Education,
especially primary schooling for literacy, is a major goal of
development. It is also a means for achieving the interrelated
goals of health, higher labour productivity, more rapid GDP growth,
and the broader goal of social integration, including participation
in cultural and political affairs.
The proportion of
illiterates among the adult population has steadily decreased, but
the absolute number has grown. There is increasing concern about
the functional quality of literacy in both developed and developing
countries. A population with a high proportion of illiterates is
poorly prepared to cope with modern technology. In addition to
basic literacy and numeracy, schools should also teach some of the
knowledge and methods essential for participation in a modern
economy, including the agricultural sector. The more advanced
levels of education are increasingly important to enable
individuals and countries to understand and participate in the
technological and administrative processes of the modern global
economy. In practice most Governments have not given education top
priority as a development objective. Some countries have made great
efforts, however, and have reduced illiteracy very quickly. Great
uncertainty prevails about the economic prospects of many specific
investment projects, but the role of education and human capital
formation in development stands out more clearly than
ever.
The private rate of
return on the investment cost of all levels of education is
generally high, especially in developing countries, reflecting in
part government subsidization of education. This has stimulated the
demand for access to education. The social rate of return to
education, although consistently lower than the corresponding
private return, is generally no less than average rates of return
on fixed capital investments. Using this criterion, developing
countries underinvest in education.
But estimates of
both private and social rates of return, the majority based on
cross- section estimates of private earnings streams, have to
be treated with caution. Earnings differences between people with
different educational levels may be attributable to other
individual characteristics, such as intelligence, determination,
and social or political status, rather than or in addition to their
level of education. On the other hand, such estimates may
understate the external effects of education. Examples are the
beneficial effects of educated people on the productivity of those
around them or on the health of their families and the power of
education to enrich people's lives.
Country studies
carried out mostly in the 1970s and earlier suggest that the rate
of return on primary education in the developing countries has been
higher than the return to second-level and third- level education,
at least in the past. A more recent analysis of two
countries in Africa, however, suggests that as average education
levels increase over time, the marginal rates of return to the
different levels (i.e., the lifetime rates of return for new
entrants into the labour force) tend to converge rapidly towards
the narrower and lower range observed for the second and third
levels in the developed countries. Two or three decades ago,
workers with only a primary education were still quite scarce in
many developing countries and were able to obtain a large share of
the relatively high-paying jobs in the industrial and government
sectors. Now, however, most of these jobs require replacement
workers with a second-level or even a third-level
education.
A related question
is the relative value of completing all or just part of primary
education. A case study of agriculture in three regions of Peru in
the early 1980s found that the impact of a full six years of
primary education varied greatly according to the region's level of
development. After allowing for other factors, such as access to
extension service, credit, and improved seeds, completion of six
years increased the productivity of the farmers in the most
advanced region by about one third. In the intermediate region,
completion of at least four years implied "an increase of about 15
per cent in output as compared to farmers with less than four years
of education," but completion of all six years did not show any
greater effect than just four or five years. Completion of at least
one year in the most traditional region was helpful, compared with
having no schooling at all, but there was no further advantage from
completing all six years.
The social return to
expansion of primary education in agrarian societies depends
largely on its effects on the productivity of peasant farmers. The
evidence suggests that this in turn depends on whether farmers are
operating in a traditional or a modernizing environment, i.e., one
in which change is rapid. Education assists farmers to obtain and
evaluate information about improved technology and new economic
opportunities and thus to innovate. The level of education required
depends on the levels of technology currently in use and
potentially suitable. Education being complementary to other
inputs, its value cannot be assessed in isolation. It depends on
the degree of access to credit, extension services, new seeds, and
other inputs. The greatest impact on rural development can thus be
made where education is part of a package of measures.
Inequities in the
availability of education most commonly relate to poverty,
location, gender, religious or ethnic identification, and physical
or mental disability. Achievement of equity requires specific
interventions and acceptance of the reality that compensatory
resources and measures are necessary to offset the disadvantages of
certain groups. Poor families may require assistance with the costs
of school fees, uniforms, and transportation. Equity in rural areas
may require flexible scheduling of the school year to minimize
conflict with agricultural planting and harvesting.
Although low
enrolment of girls often reflects the attitudes of their families
and the wider community, schools themselves may reinforce such
attitudes. Differences in teacher- pupil interactions and in
pupils' use of materials and equipment can create inequities even
within a single school or classroom. In some schools females
receive less attention from the teacher and experience lower
expectations in terms of their school performance. To promote
participation and successful academic achievement by girls in
communities which disapprove of co-educational classes, the
educational system could provide separate schools for girls or even
in-home instruction. Where older girls are commonly expected to
stay at home to care for their younger siblings, other ways could
be used to provide necessary day care.
With regard to youth
and adult education programmes, there is a major issue of equity
among people of different ages. There also is considerable inequity
in the allocation of subsidies for higher education, as noted
earlier. Given the low levels of education of much of the adult
population, it is not realistic to expect every country to meet
immediately even the basic knowledge requirements of all of its
adults. Strong arguments exist for giving women highest priority,
considering their history of being educationally underserved, their
economic contributions to agriculture and industry, and their
influential role as mothers and often as head of a single-parent
household. Their opportunities should include access to training in
non-traditional occupational roles for women, e.g., through
agricultural extension services and assistance to small-scale
enterprise development.
