Abstract
When viewed through the lens of the laws of thermodynamics and complexity theory, educational systems can provide relevant and reliable information for understanding and predicting policy performance over time. The model presented here describes an endogenous closed system that conserves matter and replicates aggregate patterns observed in reality, including the tendency of entropy to increase toward a maximum level, as a result of internal positive feedbacks. Simulations are used to help understand the long-term impact of exogenous events such as changes in educated population, per capita income, and school infrastructure. The resulting changes in the system’s steady-state equilibrium suggest conditions that may promote a sustainable transition toward universal primary education.
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Notes
The system increases total entropy through promotion and dropout rates.
In this article, entropy tracks the dynamics of human capital via the primary completion rate as the system evolves over time. This is not to be confused with other notions of entropy (Haglund et al. 2010).
Notice that contingent behavior is implicit in this hypothesis as, on average, individual actions are influenced by what others are doing on aggregate.
GDP of Nicaragua in 1990 was US$1 billion and per capita GDP was US$264 dollars (World Bank, 2014).
Similarly, a scenario with no enrollment may be simulated in which completion rates invariably converge to zero (not shown here).
Over the last three decades Nicaragua has experienced many disturbing events like a civil war from 1978 to 1989 and devastating natural disasters like storms, volcano eruptions, and earthquakes (see CRED, 2014).
This could arise, for example, from the implementation of adult education programs (OECD, 2005). These programs represent an alternative for people who never attended or could not finish the regular primary education program and have already reached 16 years of age and above. This exercise can be thought as an idealized scenario where such an initiative is highly successful in recruiting members of the adult population with no primary education and leading them to graduation.
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Guevara, P., Posch, A. Dynamic Complexity, Entropy, and Coordination in Educational Systems: A Simulation of Strategic and Exogenous Interventions. Syst Pract Action Res 28, 179–196 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-014-9327-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-014-9327-y