Education and Development*

• “creates choices and opportunities for people,

• reduces the twin burdens of poverty and diseases, and

• gives a stronger voice in society.

• dynamic workforce and

• well-informed citizens able to compete and cooperate globally

• opening doors to economic and social prosperity”

*World Bank

What is Education• Education or teaching in the

broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.

Education Indicators

Education Indicators (contd.)

Health Indicators

K‐economy requires knowledgeable, skilled& innovative human

capital

The Central Roles of Education and Health

• Health and education are important objectives of development

• Health and education are also important components of growth and development

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Education and Health as Joint Investments for

Development• Greater health capital may

improve the returns to investments in education

• Greater education capital may improve the returns to investments in health

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Improving Health and Education: Why Increasing Incomes Is Not Sufficient

• Increases in income often do not lead to substantial increases in investment in children’s education and health

• Better educated mothers tend to have healthier children

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Basic Education• Two decades of focused programs in basic

education have reduced out-of-school youth to about 10 M (down from 25 M in 2003), most from marginalized social groups. Net enrollment rate is 85%, with social disparities.

• Key challenge is to finish the “access agenda” and dramatically increase focus on quality, with more attention to classroom processes, basic reading skills in early grades, teacher quality and accountability, community/parent oversight, evaluation/assessment.

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Secondary Education• Access and Quality remain big challenges.

• Gross enrollment rate of 40%, with significant gaps between genders, social groups, urban/rural, such that most secondary students are urban boys from wealthier population groups.

• Private aided and unaided schools = 60% of all secondary schools, and growing.

• Overloaded curriculum, poor teaching practices and low primary level quality affect secondary quality.

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Vocational Education and Training (VET)

• VET system is small, and not responding of needs of labor market; <40% of graduates find employment quickly.

• Insufficient involvement of industry and employers in VET system management, internships.

• Lack of incentives of public training institutions to improve performance.

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Technical and Higher Education

• Numerically huge: 330 universities and 18,000 colleges

• Substantial private provision in professional education.

• But just 11% of youth 18-23 are enrolled.

• Problems of capacity, quality, relevance, and public funding. Hard to retain qualified faculty. Limited research.

• Several world-class institutions.

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Demand for Education• The wage / income differentials;

• The probability of employment;

• The direct private costs;

• The “opportunity costs” of education; and

• The supply of educational facilities / infrastructures

Social/ Private Benefits and Costs

• Todaro has shown that for many

• developing countries the social costs of education are low at lower levels of education and rise rapidly at higher levels. Social benefits on the other hand are high at lower levels and decline at high levels of education. The reasons for this are that in the case of costs governments tend to spend less at lower levels of education as compared to higher levels. Benefits tend to be high at low levels because marginal improvements in knowledge and skills lead to high productivity.

• In the case of private returns and costs, the difference between the two is higher at high levels of education. Private costs are low at higher levels of education because of government policies of spending more at this level. Private costs are high at low levels of education because of the low government subsidies.

Figure 8.5 Private versus Social Benefits and Costs of Education:

An Illustration

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Child Labor• Child labor is a widespread

phenomenon

• The problem may be modeled using the “multiple equilibria” approach

• Government intervention may be called for to move to a ‘better’ equilibrium

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Child Labor as a Bad Equilibrium

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The Gender Gap: Women and Education

• Young females receive less education than young males in nearly every LDC

• Closing the educational gender gap is important because,

– The rate of return on women’s education is higher than that of men in developing countries

– It increases productivity and lowers fertility

– Educated mothers have a multiplier impact on many generations

– It can break the vicious cycle of poverty and inadequate schooling for women

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GOI Education Strategy

• Unprecedented priority to universal elementary education.

• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: aims to universalize elementary education by 2010, and improve learning outcomes.

• Education cess of 3% on income tax, corporation tax, excise and customs duties generates necessary resources

• Cost-Share: was 50/50 (2007), moving to 65/35 Center/State

• Increased focus on quality and upper primary in phase II.

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GOI Strategy (continued)

• National Mission for Skills is being set up, looking at both VET and secondary education

• New centrally sponsored scheme to update all industrial training institutes (ITIs)

• Significant investments in higher education (including reforms and expansion) are expected

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• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 creates a framework for legal entitlements for all children in the age group of 6 to 14 years to education of good quality, based on principles of equity and non-discrimination. In recent years, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has made significant contribution in improving enrolment and infrastructure for elementary education. About 98 per cent of habitations are now covered by primary schools.Planned allocation for school education has been increased from Rs.26,800 crore in 2009-10 to Rs.31,036 crore in 2010-11. In addition, States will have access to Rs.3,675 crore for elementary education under the Thirteenth Finance Commission grants for 2010-11.