Education, social development, and poverty reduction Neil Thin, School of Social and Political Studi

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Education, social development, and poverty
reductionNeil Thin, School of Social and
Political Studies
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(No Transcript)
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Education in the Millennium Dvt Goals MDGs

• 2. Universal Primary Education by 2015 wont be
  achieved, though enrolment grew from 80 in 1991
  to 88 in 2005
• 3. Gender parity at all levels of education by
  2015 wont be met, and 2005 target of parity at
  primary/secondary levels already missed

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Previous global commitments to education

• 1948 Universal Decln of Human Rights - estd
  right to educn, and led to UNESCO target dates of
  UPE for most countries by 1980
• UN Declns on Civil/Political and on Econ/ Soc/
  Cultural Rights (1976), women (1979) and children
  (1990) - strong emphasis on nondiscriminatory
  educational rights
• 1990 UN Jomtien World Conference on Education for
  All - UPE by 2000
• 2000 UN Dakar Framework on Education For All -
  six goals, more comprehensive than UPE, including
  quality and non-formal education

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• Offering primary education to every child is the
  most cost effective investment the world could
  ever make. Gordon Brown, Independent 4th
  January 2006
• Education is the seed and the flower of
  development (Harbison and Myers, quoted in World
  Bank, 2006, Opening Doors - Education and the
  World Bank)

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MDGs, finance, research, evaluation

• MDGs have greatly increased finance for basic
  education
• Among the MDG targets only the educational ones
  are just inputs in developmental terms
• Many govts and donors are concerned that
  schooling quality is being compromised
• There is too little research on quality and
  outcome, esp on experience of schooling, and
  social/emotional outcomes

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Paradox

• Primary education is assumed to be good for all
  the other MDGs - often in direct and measurable
  ways
• Yet fast-track drive for UPE is also most
  commonly cited as example of developmental
  trade-offs
• If the UPE drive can be self-defeating, it can
  have adverse effects on other dimensions of
  development too

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Awkward questions about the push for UPE

• Evidence on links between education and growth,
  employment, social equality, and democratization
  is varied and inconclusive
• Little evidence that education contributes to
  life-long wellbeing or pupil wellbeing (typically
  no significant correlation between schooling and
  happiness in rich or poor countries)
• Lots of evidence that schools are unsafe places
  for children in poorer countries, and that
  schooling can cause social disruption and the
  frustrations of unrealistic ambitions
• Very little systematic research on enjoyment of
  schooling worldwide (how much? and how?)

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Three approaches to UPE

• Rights-based free and compulsory schooling
  (meeting basic minimal quality criteria) is a
  universal right
• Poverty reduction schooling directly alleviates
  poverty, and indirectly reduces poverty through
  employment and health benefits
• Well-being schooling only justified by its
  contributions to well-being in and out of school

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World Bank evaluation, 2006 From Schooling
Access to Learning Outcomes

• Bank-supported educn projects mainly emphasise
  access, not learning outcomes or completion rates
• Only one-fifth of projects had an explicit
  objective to improve student learning outcomes.
• learning outcomes rarely addressed in the 17 WB
  research items on primary educn each year
• Increased WB financing for primary education has
  meant decreases in support for vocational
  education

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Beyond the basics policy messages on
Post-Basic Education and Training

• PBET is essential to the wider educational
  environment that makes basic education possible
  and sustainable.
• Primary educn wont benefit poor people if
  post-basic learning systems are weak, or the
  socio-econ context doesnt transform educl
  outcomes into other rewards.
• PBETs contribns to poverty reduction are
  largely indirect, via improvements to a)
  educational delivery context and b)
  transformative context for developmental outcomes

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Tanzanias lethal trade-offs

• Keeping our promises delivering education for
  all (DFID, 2006) Since the govt abolished
  school fees in 2001,Tnz has enrolled 95 of
  children into primary school, up from 53.
• Our findings (Ruth Wedgwood, UoE)
• Tnz had 98 primary gross enrolment in 1980 down
  to 47 by 2002 emphasis was on basic educn for
  rural livelihoods
• Quality and livelihood-relevance were poor, and
  hardly any poor children proceeded beyond primary
  school
• Primary educn may have helped literacy rate
  (77) and poverty alleviation it hasnt helped
  people to escape poverty.
• Little evidence that PE has helped poor people
  reduce fertility, improve agric productivity, or
  increase incomes

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Donors and client governments differing views
on UPE

• In Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda, donors
  have pushed for higher investment skewing towards
  UPE.
• Client governments have favoured PBET more,
  emphasising long-term challenges of building
  knowledge economies based on highly educated
  workforces
• Such differences challenge the rhetoric of
  country-owned development strategies in highly
  aid-dependent countries (e.g. 97 of Rwandas dvt
  budget for education comes from foreign aid)

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Joined up education and poverty reduction
strategies

• multisectoral, linking educational planning with
  health, employment, agricultural planning, etc.
• multiform and multilevel within the education
  sector, i.e. linking formal/ nonformal educn,
  cognitive/vocational learning, primary/
  post-primary
• multi-actor, strengthening collaboration between
  public and private sector actors to facilitate
  the translation of skills into meaningful
  outcomes

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Getting rid of CHIPS (fallacies associated with
UPE policy)

• Causal fallacy that increased PE itself reduces
  poverty
• Human Development fallacy that educational
  contributions to poverty reduction are best
  understood by looking at transformation of
  individuals
• Insular fallacy that PE systems are relatively
  self-contained
• Pro-poor fallacy that pro-poor educational
  provisioning means focusing on PE, and that
  pro-poor is synonymous with anti-poverty
• Sprint-to-the finish fallacy that rapid progress
  towards UPE is necessarily a good thing

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Rita, Gita, and Peter on the diversity of
educational concerns

• Educating Rita (poor girl, rich country) how to
  translate education into social mobility?
• Educating Gita (poor girl, poor country) how to
  get everyone schooled?
• Educating Peter (rich boy, rich country) how to
  cultivate life-long happiness