Education and Development

Human capital- investment into people 

Education- more than just reading writing and numeracy (contraception and hygiene) 

• argue education is essential to development, and a western style education system and curriculum will help create a human capital, gives population skills needed for industry 

ROSTOW 

• modern education provides skills that are needed for an industrial take off on the scale of development, it enables the rapid transmission of western values, helping development

SCHULTZ 

• argue investment in education is essential for development as it helps the economic growth of local industry 
• an edcated workforce will attract foreign companies to invesr in developing countries eg India, call centres, workers they attract have university degrees and affluent English speakers 

HOSELITZ 

• argues western education is needed to pass on western values, and a meritocraic education system helps to speed up the spread of western values such as competition and achievement

• see the emphasis on western education as a form cultural imperialism imposing western values, neo colonialism
• education is a form of cultural transmission passing on values of capitalism
• moderniation theory is ethnocentric assuming that western knowledge is superior 

WATSON 

• argues colonial powers saw education as a way of training local elites to run colonies, also a way of weakening indigenous culture as it is used as a form of social control

HICK

• colonialism underdeveloped education standards, 80% of Vietnam population before colonialised by france, once they had gained independence only 20% were literate

FRIERE 

• dependency theorists are not apposed to education but believe it should be critical and help liberation from the west 
• he argued it should not only eradicate illiteracy it should break chain of dependency.

• Education can support the process of development however should be rovided by private companies and and treated like a business 
• Example of this is Pearson Education, a TNC in which 12% of its sales comes from the school curriculum sales in the developing world. It claims to offer solutions to the national policy problems of raising standards and getting educational improvements 
• STEPHEN BALL is critical of global edu-bussinesses arguing the neo lib approach is paternalistic and neo colonialist, sells western ways of thinking
• opens new form of profit for multinational dependency and expliotation 
• Also there is a colonisation of policy as global edubusiness are pushing forward a neo liberal agenda, leading to westernisation

Why universal education is not priority for some governments 

• developing education system is expensive 
• more urgent priorities (famine) 
• economic stressed for improvement, not social development 
• no education could help corrupt elites 

Why mass literary programmes not best strategy

• Modernisation theorists argue best to educate the elites (trickle down)
• take long to yield in economic results
• may teach people to be critical
• may not enough trained teachers to do the programme  

• When the young are in school they are not contributing to the local and national economy 
• Also this reduced ration means that less people paying income tax, so the government recieve less but paying out more for education 
• bright educated people from rural areas tend to migrate to urban areas resulting overcrowding and over urbanisation 
• They also tend to move away to countries with better job prospects. brain drain, country fails to develop as the educated have left