school attendance rates - not matching report [message #15989 is a reply to message #15858] Tue, 16 October 2018 05:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
geoK is currently offline  geoK
Messages: 39
Registered: May 2014
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Ideas anyone?
thanks!
Re: Malawi - school attendance rates - not matching report [message #16016 is a reply to message #15852] Mon, 22 October 2018 06:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Trickley is currently offline  Trickley
Messages: 3
Registered: October 2018
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What's the source of those stats, by the way?
Re: Malawi - school attendance rates - not matching report [message #16017 is a reply to message #16016] Mon, 22 October 2018 09:56 Go to previous message
geoK is currently offline  geoK
Messages: 39
Registered: May 2014
Member
Hi. Some come from the 2016 Tanzania DHS final report and statcompiler webpage (as indicated next to each figure), some others come from my own calculations using the microdata.
In my very first messages under this topic, I quoted results from Malawi final report / statcompiler versus my own calculations.
I am trying to understand why the two do not match. Is this what you are asking? thanks.

[Updated on: Mon, 22 October 2018 09:59]

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