Educational inequalities in large urban centers: The use of the Gini coefficient index to analyze the drop-out distribution among high schools in the City Autonomous of Buenos Aires

Abstract

The National Education Act (2006) makes secondary education compulsory in Argentina. The City of Buenos Aires had been a pioneer in this regard by setting this goal in 2002. We examine the challenges that the current policy faces by focusing on the ability of the educational system and institutions to ensure the enforcement of this right from the perspective of students’ access, retention and promotion. In particular, this paper proposes the analysis of dropout that occurs during a school year, considering the percentage of students that leave school without a “pass” and including a dispersion measure (Gini coefficient) to document inequalities between schools among different districts of the city of Buenos Aires.